Chekhov’s motives in “Heartbreak House” (“ A Fantasia in the Russian Manner of English Themes”)

Which Chekhov’s play is similar to “Heartbreak House” due to its conflict, system of characters and atmosphere? Reread this play to prove the similarities.

 

John Osborne “Look Back in Anger”

 

English drama after the World War II

“Angry Young Men”

Image of Jimmy Porter in “Look Back in Anger”

P. Rogers about John Osborne: “In Look Back In Anger he touched the nerve of the time”. Comment.

Language of the play

 

Samuel Beckett “Waiting for Godot”

Theatre of Absurd: pure philosophy on the stage

Stylistic peculiarities of the Theatre of Absurd

“Waiting for Godot”

· What is unusual and symbolic about the scenery used in the play?

· What is the significance of the moments of silence in the play?

· Compare and contrast the roles of Pozzo/Lucky and Vladimir/Estragon.

· What is the significance of Lucky’s speech and philosophy?

· What does Vladimir mean when he says “What is terrible is to have thought”?

· What is the significance of Pozzo’s blindness and Lucky’s muteness in Act II?

· Beckett’s “world view.”

· Discuss characteristics of “theatre of the absurd.”

· Support the idea that Waiting for Godot is a play based on Christian themes, or support the idea that the play is an anti-Christian play.

· Who is Godot?

 

References and Bibliography

1. New drama in the early 20th century

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/n/new-drama-in-the-early-20th-century/

2. Dietrich R. F. From British and Irish Drama 1890 to 1950: A Critical History

http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~dietrich/britishdrama1.htm#NewDrama

3. Kruse A. Bernard Shaw's Heartbreak House: The War in 'Neverland'

http://ojs-prod.library.usyd.edu.au/index.php/SSE/article/view/440/414

4. Angry Young Men // Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/themes/95/95563.html

5. Navratiolva E. The Absurdity of Samuel Beckett

http://www.samuel-beckett.net/Absurdity.htm

6. From Beckett to Stoppard: Existentialism, Death, and Absurdity

http://home.sprintmail.com/~lifeform/beckstop.html

 

“Heartbreak House”

Extract for discussing

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. A man's interest in the world is only the overflow from his interest in himself. When you are a child your vessel is not yet full; so you care for nothing but your own affairs. When you grow up, your vessel overflows; and you are a politician, a philosopher, or an explorer and adventurer. In old age the vessel dries up: there is no overflow: you are a child again. I can give you the memories of my ancient wisdom: mere scraps and leavings; but I no longer really care for anything but my own little wants and hobbies. I sit here working out my old ideas as a means of destroying my fellow-creatures. I see my daughters and their men living foolish lives of romance and sentiment and snobbery. I see you, the younger generation, turning from their romance and sentiment and snobbery to money and comfort and hard common sense. I was ten times happier on the bridge in the typhoon, or frozen into Arctic ice for months in darkness, than you or they have ever been. You are looking for a rich husband. At your age I looked for hardship, danger, horror, and death, that I might feel the life in me more intensely. I did not let the fear of death govern my life; and my reward was, I had my life. You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life; and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.

ELLIE [sitting up impatiently]. But what can I do? I am not a sea captain: I can't stand on bridges in typhoons, or go slaughtering seals and whales in Greenland's icy mountains. They won't let women be captains. Do you want me to be a stewardess?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There are worse lives. The stewardesses could come ashore if they liked; but they sail and sail and sail.

ELLIE. What could they do ashore but marry for money? I don't want to be a stewardess: I am too bad a sailor. Think of something else for me.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I can't think so long and continuously. I am too old. I must go in and out. [He tries to rise].

ELLIE [pulling him back]. You shall not. You are happy here, aren't you?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I tell you it's dangerous to keep me. I can't keep awake and alert.

ELLIE. What do you run away for? To sleep?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. To get a glass of rum.

ELLIE [frightfully disillusioned]. Is that it? How disgusting! Do you like being drunk?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No: I dread being drunk more than anything in the world. To be drunk means to have dreams; to go soft; to be easily pleased and deceived; to fall into the clutches of women. Drink does that for you when you are young. But when you are old: very very old, like me, the dreams come by themselves. You don't know how terrible that is: you are young: you sleep at night only, and sleep soundly. But later on you will sleep in the afternoon. Later still you will sleep even in the morning; and you will awake tired, tired of life. You will never be free from dozing and dreams; the dreams will steal upon your work every ten minutes unless you can awaken yourself with rum. I drink now to keep sober; but the dreams are conquering: rum is not what it was: I have had ten glasses since you came; and it might be so much water. Go get me another: Guinness knows where it is. You had better see for yourself the horror of an old man drinking.

ELLIE. You shall not drink. Dream. I like you to dream. You must never be in the real world when we talk together.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I am too weary to resist, or too weak. I am in my second childhood. I do not see you as you really are. I can't remember what I really am. I feel nothing but the accursed happiness I have dreaded all my life long: the happiness that comes as life goes, the happiness of yielding and dreaming instead of resisting and doing, the sweetness of the fruit that is going rotten.

ELLIE. You dread it almost as much as I used to dread losing my dreams and having to fight and do things. But that is all over for me: my dreams are dashed to pieces. I should like to marry a very old, very rich man. I should like to marry you. I had much rather marry you than marry Mangan. Are you very rich?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. Living from hand to mouth. And I have a wife somewhere in Jamaica: a black one. My first wife. Unless she's dead.

ELLIE. What a pity! I feel so happy with you. [She takes his hand, almost unconsciously, and pats it]. I thought I should never feel happy again.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why?

ELLIE. Don't you know?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No.

ELLIE. Heartbreak. I fell in love with Hector, and didn't know he was married.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Heartbreak? Are you one of those who are so sufficient to themselves that they are only happy when they are stripped of everything, even of hope?

ELLIE [gripping the hand]. It seems so; for I feel now as if there was nothing I could not do, because I want nothing.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That's the only real strength. That's genius. That's better than rum.

ELLIE [throwing away his hand]. Rum! Why did you spoil it?

 

“Look Back in Anger”

Comment on the following quotes:

1. "If you could have a child, and it would die...if only I could watch you face that."

Если бы у тебя появился ребенок, а потом умер. Пусть бы он рос, пусть бы из этой морщинистой массы оформилось человекообразное лицо… Как бы я хотел видеть, как ты это переживешь. Быть может, тогда ты сама обретешь лицо. Но сомневаюсь.

2. "Oh heavens, how I long for a little ordinary human enthusiasm. Just enthusiasm -- that's all. I want to hear a warm, thrilling voice cry out Hallelujah!...Hallelujah! I ' m alive!"

Боже мой, как хочется хоть какого-то душевного подъема, хоть совсем немного. Просто услышать теплый, проникновенный голос — «Господи!» (Театральным жестом бьет себя в грудь.) «Господи! Я живой!»

3. "If you've no world of your own, it's rather pleasant to regret the passing of someone else's. I must be getting sentimental. But I must say it's pretty dreary living in the American Age -- unless you're an American of course."

Если нет своего мира, то неплохо пожалеть о чужом, пусть ушедшем. Видимо, я становлюсь сентиментальным. Но должен сказать, что в американский век довольно скучно жить, если ты сам не американец, разумеется.

4. "It's what he would call a question of allegiances, and he expects you to be pretty literal about them. Not only about himself and all the things he believes in, his present and his future, but his past as well."

Джимми называет это принципом преданности и требует его точного соблюдения. Преданности не только по отношению к нему и его убеждениям, к его настоящему и будущему, но еще и к его прошлому.

5. "Jimmy went into battle with his axe swinging round his head -- frail, and so full of fire. I had never seen anything like it. The old story of the knight in shining armour (sic) -- except that his armour didn't really shine very much."

Джимми ринулся в бой, размахивая топором, — такой хрупкий и полный огня. Я никогда не видала ничего подобного. Он словно вышел из старой сказки о рыцаре в сверкающих латах. Правда, латы его не так уж сверкали.

6. "One day, when I'm not longer spending my days running a sweet-stall, I may write a book about us all....It'll be recollected in fire, and blood. My blood."

Когда - нибудь я наплюю на торговлю в киоске и напишу про всех нас книгу… Она будет воспалять мозг и кровь. Это будет моя кровь.

7. "Why, why, why, why do we let these women bleed us to death?"

Но почему, почему, почему мы позволяем женщинам пить нашу кровь?

8. "I suppose people of our generation aren't able to die for good causes any longer. We had all that done for us, in the thirties and the forties, when we were still kids.... There aren't any good, brave causes left."

Я думаю, что люди нашего поколения не сумеют умереть во имя благородных целей. Все возможное уже сделано в тридцатые и сороковые годы, когда мы были еще детьми… Да и не осталось их больше, благородных целей.

9. "There are cruel steel traps lying about everywhere, just waiting for rather mad, slightly satanic, and very timid little animals."

Всюду расставлены коварные капканы, подстерегающие немного сумасшедших, немного кусачих и очень робких зверушек.

“Waiting for Godot”

“Waiting for Godot” may seem a quintessence of philosophical thoughts on different subjects. Try to find these subjects for the proposed quotes.

Example:

ESTRAGON. I'm going. (He does not move)

Possible subjects: inability of making a choice; divergence of words and actions

Quote #1

ESTRAGON What did we do yesterday?
VLADIMIR What did we do yesterday?
ESTRAGON Yes.
VLADIMIR Why... (Angrily.) Nothing is certain when you're about.
ESTRAGON In my opinion we were here.
VLADIMIR (looking round) You recognize the place?
ESTRAGON I didn't say that.
VLADIMIR Well?
ESTRAGON That makes no difference.

 

Quote #2

VLADIMIR There's man all over for you, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet.

Quote #3

A dog came in the kitchen
And stole a crust of bread.
Then cook up with a ladle
And beat him till he was dead.
Then all the dogs came running
And dug the dog a tomb–
He stops, broods, resumes:
Then all the dogs came running
And dug the dog a tomb
And wrote upon the tombstone
For the eyes of dogs to come:
A dog came in the kitchen…

 

Quote #4

ESTRAGON What exactly did we ask him [Godot] for?
VLADIMIR Were you not there?
ESTRAGON I can't have been listening.
VLADIMIR Oh... Nothing very definite.
ESTRAGON A kind of prayer.
VLADIMIR Precisely.
ESTRAGON A vague supplication.

 

Quote #5

ESTRAGON (feebly) Help me!
VLADIMIR It hurts?
ESTRAGON (angrily) Hurts! He wants to know if it hurts!
VLADIMIR (angrily) No one ever suffers but you. I don't count. I'd like to hear what you'd say if you had what I have.
ESTRAGON It hurts?
VLADIMIR (angrily) Hurts! He wants to know if it hurts!

Quote #6

ESTRAGON Charming spot. (He turns, advances to front, halts facing auditorium.) Inspiring prospects. (He turns to Vladimir.)Let's go.
VLADIMIR We can't.
ESTRAGON Why not?
VLADIMIR We're waiting for Godot.
ESTRAGON (despairingly) Ah!

 

Extra task*

Compare Chekhov’s play “The Cherry Orchard” and Shaw’s “Heartbreak House”