Arnold Wesker, an English playwright, a writer of international reputation, was born in Stephney (London) on 24 May,1932.He is the author of about Forty two plays mainly for the stage, four books of short stories, two collections of essays, a book for young people, three more of non-fiction and an autobiography. His works depict various themes, ideas, an obvious expression of deep sympathy, dreams, hopes and the humanism. Wesker is a dramatist with distinct social leanings. Roots is the second play of Wesker Triology which begins with Chicken soup with Barley and ends with I’m talking about Jerusalem. Roots considered as kitchen- sink drama as this drama revolved, both physically and psychologically, around the kitchen sink. It is a play of relationships; husband-wife relationship, mother-daughter relationship, siblings’s relationship, man-woman relationship and master - servant relationship. Roots bring in light the problems of working class in the 20th century. Wesker brings out apathy of working class, dullness, stubbornness, drabness and cultural decadence. He stressed on importance of education because education is the only tool which will make them fully humane in this materialistic society. Through Roots Wesker urges working class to fight against existing social system by becoming educated and taking part in discussions to improve their condition. The play is a powerful attack on pop culture which has deadend the intellectuality of working class. . He focussed on evolutionary measures not on revolutionary. Wesker believes that art, culture and education can bring huge change in condition of working class. Keywords: Materialism, Intellectuality, Cultural Decadence . Roots is the second play of Wesker Triology in which the... ... middle of paper ... ... orderliness, his approach to life all belongs with the environment which he received in his growing phase in his family. Working class people’s approach to life is just casual and selfish. It is of indifference and helplessness which affects their interpersonal relationships in a family. The play successfully points out lack of communication among working class people due to their inability to express themselves. Their rigidness, stubbornness on their part is the main cause for their apathetic condition. In this play, Wesker clearly brings out the fact that if the working class people have strong roots planted in the soil of education and manure with art , culture and literature then only they will be able to communicate and articulate themselves and will lead harmonious relationships. Works Cited Wesker.Arnold.Roots.Chandigarh:Arun Publishing House,2004
Despite the change in contexts, the values presented in Shakespeare’s play are wholly relevant to a twentieth century audience. The idea of ambition overriding the values of integrity and honesty, the struggle of the composer to attract a mainstream audience and the religious beliefs of the audience are all made evident in both texts. By comparing the two texts, the shift in context can be distinguished and the different representations of values are illustrated and an insight into the lifestyle of people past is
Firstly let us consider conflict. In each act of the play, we see the overpowering desire to belong leading to a climax of conflict amongst the characters, which has the consequence of exclusion. Conflict is a successful literary technique, as it engages the audience and focuses our attention on the issue of conflict and exclusion, brought about by the characters’ desires to be accepted by their community.
Characters in the play show a great difficult finding who they are due to the fact that they have never been given an opportunity to be anything more than just slaves; because of this we the audience sees how different characters relate to this problem: " Each Character has their own way of dealing with their self-identity issue..some look for lost love o...
Social pressures change as time passes, therefore it is interesting to see how these three texts whom differ by almost four hundred years perceive society and the effect this has on the protagonists; Shakespeare’s King Lear which was first performed in 1606 during the Jacobean era, presents a patriarchal society. Whilst, Arthur Miller uses the characters in ‘Death of a salesman’ to show the failure of the ‘American dream’ during the “golden era” of America in the late 40’s. The ‘American Dream’ was a set of ideals which suggested that anyone in the US could be successful through hard work, and had the potential to live a happy life. The sense of the deterioration in the equality of opportunities links to the fall in power and hierarchy in King Lear. Arudanthi Roy, however, uses her contemporary Indian novel to illustrate, using a proleptic and coalesce structure, the lives of the protagonists living in a post – colonial society. In each of these three texts there are characters who fit the stereotypes that society has instilled in them, but then there are those characters who noticeably differ from the norm; According to 19th century novelist Alfred de Musset “how glorious it is – and how painful – to be an exception.” Hence this statement can be seen as applicable to these characters, because in all three texts these characters do end up losing a lot.
The working class stays working and the middle class stays being middle. Author Nick Tingle, wrote “The vexation of class”, he argues that the working class and the middle class are separated educationally based on culture and the commonplace. Tingle uses his own personal experiences and Ethos, to effectively prove his point about the difference in class based on culture ; although, Tingle also falls short by adding unnecessary information throughout the article that weakens his belief entirely.
Both works demonstrates how individual conflict with the Society expectation of a happy life. In the end, The individual must find freedom and personal happiness above the expectation of society. The individual person must do what is best for them and not what society expects them to
While this is a dramatized statement regarding the plight of the worker under the new machine driven industrial system, rhetoric such as this did represent the fears of the working class. Over time, as industrialization appeared more common, there emerged more heated debates between the working class and business owners. The struggle between the two opposing classes of labor was the embodiment of the argument for national identity, according to Trachtenberg. His attention to detail of the divide between the lower class workers and the rich upper crust industrialists, serves to illustrate the varying changes which occurred across the country.
Both the essays have the similarity that they discuss about the weaknesses in the protagonists life. They describe the social stigmas and the fear of being objected or feel guilty about wh...
Poverty on social conditions affects everyone in every part of the world, no matter if they are rich or poor. First of all, everyone is divided into some sort of social class. The most known classes are the economic classes- the lower class, the middle class, and the higher class. The lower class goes through arduous labor all day and night to earn decent amounts of money to provide for themselves and their families. Most likely, they are the only source of income for the entire family. The higher class works hard to keep up or raise their high social status. They also work hard so they don’t loss their social rank, which permits them to hold a higher power over the middle and lower classes. Similarities of decisions made by characters in these two literary works will analyzed to understand the meaning behind the actions and influences of the social classes on each other.
Communication is a vital component of everyday relationships in all of mankind. In plays, there are many usual staging and dialogue techniques that directors use to achieve the attention of the audience. However, in the play, “Post-its (Notes on a Marriage)”, the authors Paul Dooley and Winnie Holzman use both staging and conversation in order to convey the struggles of modern relationships. The play is unconventional in how it attempts to have the audience react in a unique way. The authors use staging and conversation to portray to the audience that there are complex problems with communication in modern relationships.
This play brings out the differences between the upper class to that of the middle class and lower class people. Moreover, the characters’ follies and foolishness lies at the core of this drama. Deceit and lies, love and marriage are also some major themes in this drama. There are three acts in this drama, all interlinked with each other. The first act of this drama introduces us to the main characters, their complications and sufferings. There are more complications in the second act. These complications lead the plot to its climax and finally the happy conclusion in the final act. The plot of this play is based on inconsistent actions, unbelievable characters and coincidences. The plot is compact and closely knit but the audiences appreciate the play not because of its unity of scenes but due to the art of characterization employed in the play by Wilde.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Henrik Ibsen were two famous writers of the nineteenth era who became famous by writing about realism with their masterpieces; Dostoyevsky with the “Notes from Underground” and Ibsen with “Hedda Gabler”. Both works are based on the realistic picture of the whole society, between rich and poor, where their protaonist’s actions are result of social determinism. Social determinism is the theory that describes a person whose behavior is influenced by the society. According to this concept, the characters of “Notes from Underground” the underground man, and “Hedda Gabler” Hedda Tesman, are products of social determinism.
The lack of a point of view in this play adds to the lack of sense of the characters and suspension in the play. During this time period of Decadence in France and England the apprehensions of the characters are highly insignificant and conceited. The play in its entirety has a constant satiric tone in order to depict the shallow entanglements the upper society. The Importance of Being Earnest reflects a moral value, especially earnesty, dealing with human’s daily life. One may do whatever possible to reach their goal but, being earnest is a difficult task. Even though one may secretly uphold a falsehood eventually the truth will come to the light. Hence, under any circumstance honesty is always the best policy.
...d of the play who goes against order, or their given role of society is deemed unnatural. This becomes problematic because of the constraints it places on the acceptable of any change in society. Forgiveness and love are not attainable within this worldview.
The novel generally shows that those days’ values, norms of those days are, the dilemma of the weak; equality notions in class differences, richness, and marriage among people. However, my scope is only education and family institution. First of all, I need to emphasize major conflict that are David is born fatherless, and when he is seven years old his mother marries Edward Murdstone, who is unkind and offensive to David and his mother, first event that I realized in the novel. It is a confliction between norms and values because any of societies do not accept being cruel individual behaviors. As it seen, it is unfair and unacceptable because those behaviors harm integrity of family’s values. Anyhow, David protects himself in one of his stepfather’s de...