Written by Zeami, Hanjo, or “Lady Han,” is a play which “resembles an old love ballad with a haunting tune” (108). Tyler's version is dated 1543, almost a century after Zeami died, which also means the text represented here may be different from Zeami's original. There is also a great amount of honzetsu and honkadori, or borrowing phrases from other prose texts and poems (respectively), not only from the older classics such as Kokinshū or Genji Monogatari, but there are also Chinese references in this particular play as well. I think this play is quite different from most of the other nō plays we have read so far.
Hanjo is about Hanago's extreme love for the Yoshida Minor Captain, which ultimately costs her job at the Nogami Inn as an entertainer. Shortly afterward, the Yoshida Minor Captain appears in Nogami and asks his attendants to ask around for Hanago, who is nicknamed Lady Han, but is unable to locate her due to her being dismissed just prior. He then proceeds to a shrine to pray for their reunion, after which she soon arrives to pray for the same thing. A Gentleman (who is presumably part of Yoshida's party) then sees her as a madwoman and asks her to entertain them, to which she showcases her love for Yoshida, gives a background on the famed Lady Han, professes the importance of the fan she holds which she received from Yoshida, and laments the unfaithfulness of Yoshida due to his inability to keep to his promise of returning during the following year's Autumn—the play is set during the Autumn and a year since their first meeting. Yoshida, noticing the fan, gets the Gentleman to allow Yoshida to view the fan, which Hanago first refuses, but with coaxing from Yoshida and the mention of his promise from that previous yea...
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...she was to him, but at the same time, I could not see how she could “moon over” (as the Madam puts it in kakekotoba style) his fan all day for an entire year and do nothing else. The resolution was also reminiscent of current Japanese dorama, which give us as the audience closure, but also leaves room for our own imagination to build a story after if we wish to choose to do so. I also found its allusions not only to “The Canon” but to other nō plays genius because of the new context the play seems to give The Canon, and the familiarity it can breed to those dedicated to nō as if they were different yet related songs on an album.
Works Cited
Kinoshita, Akira. "Hanjo." the-Noh.com. Caliber Cast Ltd., 2011. Web. 14 Apr 2011.
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Tyler, Royall. Japanese Nō Drama. 16. England: Penguin Books, 2004. Print.
Nisei Daughter, by Monica Sone. Even with all the mental anguish and struggle, an elemental instinct bound us to this soil. Here we were born; here we wanted to live. We tasted its freedom and learned of its brave hopes for democracy.
This frustration acted as a vehicle for her to gain a desire to be more
Red Scarf Girl by Ji-Li Jiang is an inspiring true story about a young girl who is forced to make an agonizing decision of country versus family. In her story of joy, sorrow, lament, resentment, and countless other perplexing experiences, she must decide whether she is her family's child or Chairman Mao's. In Red Scarf Girl, Ji-li is faced with the heart-breaking decision of her future, and finally after years of confounding peer and family pressure, she resolves to love her family. Throughout the book she is a zealous supporter of Mao, though is constantly running into contradicting encounters in the beginning, middle, and end.
After spending more than half of the play looking down on her employee, the madam decides that she wants to switch places with her maid as part of a game. It is rather ironic how much the play follows the story line of the princes and the pauper. Where two women of different social standing switches places with each other, in order to experiences how their other side lives. It is arguable comedic that the women are able to assume their roles without much effort. The madam really acts the role of the maid, she acts how she believes the stereotypical maid should be, she sits behind her employer and begins to pay more attention to her son. Whereas the maid, clearly states to her employer that it’s not her job to pay attention because she is a “lady”. She puts her the tanning lotion, sunglasses and begins to
The understanding of the Pacific Islands literature is still a very confusing material for many scholars. Only the indigenous residents can interpret fully interpret their own cultural concept of writing. However, in the “My Urohs” which is a slim collection of poetry published by Emelihter Kihleng in May 2008 as her first collection of poem. It provided a new path for their own people to view themselves differently and add an important element in the Pacific Islander literature. Some of the basic informations about the author was that Emelihter is a Micronesian and more specifically Pohnpeian that was born in Guam and earned a master's degree in creative writing at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 2003.
Perfect: adj. ˈpər-fikt 1. Entirely without any flaws, defects, or shortcomings, is the first definition you find on dictionary.com for the word (perfect). Is this actually possible to attain? Has anyone actually ever been perfect? Or is it all in the eye of the beholder? These questions are asked by almost every girl, as we dream to one day reach the unattainable. This is especially true at the tender age of fifteen, where nothing seems to be going right with our bodies and everything is changing in us. This poem stresses the fact that as everyone realizes how unrealistic this dream is, the knowledge makes no difference to the wish. Marisa de los Santos comments on this in her poem “Perfect Dress”. The use of verbose imagery, metaphors, and the simplistic approach are very effective in portraying the awkward adolescent stage of a young woman and the unrealistic dream of being perfect.
The main character of this book is Susan Caraway, but everyone knows her as Stargirl. Stargirl is about 16 years old. She is in 10th grade. Her hair is the color of sand and falls to her shoulders. A “sprinkle” of freckles crosses her nose. Mostly, she looked like a hundred other girls in school, except for two things. She didn’t wear makeup and her eyes were bigger than anyone else’s in the school. Also, she wore outrageous clothes. Normal for her was a long floor-brushing pioneer dress or skirt. Stargirl is definitely different. She’s a fun loving, free-spirited girl who no one had ever met before. She was the friendliest person in school. She loves all people, even people who don’t play for her school’s team. She doesn’t care what others think about her clothes or how she acts. The lesson that Stargirl learned was that you can’t change who you are. If you change for someone else, you will only make yourself miserable. She also learned that the people who really care about you will like you for who you are. The people who truly love you won’t ask you to change who you are.
Duong Thu Huong’s novel, ‘Paradise of the Blind’ creates a reflective, often bittersweet atmosphere through the narrator Hang’s expressive descriptions of the landscapes she remembers through her life. Huong’s protagonist emphasises the emotional effects these landscapes have on her, acknowledging, “many landscapes have left their mark on me.”
If you knew me as a kid, you knew I liked to be jokester, a clown of some sorts. I loved to make people laugh besides it was nice way to make people smile and it showed me at least I had some comedic talent. Yeah, those were the days. I was on top back then and I always thought I would be. Well, that definitely changed once I turned thirteen. I started to realize that life was not all a big joke. And I can say this attitude has really shaped the way I judge books. I like a book that can show it has silly aspects, but it also knows when it is time to be serious. Carl Hiaasen’s Hoot is one of those stories. Truthfully, Hoot is a silly book put together with interesting characters, and yet, still it provides some nice-timed jokes, and is able to add sad, yet important environmental lessons and life lessons.
In William Shakespeare's short play Much Ado About Nothing, he focuses on the social standings and the roles of women in 16th Century Europe. The female protagonist of the play, Beatrice, understands the restrictions placed upon her by society and how these restrictions should limit her as a woman, but she inexorably escapes them by refusing to succumb to the unifying hand of marriage. Throughout the play, Shakespeare displays his profound respect for woman as independent individuals who are fully capable of making their own decisions and suffering their own consequences. Through the plot, he proposes the idea that women who deviate away from the passivity that society expects them to perform attain a more active role in the determination of their future. Contrary to the roles of women of the 16th Century, Shakespeare depiction of Beatrice's independence is symbolic of his stance on the progression and transformation of women's reputation in society.
The play’s major conflict is the loneliness experienced by the two elderly sisters, after outliving most of their relatives. The minor conflict is the sisters setting up a tea party for the newspaper boy who is supposed to collect his pay, but instead skips over their house. The sisters also have another minor conflict about the name of a ship from their father’s voyage. Because both sisters are elderly, they cannot exactly remember the ships name or exact details, and both sisters believe their version of the story is the right one. Although it is a short drama narration, Betty Keller depicts the two sisters in great detail, introduces a few conflicts, and with the use of dialogue,
...portant than anything and she did not let anyone or anything stop her from her main goal. This plays themes were based on love, passion, rage and vengeance.
Scott, Clement. "Review of 'A Doll's House." The Theatre 14.79 (July 1889): 19-22. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Paula Kepos. Vol. 37. Detroit: Gale Research, 1991. Literature Resource Center. Web. 25 Mar. 2011.
Authors of every genre use images in their works to stand in as metaphors, similes, and more often as simple descriptions. Kate Chopin is very well known for her use of images in her writing. Kate Chopin uses imagery in her stories to build the characters and provide metaphors for their lives.
The short story “I Stand Here Ironing”, by Tillie Olsen, is a first person narrative that includes the protagonist’s memory flashbacks, which give context to the current dialogue. The story reads like a journalistic interview of the Mother, or a one-sided telephone conversation, using a cadence reminiscent of an Irish Mother, both self deprecating and desperately defensive. A back and forth exchange, between a forced explanation of her daughter’s awkwardness and an attempt to justify her own responsibility for contributing to those character flaws. She vacillates between short bursts of intense regret and frustrated pleading.