April 3, 2019 - Culminating Cross-Textual Study Questions (do 4)
Answer 4 as best you can; due end of period
Sign in to Google to save your progress. Learn more
Name (first and last)
1) Using all four plays, which playwrights seek to only ask questions (and leave the answers up to the audience) and which playwrights seek to clearly teach or argue a specific position/provide specific answers OR which playwrights seek to do something in between these two extremes?  To say it differently, do any of the plays give simple answers OR do they all stop at posing difficult questions?  What are those answers or questions exactly?
2) Using all four plays, which seem to value plot more than character or vice versa?  In other words, which playwrights seem more interested in the establishment of characters (and thus an examination of people/humanity) and which seem to spend more effort developing plot and/or conflict (and thus an examination of ideas, social issues and/or a social commentary)?
3) Using at least two plays, which aspect of characterization (or realm of the character) do playwrights seem most interested in – their physical dimensions, their social dimensions, their psychological dimensions, their moral dimensions?
4) Which playwrights seem intent on the establishment of a defined villain figure and which playwrights seem intent on leaving the antagonist or the forces that destroy the protagonist ambiguous or ill-defined?
5) Using at least two plays, what stage conventions, author choices, dramatic techniques, etc (use text specifics) do you find were used by the playwrights to lighten an otherwise serious/heavy play?
6) Which playwrights seem to seek most and least after realism or verisimilitude (being true to life)?  In other words which playwrights remain most realistic in staging/character construction/technique and which often use non-realistic methods?  (likely may want to reference expressionism)
7) Which playwrights seem to reflect George Bernard Shaw’s view that the purpose of drama is “to force the public to reconsider its morals”?  What specific morals are being reconsidered by the audience in at least two of the plays?  
8) Which playwrights seem to see their role as an artist in a legitimate art form (drama) and which playwrights seem to see themselves as entertainers?  In other words, which playwrights are “serious playwrights” aiming for the head of the audience and which playwrights are modern entertainers aiming more for the audience’s heart/emotions? OR are the playwrights provokers and, if so, of what?
9) Which playwrights allow for the audience to achieve catharsis or they allow their characters to “pass through suffering purified” so the audience can feel a sense of redemption and renewal and which ones don’t allow for this?
10) Which plays seem to argue that HONEST and OPEN human communication is either difficult or impossible?  Why have they done this?
11) For Hannah, Bernard, Willy, Blanche, Raina (or Septimus, Thomasina, Sergius, Bluntschli):  which was of greater significance – the character’s internal conflict or external conflict?  Use at least 3 characters and define the nature of the conflict (either external or internal).
12) Using all four plays, which seem to value “time” more than “place” or vice versa?  In other words, which playwrights seem more interested in constructing the physical or psychological setting and which seem more interested in developing realms of time or in manipulations of time/sequence?
13) Which characters and what traits/experiences/views of existence do you find to have links with the playwrights own life/personality.  Include discussion of at least two plays. (Random Example: Stanley is like Williams in that…)
14) What dramatic methods or stage conventions (authorial choices) are used to show the interior life of a character – use at least one character from at least two plays.
15) Why do you think (or what was accomplished by) the playwright’s chose to have 2 Act and a Requiem (DOAS), 11 scenes (Streetcar), 3 Acts (Arms&Man), 7 scenes w/ some Act divisions (Arcadia)?  [In other words, discuss the breaks in dramatic action and the effects achieved by their occurrence.]
16) In what ways does the setting (Willy’s house/Brooklyn; the room/table at Sidley Park; Elysian Fields/Stanley’s apartment; bedroom/Petkoff house, etc) come to have an impact either on the mindset or the actions of the protagonist in at least two plays you have studied?
17) How significant a role do transportation devices (cars, trains, etc) OR weapons play in at least two plays you have studied?  What do they function to accomplish or what do they stand for?
18) Using all four plays, which plays do you think work better as a read script (a published text) and which plays do you think work better in performance (live on the stage)?  Justify your choices.
19) To what extent do playwrights use contrasting dialogue/verbal styles in characters [modern vs 1809; academics vs non; Stanley vs Blanche dialogue style] to either develop character or conflict  - using at least two characters from at least two plays?
20) Do you find that dramatic power is increased or decreased by the inclusion of numerous minor characters or should playwrights stick only to 3-4 total/central characters and reduce/eliminate minor characters (Arms and Man, perhaps Streetcar)?
21) Which playwrights are capable of writing authentically or effectively for (or in the voice of) the other gender?  Which playwrights seem less than capable in their use or presentation of the gender other than their own?
22) Based on all your readings, what do you think most frustrated at least two of the playwrights about the way they constructed their play or the way the audience responded to it?
23) Which plays/characters reflect the famous words of Blaise Pascal: “He who would act the angel becomes the beast.”  Use at least two plays in response.
24) Which playwrights seem to embody this view of humanity from Julius Caesar, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”  Explain using at least two plays.  You can address the degree to which certain characters are their own worst enemies (the cause of their own undoing) or how the character punishes themselves far more than any external force/character can.
Submit
Clear form
Never submit passwords through Google Forms.
This content is neither created nor endorsed by Google. Report Abuse - Terms of Service - Privacy Policy
Google Forms