Malice as entertainment
"Malice," "Malicious" and other forms of the word are used frequently in "Man of Mode," sometimes in ways that suggest the fun of being malicious. Is this an amoral world that delights in malice, and if so, is it in any way "redeemed" by the end of the play? (I'm thinking of Dorimant's surprising kindness to the women he's thrown over.)
Self-Analysis
The characters take self-conscious pains to scrutinize their own and everyone else's behavior, going so far as to describe and enact gestural minutia. Does this tendency to "tell, not show" or to "narrate the action" seem like an effective use of a medium (the theater) that exists as a world of show? What does it show us beyond the "manners" being satirized?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment