The American Dream is a play written by
Edward Albee set in the 1960s. The play would fall under the category of absurd
theater in many ways. His tone would come off as sarcastic and very
repetitious.
The characters of the play The American
dream are all very different. There is Mommy who we see as the power or head of
the family and Daddy who has been emasculated and Grandma who gives off a
feminine and a masculine charm and Mrs. Barker who is a proper lady standing
for more then what she really is and finally the Young Man who is the American
dream. Each character very different but playing a role in the theme
emasculation.
There is one part of the play that really
stood out to me as being important. When Grandma is telling Mrs. Barker about
the bumble that Mommy and Daddy used to have,
“GRANDMA: Then it turned out it only had
eyes for Daddy. MRS. BARKER: For its Daddy! Why, any self-respecting woman
would have gouged those eyes right out of its head. GRANDMA: Well, she did.
That's exactly what she did.”
This quote is talking about the bumble having liking Daddy instead of who most
little boys like, Mommy. This quote also refers to how that action and those
feelings are unacceptable for the bumble to feel.
You've still got some work to do here, Emily. Reread the assignment sheet and think about how you can expand your discussion of theme, character, symbolism, plot, and literary elements especially, and then choose some quotes that are short and easy to memorize and that point to theme and add these, along with explanations of their significance. You might want to have a look at Daphine Zhao's post on this topic for some ideas. =)
ReplyDeleteI like your comment on how every character plays a role in the theme of emasculation, but I recommend reorganizing this in a way that so that it is easy to reference certain topics. I wrote mine in paragraph form and it is hard to find some of the topics. I think that you could stand to have more commentary on imagery, theme, symbols, and tone. This way for the AP exam if you write about this book you will be able to draw some examples from you summary to use in an essay.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Ms. Holmes and Caroline here. I agree that you could expand more on the theme, plot, symbolism, and character description. Though, I like how you talked about the theme of emasculation and how the quote shows how Daddy is more like a Mommy, since the child preferred him, as well as how it's unacceptable for a child to feel that way in society.
ReplyDeleteGood job on what you have, but it's somewhat incomplete, as Ms. Holmes pointed out. I like how you picked out one characteristic of each characters in your summary. It really simplifies the characters and helps you study quickly and efficiently. Just make sure you remember the other details too.
ReplyDelete