AskEssays.com - Discover essay samples

Dead White Males Essay

4.9 of 5.0 (192 reviews)

Contains
691 words
Category
Other

Dead White Males Essay Page 1
Dead White Males Essay Page 2
The above thumbnails are of reduced quality. To view the work in full quality, click download.

Dead White Males Essay


Title: Dead White Males Essay

Author: Annonymous

Rating: Rate this Paper





Dead White Males Essay Q1. The two opposing ideologies in this play are liberal humanism and post-structuralism. How are they represented? How does the play operate to position the audience to finally prefer one above the other? Dead White Males is a play about a sexually deprived lecturer, Dr Grant Swain, who attempts and almost succeeds in bedding one of his students, Angela Judd, by utilising his position in the university, and by imbuing his views upon his students. Alongside this plot is the conflict between two ideologies, liberal humanism and post-structuralism. Angela, the main character of the play is compelled to make a choice between post-structuralism represented by Dr Swain, and liberal humanism, (Shakespeare), who is constantly opposed and criticised by Swain. By the end of act one it is quite obvious who the villain of this play is. In the opening scene the villain first shows his destructive nature through his unnecessary violence. "ANGELA How is it that you know so much about us? [SHAKESPEARE is just about to answer when a MAN in his thirties, dressed in fashionable casual clothes appears behind him.] MAN He doesn't you know. [The MAN pulls out a pistol and shoots SHAKESPEARE dead. ANGELA looks at the MAN, horrified]" (Pp 1) The man in this scene is of course Dr Grant Swain, and his dramatic entrance encourages us to dislike him, because we feel it is wrong to shoot people for no apparent reason. Swain appears to us the villain, due to his unmistakable character, for, aside from his violent episodes, we find that he is interested in only one thing. Sex. He tries to hit on Angela, but she declines his offer. After Melissa accepts his offer of dinner later on, he quickly and conveniently loses interest in Angela making it obvious that he was concerned with only one thing. Another quality we disfavour him for is his over-confidence. From the beginning of the play, when introducing himself and his course, he is "animated by the intense certainty that he has a supremely important message to communicate and is enormously well equipped to deliver it." Swain endeavours to shoot Shakespeare several times, and although this is only in Angela's imagination, we are positioned to agree with Angela's attitude towards Swain because she is one of the sympathetic characters. The audience sees Angela as one of the "good guys". She is a sympathetic character, and her circumstances as well as her attributes position us to see her as such. Sympathy is evoked for her: 1. Because she seems naive, and readily falls prey to Swain's way of thinking 2. Because she is a victim of the villain 3. She has been deprived of the nurturing her mother should have provided 4. Because she has suffered through her childhood as a result of her parents' "happy marriage" 5. When she is embarrassed in front of Steve Also she defends Col, and takes on the rest of the family. In doing so she becomes a sort of heroine, defending the helpless and upholding the truth, and this positions us to like her character even more. The warring ideologies in this play are represented not only as favourable and unfavourable in this play, but also by certain characters. By establishing who are the "good guys" and who are the "bad guys", the representation of the characters' respective ideologies are also determined. Post-structuralism is without doubt the unfavourable ideology in this play. This is simply because it is expended through the villain of the play. Even though Angela admits that she 'think(s) there is some truth in what he (Swain) says' (Pp 80) the fact that Swain subscribes to post-structuralism still conquers, causing post-structuralism to seem as flimsy as its subscriber does. Even when Angela reprimands Shakespeare for his disgraceful casting of women, liberal humanism still holds its approval above post-structuralism, as Shakespeare asks to be wished back to an era of sanity, implying that Angela's views are insane. Because post-structuralism is the unfavoured ideology, ...

You are currently seeing 50% of this paper.

You're seeing 691 words of 1381.

Keywords: dead white european males, dead white males, dead white man, dead white males meaning

Similar essays


Land of canada

Landscape and Memory The purity of our cities; the sanitary; the unpolluted air and environment. These are some of the things we take for granted. Things people around the world, in different countries would love to see and feel. Our air is fresh, clean and odorless, not humid like some of the warmer regions around the world. Brazil, South...

91 reviews
Download
Sci fi gibberish or a glance a

Sci-fi gibberish or a glance a Science fiction: gibberish or a glance at oneself? Since the very rudiment of mankind humans have dreamed? Dreamed of understanding nature's phenomena, dreamed of finding out the secrets of the infinite universe and dreamed of perception of their own place in its vast continuity. These dreams, passed orally...

133 reviews
Download
Business a case study

Business - a case study Raising Funds An ongoing problem with most research facilities around the globe is funding. Now that Vertoxin has been discovered, the next step is to get it onto pharmacy shelves across North America. In order to do this Dr. Lingwood and his research team must put the drug through three stages of testing in livi...

21 reviews
Download
First Saw I Ever Saw

Have you ever walked out in your backyard and heard the faint buzz of a chain saw in the distance, or passed a truck caring a load of logs on the interstate? Chances are that you have considering that wood is most commonly used building material of today's society. But have you ever given any thought to how or where the ability to gather such...

92 reviews
Download
The fbi

Federal bureau investigation, the FBI, is considered the strongest police agency in the United States because it has control over other police agencies around the states. The FBI as a police agency has its pluses and minuses; therefore, looking for searching for serial killers and control other police agencies are some of its pluses. In the oth...

45 reviews
Download
Air Bags

Airbags Crash! Your car just smashed into the car right in front of you at a speed of 35 mph. The whole front of your car is smashed but luckily your head isn't, thanks to the airbag deploying. This scenario happened over 2.9 million times through August, 1998. Airbags significantly reduce the risk of being killed in a crash. The risk o...

45 reviews
Download
Dave and Busters Inc

The need among Americans to be diverted in ever more imaginative ways -- through high-thrill parks, virtual reality arcades, and theme restaurants, plays right into the hands of Dave Corriveau and Buster Corley, co-founders and CEO's of Dave and Busters. The duo's 50,000 square foot complexes include pool hall, an eye popping, cutting edge mid...

206 reviews
Download
Stereotyping The Followers Of

Islam The movie, Not Without My Daughter, begins when the family of Mahmoody, Mahtob, and Betty were visiting with the grandparents of Mahtob. Mahmoody, who is Muslim, decides to take his young family to Iran. He swears on the sacred Coran that nothing bad will happen to them. As it turns out, Iran had just finished their revolution and had gone ba...

157 reviews
Download
The Lottery

: Challenges to Social Order The rigid structure of society reinforces order and promotes conformity of all classes TO THE SOCIAL NORM, but an individual WHO REBELS AGAINST established NORMS poses a threat TO SOCIETY AT THE COMMUNITY LEVEL. Shirley Jackson, the author of , conveys original thinking, which could lead to rebellious impul...

70 reviews
Download
Canadian Mosaic - The Policy B

Title: ehind the pieces Canada has long been called "The Mosaic", due to the fact that it is made up of a varied mix of races, cultures and ethnicities. As more and more immigrants come to Canada searching for a better life, the population naturally becomes more diverse. This has, in turn, spun a great debate over multiculturalism. Some of the iss...

56 reviews
Download
Working together

II. Introduction An historic example of team effort gone away. In that legendary story, a few key events transformed Camelot from a utopian kingdom into a wasteland. This isn?t just idle meandering. There are corporate Camelots, too, suggests Steven Rayner (6) -- those companies that started with such promise and fell victim to problems in th...

165 reviews
Download
What is phreaking exactly

This file was just to be a short set of definitions for those of you who don't know all the phreaking terms. This was requested by a few people on a small 312 board called The Magnetic Field Elite (312-966-0708, call, board has potential) like The Don. But I have decided against making this small file that is common in many places...

103 reviews
Download
The chrysanthemums

The Chrysanthemums The Chrysanthemums is a story that takes place in the Salinas Valley of California. The story\\\'s main character is Elisa Allen. Elisa is thirty-five years old. She is a character that goes through development and many changes in the story. Through out the story Elisa Allen goes through both physical and mental...

183 reviews
Download
Combined Sewer Overflows In The Boston Area

At the turn of the century, Boston had one of the most advanced sewer systems in the country. Through decades of neglect and a failure to truly update the system until the 1980's, the pollution in Boston Harbor became so bad that the harbor became a national embarrassment. The two sewer treatment plants in Boston Harbor were only equipped for pri...

208 reviews
Download
Atsisiųsti šį darbą