Drama

Drama vs. Other Types of Literature

Drama is very different from other types of literature such as essays, short stories, biographies, or speech because of the way it is presented, read, its way of portraying things, and much more. First of all, drama is usually meant to be performed. Plays are written like scripts, this includes directions and the order of when people say things. Because it is written like a script and there isn’t a narrator narrating the play throughout, we aren’t really aware of the inner feelings a character may be expressing or there body language and facial expressions. But,in other literature such as novels, the narrator will say what a character is feeling and thinking, if not, the narrator will usually describe a person’s body language or facial expressions.  With plays, we are not given that, so acting it out and performing it helps a lot because we are able to visually see body language, behaviour, and facial expressions. Also, scenes are usually introduced and ended by the entrance and exit of characters. Furthermore,  plays traditionally have five acts: an intro, rising action, a turning point, falling action, and a conclusion/catastrophe. However, with novels or short stories, there are seven elements of fiction: setting, character, conflict, point of view, plot, suspense, and theme. In this way, you can see that the structure of the two are pretty different. Shakespeare’s plays are categorized into three categories: histories, comedies, and tragedies. The comedies all have a happy ending, while the tragedies all end in deaths and the main character of a tragedy will usually fall and in some way redeem himself but not all the way back up to where they had started.

The Life of Shakespeare

Because Shakespeare’s life is not very well known, here is a fun video that talks about Shakespeare’s life and work.  

                   

Analyzation of a section of text from the Scottish Play:

(1.5.37-53)

Lady Macbeth: The raven himself is hoarse/ That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan/ under my battlements. Come, you spirits/ That tend on mortal thoughts! unsex me here,/ And fill me from the crown to the toe top full/ Of direst cruelity; make thick my blood,/ Stop up the access and passage to remorse,/ That no compunctious visitings of nature/ Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between/ The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,/ And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,/ Wherever in you sightless substances/ You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night,/ And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,/ Nor heaven peep throught the blanket of the dark,/ To cry , “Hold, Hold!”

In this passage, Lady Macbeth prepares herself for the ultimate deed, killing Duncan, the King of Scotland. In line 15, the raven symbolizes death and usually croaks to forbode death. So by saying the raven himself is hoarse, it means that the raven can’t forbode Duncan’s death and that his death will happen. “Come, you spirits/ That tend on mortal thoughts! unsex me here,/ And fill me from the crown to the toe top full/ Of direst cruelity; make thick my blood,/ Stop up the access and passage to remorse,/” In these lines, Lady Macbeth calls upon the evil spirits to unsex her, so to make her a man so that she will be able to perform the deed. She also asks the evil spirits to fill her body with cruelty, make her blood thick, and stop up the access and passage to remorse, meaning to relieve her of the guilt she will feel when she and Macbeth have killed Duncan.  In lines 44-45, Lady Macbeth asks the evil spirits to make her forget her of her morals so that her usual ethical self will not make her come to her senses, forcing her to be unable to murder Duncan. Throughout the rest of the passage, Lady Macbeth asks the dark night to come so that heaven cannot peek through and see the murderous deed she has planned and  will fulfill. 

WORKS CITED

Images courtesy of Photobucket

“Drama.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 14 June 2012. Web. 15 June 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drama&gt;.