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Ethical Issues In Time Stand Still

Decent Essays

In his play Time Stands Still, Donald Margulies focuses on the complex relationship between Sarah, a photojournalist, and her boyfriend James, a former war reporter. Both of them have witnessed first hand the tragedy and devastation faced in war zones overseas, which is a factor in the growing tension in their relationship. The tension continues to develop once Sarah’s editor Richard enters the scene with his new young wife Mandy. Time Stands Still explores numerous aspects of communication through the interactions between these four characters. A major aspect of the play is the controversial discussion on the moral dilemma involved in documenting war tragedies instead of intervening. This play also showcases an interesting dynamic between …show more content…

Throughout the play, Sarah has stated how invested she is in her job, seeing it as her duty to photograph the devastation overseas. She is adamant about going back once her injuries are healed, regardless of what the other characters tell her. This drive to go back to her job not only stems from her passion, but her insistence that documenting gruesome events is a necessary and important job. Sarah sees what she is doing as helpful. This is seen when she states that she helps “by gathering evidence. To show the world. If it weren’t for people like me… Who would know? Who would care?” (p.39). When discussing the actual gruesome elements with Mandy, Sarah does not show any emotion, citing that the distressful violence is exactly why she believes her work must be done. Mandy, on the other hand, has an argument centered around emotion. She immediately gets emotional when looking at the pictures, and shows anger for the first time in the play when she yells at Sarah for not intervening and assisting those she photographed. She states that Sarah “could have been helping them” (p.39), and saw Sarah taking photos as the same as doing

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