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Arsenic And Old Lace By Joseph Kesselring

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Arsenic and Old Lace Arsenic and Old Lace, written by Joseph Kesselring, is a play that takes place in Brooklyn New York. The opening scene takes place in September of 1942, in the Brewster living room. It is the home of Aunt Abby and Aunt Martha Brewster they both may seem perfectly sane, but we find out they are both crazy murderers. Together, they have 12 dead bodies in their home. The women think they are doing their victims favors, because all of their victims were lonely and death would be better than that. In the Brewster house, with the two aunts, lives Teddy, Teddy believes he is the president of the United States (Teddy Roosevelt) and provides comedic relief during the show through his “presidential behavior”. Also living in …show more content…

Falling action includes the cops walking inside in the middle of Jonathan trying to murder Mortimer. The production comes to a halt when more cops and Mr. Witherspoon come in much to Jonathans dismay. The Denouement is when all the papers are signed and Aunt Martha, Aunt Abby and Teddy all go to Happy Dale. The theme of Arsenic and Old Lace is generosity is in the eye of the beholder. All of the Brewsters think they are doing people a favor or helping throughout the play when in reality their actions are not entirely generous. For example the Aunts don 't believe they are doing a bad thing by killing these people, instead they think they are helping old men find peace. Aunt Abby expresses this feeling when talking to Martha saying, “ He sat dead in that chair looking so peaceful- remember, Martha-we made up our minds right then and there that if we could help other lonely old men to the same place we would” (26). Though Abby had her reasons for doing such a “ kind” thing and she truly believed she was helping, she still killed him. Mortimer also goes out of his way to be kind to Elaine. After Mortimer learns about his family 's history he tells Elaine he will not marry her because he doesn 't want to burden her with the inevitable fact that he will be crazy too. He tells Elaine, “I love you very much , Elaine. In fact I love you so much I can’t marry you” (55). Mortimer is trying to help

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