Comparing The Laramie Project And Mao's Last Dancer

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Comparative Essay – Comparing The Laramie Project and Mao’s Last Dancer Life Writing as a genre refers to the recording or creation of a narrative of experiences, events and significant memories in someone’s life in the form of biographies, autobiographies, letters etc. There are certain elements like vocabulary and language used to help readers gain a deeper insight of the text – these are known as codes and conventions. The Laramie Project and Mao’s Last Dancer are two texts that have a strong link between the conventions used. The Laramie Project is an “extremely moving drama” (Kensington Arts Theatre) which is an arrangement of interviews in relation to a …show more content…

The Laramie Project displays one large conflict which is comprised of converging conflicts. The representation of internal conflict can be seen in the interview with Jedidah Shultz. His account symbolises internal conflict since he is trying to reconcile both versions of Laramie - before the murder and after “If you asked me before I would have told you Laramie is a beautiful town … now after Matthew, Laramie is a town defined by an accident …” (Kaufman, 7). External conflict is displayed through the use of interviews which show that some civilians accept the idea homosexuals and some do not due to their religious beliefs. One of the people who disapproved of the idea of homosexuality was a Baptist member who said in his interview “… as he was tied to the fence that he had time to reflect on a moment when someone had spoken the word of the Lord to him …” (Kaufmann, 67). The interviews with the locals who spoke against homosexuality and those that accepted it, also represents another layer of conflict which is social conflict because the differing opinions are what divides the town of Laramie. Similarly, Mao’s Last Dancer focuses on the same types of conflict as The Laramie Project. Conflicts in Mao’s Last Dancer range from self-doubt and physical challenges that produce inner …show more content…

In The Laramie Project editing has a significant impact on the development of characters because it is a piece of verbatim theatre which uses a variety of interviews. Since all the interviews are pieces of verbatim it allows the readers to gain an insight of the characters’ personalities and beliefs because the interviews have not been edited and are the exact accounts from each person. Kaufman’s editing also plays a major role in characterisation through the selection of what parts of interviews to use and how each account is joined together. This helps to give a deeper understanding of the event than the interviews themselves. In comparison, Mao’s Last Dancer does not use editing as much to display characterisation and character development but rather describing how Li’s decisions affect his journey. Mao’s Last Dancer uses a lot of dialogue, vocabulary (which strengthens the representations of Chinese culture) and mainly a form of storytelling of the “ The Little Frog in the Well” told by Li’s father. The little frog represents Li and how he is stuck in the well of poverty, Li is described as “sad” and “frustrated” (Cunxin, 43) that he could not get out of that well. The story shows that not being able to get out of the well assists in developing Li’s character and enhances his determination even more to become successful. This type of editing

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