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Green Man Flashing Essay

Decent Essays

Green Man Flashing is a play written by Mike van Graan and it is a story about a woman named Gabby Anderson who is sexually assaulted by her high profile black boss. This story explores her life before the assault and after. It has moments of flashbacks and is a reverse chronology where the play starts at the end. Green Man Flashing is a contemporary political piece because it explores modern racism, universal eternal ideologies and the styles of flashbacks and simultaneous scenes are used.
Racism is an ideology that would always be a part of life however racism now is different to the racism back then. Racism now is a very controversial idea; where issues like black people not being racist but white people are racist are explored. In Green …show more content…

Mike van Graan uses the style of flashbacks to tell the story because it shows that we all have to go back to the past to grow as a person. This style of flashbacks also falls part of the idea of reminiscing; that we all have a story to tell. The other style used is simultaneous scenes. This style is modern because it adds to the idea of life not being how we want it to be. Life does not really have a certain beginning and end; yes we are born and we die but when we choose is up to us and when where we choose to die, give up, is also up to us. A great example of a simultaneous scene would be scene 14 when Anna, Gabbys’ best friend, and Aaron are having a conversation but also Gabby and Inspector Abrahams, Gabbys’ detective, are also having a conversation. Mike van Graan couldn’t literally make the scenes simultaneous but he did make sure that he mentions that they are happening at the same time to show normal conversation. The other choice of style Mike van Graan chose is that of not re-enacting some scenes and this makes this modern because it shows that whatever happened has happened. South African back then used to dwell on many things such as pain but nowadays being sad is not part of the plan, mourning is not given time. Aaron and Gabby do not give themselves time to deal with their son’s death whereas if it was back then it would have been a

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