Settings - DOAS and Keats Flashcards
Initial set design
“aware of towering angular shapes” “blue light”
- creates a harsh claustrophobic environment, - causing discomfort of the audience,
- sense of animosity
- heightened emotions for all america amidst the great depression and post dust ball - lack of help provided
- a modern tragedy
- sharp imagery correlates to its intensity/ overwhelming nature
- set design - supposed to replicate urbanisation & Miller’s manifestation of capitalism (marxism), tragedy strikes in Willy’s own home
home + Lighting + music in initial set design
“fragile seeming home”; Willy’s fragile mind + “shows an angry glow of orange”
- Non-diegetic, moody, angry, harsh; pathetic fallacy, Willy is angry and all over the place
- ptsd from being overworked and underpaid has caused fragments of his mind to destroy him, the harsh set replicates this (marxism)
“the flute plays on” - non-digestic - still holding on to dream
The dream
“An air of the dream clings to the place, a dream rising out of reality” ;
- half finished, ethereal, uncomfortable ambience, almost clinical
- Willy’s mind infiltrating real-life, his flashbacks and mood swings, not a full house as a lot of the play takes place in the past
- perhaps his dream to change the past?
- he is past retirement age as a result of the great depression, putting him in a depression himself (marxism); tragedy so the audience feel the sense that all is not okay and things are about to get worse + taking us out of reality and into Willy’s head
Howard’s office
“Small typewriter table” “wire-recording machine” - Care more about item than willy - specific props significant here - links to consumerism
“Wire recorder” - repeated focus on this - impact of capitalism and shows how workers are disposable
“Howard’s exit, the light grows very bright and strange” →ominous and mood affected
“machine … continues nasally, childishly” “Pointing at the machine … childishly” “shut it off!” → not used to the materialistic change in society; hasn’t been able to keep up with it
“Pulling the plug out” →symbolic; end to something? Willy?
“Pushing the table off left” →this brechtian/ realism combined with expressionist techniques creates a sense of disorder in the play - emphasising willy’s chaotic mind
- technique of the actors moving the set helps to emphasise the harsh reality ; moving into the past - epic theatre often used for
- Capitalism + marxism -> consumerism is more important than people
- switch to “ben’s music”
lily - la belle dam
Pastoral setting: “I see a lily on thy brow”; lily is symbolic of funerals and death
- foreshadows tragedy + death in nature (ecocriticism); implicitly feminine (feminism)
lake
squirel
harvest - la belle dam
“The sedge has withered from the lake”; pathetic fallacy, autumnal +
- “The squirrel’s granary is full” - references to hibernation
- “the harvest is done” metaphor for feeding, gathering, hunting
- Again nods to death in nature, plants seeds of tragedy,
- La Belle lives from nature, animalistic, gathers “victims” like food, predator (feminism); provokes pathos; death-
- setting up tragedy - isolated - suffering pity
- knight’s weakness is a beautiful women - men perceive women as sexual trophy’s so power women have to exploit men - she makes him not the hero of his own story - stripped him of his agency
birds - la belle dam
“No birds sing”-
- isolation, lifeless
- repeated at end of poem - this is where he going to die, cyclical structure - inescapable/inevitable tragedy, “No birds sing”- silence, he is dead but not at peace
cold hill’s side - la belle dam
“Cold Hill’s side”; pathetic fallacy, shift from autumnal to wintery, “side” suggests she cast HIM aside, REPEATED - placing emphasis on the brutality & cruelty of La Belle (as tragic villain)
- Left there to die (feminism) (subversion of trope), disposed, brutal side to nature (ecocriticism), tragedy kicks in, evokes pathos -
Eve of St Agnes - Winter setting (innitial)
“bitter chill”, “a-cold” “hare limp’d trembling … frozen grass” - pathetic fallacy; ecocritism –> cold dark, isolated winter - ominous
Eve of St Agnes - chapel
“slow degrees”, “freeze”, “emprison’d in black, purgatorial rails” - gothic setting; metaphor can’t move on? puntuation/ caesura slows pace
Eve of St Agnes - home of madeline / party
“silver, snarling trumpets” - sibilant, impies riches + aggression - aggressive zoomorphism
- shift in pace - quicker rising action
“languid moon” “pallid moonshine” - motif of death - pathetic fallacy - gothic
“dusky gallery” - sensuous
eve of st agnes - madeline bedroom
“maiden’s chamber, silken, hush’d, and chaste” - virginal, bedroom personified - extension of Madeline
eve of st agnes- expansive setting
“plume, tiara, and all rich array” - rich - contrast to man
“broad half-pillar” - expansive setting
- high gothic language - marxist vast wealth
“lustrous salvers” “moonlight gleam” “golden fringe” - image of light and ostentatious sense of wealth - enchanted
la belle dam - motif of what repeats
the moon
- “languid”
- “palid”
- “faded”
“the faded moon / Made a dim, silver twilight soft he set / a table” - intimacy, darkening, fanatical
- A full moon is also a popular motif in Gothic literature. It symbolizes a mysterious mood, and it also is a popular source of light in Gothic literature. - represents madeline
la belle dam - near end - party has ended
“The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion, The kettle-drum” - etc
“all the noise is gone” - party ended
