Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Ex-Pats and Manners: The Rover and The Sun Also Rises?

So, after I either found or imagined a few similarities between this play and The Sun Also Rises I couldn't help but look for more, whether this search was warranted or not I don't know. Some examples: obviously the ex-patriotism in both plays; also, Blunt's introduction to Willmore where Blunt is described as "one of us," a phrase often used by Lady Brett in S.A.R. when one character is introduced to another in the ex-pat scene; Blunt's similarity to Robert Cohen as both foolish, ignorant of the social code, and actually not 'one of us'; the pre-Lenten carnival of The Rover and the Festival de San Fermin in S.A.R.; the androgyny of Lady Brett and the transvestism of Hellena; and finally, the phallic dismemberment metaphors of the various sword comparisons and losses in The Rover with the actual phallic dismemberment of Jake in S.A.R... Pomplona, wars or conflicts of the past that help inform us of someones present character, the list goes on. Anyway, does all of this amount to nothing? Could we read S.A.R. as somehow informed by The Rover... maybe indirectly? Also, would it make sense to read The Rover as a play of manners particularly concerned with the social codes of ex-patriotism surrounding the exile of royalists?

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