Comedy in Our Day Out by Russell
In this assignment I am going to look at the ways in which Willy
Russell has created humour within the play 'Our Day Out'. I will pay
particular attention to the characters, their dialogue and the events
that take place
Willy Russell was born in a town near Liverpool, he left school at
fifteen with no idea what he wanted to do and nothing but an O'level
in English. 'Our Day Out', 'Blood Brothers' and 'Educating Rita' are a
reflection of Russell's own experience of education. At the age of
twenty Russell decided to resume his education, he enrolled as a
mature student at Liverpool's Childwall college as a mature student
While studying he saw a play called 'Unruly Elements' by John McGrath
and decided to become a playwright. His first successful play was
called 'John, Paul, George, Ringo and…Bert' It was a musical about the
Beatles and was performed at the Liverpool Everyman Theatre. He wrote
'Our Day Out' during the seventies.
'Our Day Out' is set in an inner-city comprehensive school whose
catchment area is deprived and where there are many poor or single
parent families with high unemployment and few opportunities for young
people leaving school, 'Our Day Out' focuses on the "Progress Class's"
day out. Even in that area they are underachievers, have low reading
ages, poor academic abilities and little chance of passing any
examinations. Willy Russell uses this to deal with a range of issues,
such as the failure of schools to develop pupils, and the inequality
of opportunity. Russell's comedy is effective in doing this as it is
showing an amusing story instead of lecturing the audience.
Traditional comedy entertains and ends happily, however "Our Day Out"
has emotion, realism and the end is not a happy one for all the
characters.
When Mrs Kay's 'Progress Class' are unleashed for a day's coach trip
to Conway Castle in Wales, it is an celebration of the joys and
agonies of growing up and being footloose, fourteen and free from
In the article Skin Deep written by Nina Jablonski and George Chaplin, they discuss and look deeper into the diverse differences in skin color. Our skin color has developed over the years to be dark enough to prevent the damaging sunlight that has been harming our skin and the nutrient folate that it carries. At the same time out skin is light enough to receive vitamin D.
The climax of the story is when Miles is shot by the Bonewoman. The reader comes to realize that Miles’ choice to live life on the safe side was a mistake:
A video is put on, and in the beginning of this video your told to count how many times the people in the white shirts pass the ball. By the time the scene is over, most of the people watching the video have a number in their head. What these people missed was the gorilla walking through as they were so focused on counting the number of passes between the white team. Would you have noticed the gorilla? According to Cathy Davidson this is called attention blindness. As said by Davidson, "Attention blindness is the key to everything we do as individuals, from how we work in groups to what we value in our classrooms, at work, and in ourselves (Davidson, 2011, pg.4)." Davidson served as the vice provost for interdisciplinary studies at Duke University helping to create the Program in Science and Information Studies and the Center of Cognitive Neuroscience. She also holds highly distinguished chairs in English and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke and has written a dozen different books. By the end of the introduction Davidson poses five different questions to the general population. Davidson's questions include, "Where do our patterns of attention come from? How can what we know about attention help us change how we teach and learn? How can the science of attention alter our ideas about how we test and what we measure? How can we work better with others with different skills and expertise in order to see what we're missing in a complicated and interdependent world? How does attention change as we age, and how can understanding the science of attention actually help us along the way? (Davidson, 2011, p.19-20)." Although Davidson hits many good points in Now You See It, overall the book isn't valid. She doesn't exactly provide answers ...
While running the Whistle Stop Cafe, Idgie and Ruth help certain individuals, especially throughout the extraordinary misery, when the ladies sustain each eager individual – frequently at no charge – that passes through their entryways. Idgie likewise supports the "colored" occupants of Whistle Stop by serving them from the indirect access – despite the fact that isolation is strictly upheld – and treating her colored people with the same reasonableness with which she treats her white workers. A scene that was very gruesome which leads to a character development in Idgie is at the point when the forthcoming Bennett tries to take the infant from her house one night, a hued workers, Sipsey, kills him with a griddle, and her child, Huge George, discards the body in that week's barbecue, which he then proceeds to feed to the analysts performing the homicide investigation. Eventually when Idgie is captured for the wrongdoing years after the fact, she declines at fault Huge George or Sipsey, and dangers time in jail deceiving the jury by providing a plausible excuse for all of them. At the point when Ruth dies, Idgie's story basically ceases from all operations, however at the end of the novel, it is indicated that she is still alive. But when idgie was young it was quite clear that she was not always like this because she used to be the type that needed to run about and scratch her knees, get bruised eyes, and get messy, and that is simply what she did. Not much her own particular Momma could do to control her. Another side that reveals a character trait of Idgie’s is the point when Buddy dies Idgie runs off and doesn’t let anybody in her family draw close to her. She might go back just to check how her family was doing, yet she lived ...
Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is a story written in the first person about a young girl named Melinda Sordino. The title of the book, Speak, is ironically based on the fact that Melinda chooses not to speak. The book is written in the form of a monologue in the mind of Melinda, a teenage introvert. This story depicts the story of a very miserable freshman year of high school. Although there are several people in her high school, Melinda secludes herself from them all. There are several people in her school that used to be her friend in middle school, but not anymore. Not after what she did over the summer. What she did was call the cops on an end of summer party on of her friends was throwing. Although all her classmates think there was no reason to call, only Melinda knows the real reason. Even if they cared to know the real reason, there is no way she could tell them. A personal rape story is not something that flows freely off the tongue. Throughout the story Melinda describes the pain she is going through every day as a result of her rape. The rape of a teenage girl often leads to depression. Melinda is convinced that nobody understands her, nor would they even if they knew what happened that summer. Once a happy girl, Melinda is now depressed and withdrawn from the world. She hardly ever speaks, nor does she do well in school. She bites her lips and her nails until they bleed. Her parents seem to think she is just going through a faze, but little do they know, their daughter has undergone a life changing trauma that will affect her life forever.
1. In the book, the father tries to help the son in the beginning but then throughout the book he stops trying to help and listens to the mother. If I had been in this same situation, I would have helped get the child away from his mother because nobody should have to live like that. The father was tired of having to watch his son get abused so eventually he just left and didn’t do anything. David thought that his father would help him but he did not.
In the play, Fences, Troy seems to have a complicated relationship with every other character in the play. This applies especially to his relationship with his son, Cory. Troy and Cory have many similarities and differences that complicate their relationship. There are many outside factors that also make matters worse.
Ever since Amy Poehler was a little girl, she loved being the center of attention. Amy was born on September 16, 1971, in Newton, Massachusetts. Amy’s parents knew from the start she wasn’t going to want a normal career. I got all of my interesting facts from Amy Poehler by Justine Ciovacco.
In the short story “Being There”, by Jerzy Kosinski, there are multiple examples of satire that are displayed throughout both the book and the movie. A few of them are: media, death, politics, and racism. The satire of the media was very similar in the book and the movie. Media played a big role in society and still does to this day.
What comes to mind when one thinks of the word ‘puppy’? It is probable describe a puppy as a lovable, adorable, and cuddly companion. However, one might also identify the animal as a menace and a liability or even as a delicious source of food. Why does this single word hold so many meanings? One’s past experiences and biases influences these conflicting views and attitudes. For instance, an individual’s fond view of puppies may exist because they were raised with puppies and consequently grew affectionate toward the animals. On the contrary, if another individual has not bonded with puppies as pets, then they will share the latter point of view. In the short story “Puppy” by George Saunders, the multiple characters view single events and objects with contrasting perceptions. Therefore, instead of painting a precise picture of the characters and the plot, the story expresses several views regarding the morals of the characters, the motivations of their actions, and the meaning of the events that take place. In “Puppy”, George Saunders explores the theory that perception is not an elementary, universal definition of an object or idea, but a complex interpretation that is influenced by one’s unique and varying past experiences and opinions. The complexity of perception is evident in one the story’s narrator’s, Marie’s, vantage point.
Stockbroker on the verge of turning thirty is on a quest. Set in 1960 New Orleans during Mardi Gras Binx, an upper class southern gentleman sets out to find out about himself. Answer questions that have tugged at his soul. Questions about despair, everydayness, religion and romance. Binx is stuck in a quagmire. He must break out from this cloak of ennui and find the essence of being. But how? How can people, a person with a soul and a world at their fingertips be so inept at finding what makes them alive. Can it be found in religion or on the arm of a southern beauty? Maybe it can be found in the surrealism of a movie, or the excitement of making money. What if an answer is found? Will it frighten a person back to their everydayness? Some of these question are sound, others may be just thoughts in the authors mind, but they are questions that Binx must find out about. The following will talk about the idea of despair & everydayness and if others think about searching the way Binx Bolling does.
A Child Called "It", by Dave Pelzer, is a first person narrative of a child’s struggle through a traumatic abused childhood. The book begins with Dave telling us about his last day at his Mother’s house before he was taken away by law enforcement. At first I could not understand why he had started at the end of his tale, but after reading the entire book it was clear to me that it was easier to read it knowing there indeed was a light at the end of the dark tunnel. This horrific account of extreme abuse leaves us with a great number of questions which unfortunately we do not have answers for. It tells us what happened to this little boy and that miraculously he was able to survive and live to see the day he left this hole which was his home, however, it does not tell us why or even give us a good amount of background with which to speculate the why to this abuse.
Question: Misunderstandings between the anthropologists and the people whose ways of life he/she is attempting to understand are often the most revealing moments of fieldwork. Discuss one or two of Bowen’s mistakes and explore what they told her about the Tiv and herself.
Due to his being over shadowed by his elder brother Happy has grown up to be a stunted version of Willy's vision of the American Dream. Because of this it is difficult to identify with him; throughout the play he is presented as a one-dimensional character.
The main characters in this story were Zach Wahhsted, Alan Mender, and Joey Mender. Zach Wahhsted was a schizophrenic sixteen year. He often hallucinates voices and people; but when ever he would forget to take his medication, he would hear two voices that would tell him to kill himself. Zach had a hard time understanding what was real and what was in his head. Alan Mender was a seventeen year old who grew up in a rough neighborhood with his little brother and their mom, who was diagnosed with cancer. He has a kind disposition, but lives in rough circumstances. Joey Mender was a fourteen year old younger brother of Alan Mender, who also lived with his mother, he is temperamental and thought zach was just a retard.