“You’re a blank, a cipher… a zero.” (Albee, 1962, p.18). With these words, Martha the main character in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” showed her husband, George, that he was nothing. Edward Albee, the writer of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” talked mainly about Martha and George who pretend to have different identities just in order not to face reality. Moreover, Arthur Miller, the author of “A View from the Bridge” presented the idea of identity in a different way. Miller used the character Eddie to show how people’s identities are constantly changing due to some changes in their lives. Modern playwrights question the idea of a definite identity. Edward Albee questions the idea of a definite identity through his character, Martha. At the …show more content…
Eddie is introduced as a moral man with ethics and principles. Miller showed that at the beginning of the play, Eddie tells the story of a young boy who ratted on immigrant relatives staying in his home and warn Catherine that she must be absolutely silent about Marco and Rodolpho. Moreover, there was a discussion between Eddie and Beatrice; where Beatrice is afraid of her immigrant cousins being caught. Therefore, Eddie told her: “listen if everybody keeps his mouth shut, nothing can happen. They’ll pay for their board.”(Miller, 1955, p.9).Later in the story, Eddie revealed a different identity .He was blinded with passion to the point of immorality. When he knew about Catherine falling in love with Rodolpho, he told Alfieri that he is going to call the immigration so he can keep Catherine just for him. Even though he knew that he is going to suffer for calling immigration, but does so anyway .Eddie: “Give me the number if the Immigration Bureau.”(Miller, 1955, p.61).To sum up, Miller displayed identity that could be moral with ethics and turns to be and identity that is blinded with
Identity defines the many aspects that make us who we are. It can be determined individually or by society, but in order to achieve true happiness identity must be established by one’s self. The novel Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood reveals this truth by displaying the unhappiness that results from society determining an individual’s identity. This is seen in multiple forms such as the demands placed on woman to behave in a “ladylike” way. These stereotypes contribute to the struggle placed on many women in this novel to abide to society’s expectations. Unhappiness is also caused by judgement. When characters in this novel are judged by others, it often leads them to question who they are and what they stand for. Lastly, individuals in this novel rebel because they do not like being identified by their social class. These are all examples of restrictions that affect the characters in Alias Grace, and prevent them from living a fulfilling life. A major theme explored in this novel is that unhappiness is often a result of one’s identity being determined by society.
A name is a metaphysical representation of a person, but there are physical hints in Seymour?s characterization that hint towards a greater purpose in his actions. Muriel tells her mother that he wears his bathrobe on the beach so that people won?t see his
The Bridge is an after school program in Johnson City New York. The Bridge is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays after the school day ends. The students that attend the after school program range from 4 years old to 17. At the program students are expected to complete homework, but are also offered a gym, and an arts and crafts area. As a volunteer the setting came be a little overwhelming, because things can get a little crazy. Once you are able to give into the chaos, however you can see how wonderful this program is. There are so many different activities you can do with the students.
In the anthology The Thing Around Your Neck, our author exposes her readers to various characters who face challenges about their identity and sense of belonging. Many of Adichie’s characters weigh their value and sense of self against their gender. Some of her characters find security in the fact that they are male. Conversely, some of her other characters feel lost and in despair, and this may be contributed by the fact that they are at the receiving end of prejudiced treatment. Also, Adichie uses narrative strategies in order to explore some deep-rooted mentalities regarding identity. By keeping some of her characters unnamed and describing them using only their race or nationality, she seems to be challenging the concept of homogenous identity. She also seems to be encouraging her readers to recognize her characters as singular people, not as representatives of certain a certain race or nationality. Adichie also uses second person narration in some of her short stories in order for her readers to be more involved in the narrative. She exposes her readers to feelings of loneliness, anonymity and loss faced by her characters in order for them to have a more relatable grasp of their situation in the hopes that they would be able to understand and accept her characters more readily.
One’s identity is something they carry with them their entire life and is important not to let it be affected by the outside world. Rainer Maria Rilke and David Mitchell share the similar central idea of identity in their respective stories. In Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet “Letter One”, Rilke is a thriving poet in the early 1900s. Rilke receives a letter from Franz Kappus, a young aspiring poet seeking aid from Rilke. Rilke’s response includes a lesson on finding your true identity by looking within your soul. David Mitchell also mentions identity in his text, Black Swan Green: “Solarium” where a young boy named Jason Taylor sends who his poems to Madame Crommelynck, a woman who Jason mistook for a vicar. Jason visits Madame weekly and receives critiques on his poems and advice on how to make his poems less dull. Mitchell and Rilke both include the central idea of identity and develop it through direct address and a metaphor.
In millers view from the bridge, the betrayal of Rodolpho and Marco isnt driven by fear . The contrast between the motive of love and fear is the feeling of free will and choices or lack of. Terry feels that he has less freedom to choose his loyalty as he is afraid to face his fear, the mob. Eddie has the feeling of freedom for the choices he makes. Love almost the sae as fear can also cloud judgement and cause people to make misguided decisions. This is seen in eddies change in character as his feelings increasingly overpower his thoughts. This leads to the betrayal that in his right mind, Eddie would not have done. This later leads to to the death of
The important phase concerning the development of Eddie originates as Eddie proceeds towards his house and notices his niece waving at Louis, we can perceive that he is pleased, however shy, because he just hangs his cap and jacket. Nevertheless, afterwards he begins to feel agitated and commences to gently scold Catherine for flirting with the boys so blatantly. Eddie believes she should be
and that he should stand up for those close to him. You can see that
The conversation creates tension by showing the differences between the two mindsets due to the different justice systems of the two countries. Eddie represents the open-ended Italian system while Alfieri resembles to strict American justice system. Tension is created by the contrast between Eddie and Alfieri, when Eddie gives a loose statement ‘I see it in his eyes; he’s laughin’ at her and he’s laughin’ at me’ Alfieri strictly sticks to the strict American laws which are very different to the Italian system even though Alfieri is an immigrant also like Eddie creating a connection between the two characters even if both have a different mindset towards the law. The tension created in this conversation between these two characters offers the reader a clearer image to Eddie’s muddled thoughts of Rodolpho by creating a clearer image of the situation and the increasing tension can make the reader feel empathy towards Eddie as he is quickly transformed from a very likablea character to be a very aggressive due to his paranoia towards
Edward Albee echoes his response to the American public in Who’s Afraid of The Virginia Woolf? With George and Martha 's house acting as a microcosm for Albee to explore the issues that faced the 1950s public, he
I would like to address each of the identities that appear in the film so that I can go into more details about their traits as the paper progresses. The main character or identity is Frankie who is an African American female in her early thirties who works as an exotic dancer. One of the other personalities that she exhibits is a woman by the name of Alice, who is southern racist. The final identity that appears much less often is a young child who the psychiatrist comes to call Genius, as her very high IQ would suggest. The psychiatrist, Dr. Oswald performed somewhat of a mental status examination when the main character Frankie came into the psychiatric center. At their initial meeting, Dr. Oz asked Frankie questions that touched on the very basic elements of her life such as questions about her work and her family. In this way,
Self identity is a prominent notion in many Renaissance plays. Most of these plays are concerned with deceit and change of identity. Oftentimes, the devious characters are the ones who show a part of themselves at a certain point in the play and as the story progresses they unveil a different side of them. In most of the Renaissance dramas that were discussed, almost all the plays have at least one character with questionable identity. This notion of identity is one of the most important themes in Thomas Middleton and William Rowley's "The Changeling." Fluid identity is seen in characters such as Beatrice; however, De Florez’s identity is more ambiguous and should be analyzed differently. When a person's personality is solid and they are
This therefore begs the question as to why Forster would want to deny identity. One view is that Forster’s compromise between identity and conventional narrative was perhaps necessary for the time as Forster would have known that “what first made a homosexual identity out of incoherent homosexual acts was a force both hostile and repressive .” On this basis, the denial of identity was necessary for Maurice to succeed in creating empathy for the portrayal of love within a homosexual framework as opposed to the focus on homosexual acts, which had defined identity . As such, it has been argued that only “time could fight that force insofar as a reversal of the transformation of acts into identity would disperse identity out of temporal linearity ”. However the difficulty with this perspective is that it intrinsically leans towards a flawed narrative within the novel format and if “Maurice aims at such a temporal dispersal, can it express its aim in plot, which by definition orders events in much the way identity orders acts? ”
The use of both identified and unidentified narrative voices has been an essential feature in most of the poetry I have studied, as it determines the manner in which the content of the poem is presented. Poets will often use an identified persona to express views which they themselves might disagree with in a negative light, such as in My Last Duchess by Robert Browning. Unidentified personas are often used by poets as well; perhaps to give a more universal application to their poems. Conversely identified personas may understandably be used for the opposite effect of giving the poem a personal and intimate
The multiple personas of Alice Sheldon raise questions about selfhood. In this thesis, I will delve more into her personas as real identities. To do this, I will apply Richard Waugaman’s psychoanalytic theory of pseudonyms to Alice Sheldon’s multiple personas and how her stories represented her desire to be someone else who could explore topics that she herself could not. With this