Layered in a veneer of madness, The Lieutenant of Inishmore by Martin McDonagh is an ode to the absurd, taking dark comedy to the realm of social commentary, within the first two scenes alone. Opening the play with a very dead cat, the audience immediately sees the characters arguing over the life of the dead cat, saying, “The first thing the books say is don’t be moving an accident victim till professional fecking help arrives, and a fool knows that!” (McDonagh 8). In this case, the “accident victim” is an obviously dead cat that has absolutely no hope of survival, but Donny yells at Davey for moving him before “professional fecking help arrives” as if there was ever a possibility of saving the cat, whose brains later plop to the floor. Not …show more content…
only is this statement absurd, it is also extremely funny in the most morbid sense of the word, because even a “fool knows that.” Objectively, no one should be laughing at the thought of an accident victim being moved prematurely, causing irreparable damage, but in this case the audience draws great entertainment from it. Later when, “Mad Pad” is about to find out about the death of his dear cat, the audience see him debating whether or not to leave his extremist splitter group of the IRA, saying “I’m getting pissed off with the whole thing.
I’ve been thinking of forming a splinter group. (Pause.) I know we’re already a splinter group, but there’s no law says you can’t splinter from a splinter group. A splinter group is the best kind of group to splinter form anyways. It shows that you know your own mind,” (McDonagh 16). In this scene, Padraic’s lines make absolutely no sense. Almost no splitter groups are better than the original group, but in this passage Padraic’s repeated use of the word “splinter” and strategic pauses only serve to emphasize his insanity, while also highlighting the insanity in the IRA and serves to further the idea that the fight for Irish independence is fraught with infighting, as we see these characters start to escalate. Immediately after he says this, Padraic’s father talks about his very dead cat, and Padraic responds with, “Padraic’s face suddenly becomes very serious, eyes filling with tears. Eh? What about Wee Thomas? (Pause.) Poorly? How poorly, have you brought him to the doctor? (Pause.)… Put Wee Thomas on the phone. He’s sleeping?” (McDonagh 16). Watching Padraic’s eyes “filling with tears” the audience begins to emotionally connect with Padraic, only to hear him later ask for the cat to literally talk on the phone as if he were a human. While Padraic’s
words and actions are clearly insane, this scene is still oddly funny and entertaining in a way that it absolutely should not be. No one should be laughing at the death of one’s loved one, but in this case it is just a cat. Continuing to devolve into kidnapping other cats, painting them with shoe polish, shooting the said cat for not being their cat, torturing someone, and then killing the man who killed their cat, The Lieutenant of Inishmore truly is an ode to the insanity within Irish culture and the world as a whole, that people can watch this production and laugh at the death of a man’s beloved cat and the infighting within the IRA, creating terrorist organizations, and then finally feel justified when Mairead kills Padraic for killing her cat, with the line, “There was nothing unhygienic about my fecking cat,” (McDonagh 53). This play personally calls out each and every member of the audience for being complicit in this madness, drawing attention to the larger problem within the society as a whole, the very fact that this absurdity, blood, and death is considered entertainment.
In the story “Inez” by Merle Hodge, Mr. James appears each collection day to fearlessly collect rent, or evict if needed, however, he demonstrates no such courage towards his wife as he does with his tenants . Though he sees an injustice in his wife’s demands, he would rather face an angry tenant and hungry children than fail in his duty toward her. The courage he demonstrates while collecting rent is not evident when facing his wife. Mr. James is a hypocrite for enabling his wife’s greed even though morally he knows it is wrong. A similar moral conflict is evident through the behavior and actions of some politicians seeking election. Politicians run for election, willing to say anything to get elected, though morally they may not agree with what they say.
are helpless as all they can do is feel sad for Doris. As the play
Nobody understands what really took place that night, the night that John Brown launched his raid on Harpers Ferry. Why it was done, what caused it and what the actual event itself caused was later discovered and well known by people centuries after it even took place. This raid, was one of the biggest reason a nation was left divided. The Southern part of America was its own “nation” where as the Northern part was thought of kind of as the same but opposite. “Midnight Rising” gives an in depth explanation and feel for the events leading to and the events caused by this raid. The book is based around the time period pre civil war ( circa 1859), In the first part of the book and overview and a little bit of background information is provided. Explaining where and when the raid was being planned and where it was going to be executed, and all of this being told through the perception of one of John Browns men .Prior to this event, Bleeding Kansas had happened and it caused an immense amount of outrage, blood shed, fear and frustration amongst almost every single person part of the U.S at the time. Nat Turners rebellion caused an uproar filled with fear, in the south and that was one of the things that had led up to the main event discussed in the book ( the raid on Harpers Ferry). During the time period the book took place, the southern part of America was pro slavery where as the North was not, and due to these discrepancies neither side could or would compromise and neither would be able to come to any sort of agreement on what to do with laws and rules and with the slaves either. Events such as Nat Turners Rebellion are what caused people in the south to become more fearful of slaves
stages a cheeky, contemporary, and impishly funny timeless battle between young and old, past and present, and an emotionally riveting search for the truth of it all. Posner fully absorbs the dark comedy from its original in which was a famous failure at its premiere at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in Petersburg, but luckily, Stupid Fucking Bird premiered with much higher reviews. His adaptation allows the essence of Chekhov’s original script to shine through, while renovating all the quirks, futility, and circularity of human behavior that Chekhov’s script explores but that often get lost with modern audiences because of the language often thought of as “dated”. Just as Chekhov’s naturalistic play was a new form in the Russian theater scene, and was only a success two years after its premiere at the Moscow Art Theatre, Stupid Fucking Bird allows Posner and Burris to take up Conrad/Konstantin’s challenge to create new forms of theatre and invite the audience to reflect on how art, love, an...
Many people like to believe they know what is right from what is wrong, but when it comes to the court system and the search for justice, Henry Drummond will fight for the cases that no other lawyer has the audacity to take on. Drummond exhibits an undying perseverance to fight for Bertram Cates in the Scopes Trial depicted in Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s play, Inherit the Wind. Through Henry Drummond’s tactfulness, open-mindedness, and determination, he is able to make a biased town see the absurdity of a law that takes away a person's right to freedom of thought.
It can be said that, Those who are involved in conflict are often changed by their experiences, it can also be said that, Survivor of conflict are forever shaped by their experience, however the latter statement is somewhat incorrect as it is speaking more as a definite, while is reality people are not always changed by experiences, and even still those who are changed, are not always permanently different because of their experiences. However people involved in conflicts are often changed in one way or another, such as the Main Character of the novel: The Lieutenant, Daniel Rooke. The Lieutenant also includes several other types of conflict that can and does change people, such as racism and armed conflicts, although these are not the major
...es serious issues to be comical, the ability for Francis to fool and deceive both his guvnors up till the end of play seems almost humorous, arousing the comedic nature of the play. However, it is the mistreatment of Alfie that limits the comedy in the play from conflict, the more mature audience would feel outraged by the treatment of the 80 year old war veteran who is smacked over the head with an 'autographed cricket bat'. This is insensitive as it shows an elder being treated like an object to whack, and thus many may find some aspects of conflict in a severity light instead of in comedic nature.
After he finds out his son was stillborn, Lt. Henry remembers the time when he placed a log full of ants on a fire. After sitting for a moment, the log began burning. When it started to burn the ants came out of the log. They ran back and forth across the log, first towards the flames, then away. Eventually most of them fell into the fire and burned. A very small number escaped the fire, but even these were badly hurt. The only action Fredrick took was to throw a cup of water on the log, but "the cup of water on the burning log only steamed the ants"(Hemingway, 328). This hopeless, mechanical picture of suffering allows us to understand other forms of pain in the book.
Following the Moral Compass in Jane Eyre Jane Eyre is the perfect novel about maturing: a child who is treated cruelly, holds herself together and learns to steer her life forward with a driving conscience that keeps her life within personally felt moral bounds. I found Jane as a child to be quite adult-like: she battles it out conversationally with Mrs. Reed on an adult level right from the beginning of the book. The hardships of her childhood made her extreme need for moral correctness believable. For instance, knowing her righteous stubbornness as a child, we can believe that she would later leave Rochester altogether rather than living a life of love and luxury simply by overlooking a legal technicality concerning her previous marriage to a mad woman. Her childhood and her adult life are harmonious, which gives the reader the sense of a complete and believable character. Actually, well into this book I  I was reminded of a friend's comment a few years back to "avoid the Brontes like the plague.
Death is an unstoppable event that occurs in every individual’s life, and yet it is a very taboo topic as people rarely broach the subject because it causes incredible distress; it is certainly not a comical topic of conversation and one that is very seldom and rarely congratulated. Yet Oscar Wilde manages to deliver the ever present looming topic of death as if it held the same gravity as a bad hairdo in his comedic play, The Importance of Being Earnest. Instead of expressing support, sorrow and sympathy for the victims of Death and for the relatives, Wilde treats Death in comparison to a result of an impromptu action; no more serious than if a person was to walk into another, due to lack of observation in where they were going; The Importance of
The David Tennant production of the Mousetrap scene was the best. The acting company’s goal is to convey the deception of the queen towards the king to their audience and how the murderer of the king gets away with poisoning him. Overall, the play focuses on the concept of betrayal.
Raynie, Stephen A. "The Womans Body and the Obstacle of Specious Honor in Donne's 'the Flea'" University of Colorado Dept. of English 38 (2001): 40. Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Northeast Lakeview, San Antonio. 11 Apr. 2008. Keyword: John Donne’s ‘The Flea’
The characters of the play are in no way able to comprehend what may lie
T.S Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral is well a respected drama composed of the life elements of faith, revenge, and the never-ending struggle for power. Two men, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Beckett, and King Henry II of England, display this ostentatious struggle for power. This dispute over ruling authority between the Church and the state is indicative of a main theme in Murder in the Cathedra, man versus god. Thomas Beckett serves as the representation of the power of God whereas King Henry II and his advisors serve as the governmental representations, or the power of man. The theme to Eliot's drama is greatly supported by the enhancements of imagery, light and dark as well as sensory, by the usage of metaphors, and by his syntax. Together the elements vividly represent the struggle between the two powers that is occurring within the play.
Put simply, John Donne’s “The Flea” is about a man trying to convince his love interest to have sexual relations with him by using a flea that has bitten both of them as a metaphor for their relationship. The speaker argues that the flea, which holds both of their bloods, has become the embodiment of their love and its overall sanctity. Donne’s use of the flea as an extended metaphor of their relationship represents a metaphysical conceit that dramatizes the conflict between the woman losing her virginity to the speaker and the far-fetched attempt of the speaker to emphasize the significance of the flea which is being used to represent a sacred bond between the couple.