Identity in Trying to Find Chinatown and Death of a Salesman Essay

Identity in Trying to Find Chinatown and Death of a Salesman - Essay Example Reflecting about his desperate situation, his wife Linda informs: â€Å"Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him† (Miller). His material failure as salesman has a negative impact on his own life but also on his relationship with his family. However, instead of confronting his problems and trying to resolve them, he gets angry at his family and denies the love they have for him. Talking about his son Biff, he claims: â€Å"How can he find himself on a farm? Is that a life? A farmhand? In the beginning, when he was young, I thought, well, a young man, it’s good for him to tramp around, take a lot of different jobs. But it’s more than ten years now and he has yet to make thirty-five dollars a week!† (Miller) This lack of satisfaction about his son reflects his own insecurities he attempts to cover up. Des pite their similarities in treating identity issues, the two plays use different approaches. Indeed, Hwang’s play foregrounds the importance of family ties and the recognition of roots. Even though his is white, Benjamin values the Asian background of his adopted parents and proudly claims his ethnicity. His presence in New York in an attempt to pay homage to his deceased father at latter’s birth place reflects his deep understanding of family values and gratefulness to his adopted parents. He reflects: â€Å"And when I finally saw the number 13, I nearly wept at my good fortune. An old tenement, paint peeling, inside walls no doubt thick with a century of grease and broken dreams—and yet, to me, a temple—the house where my father was born†(Hwang). This pilgrimage... Identity in â€Å"Trying to Find Chinatown† and â€Å"Death of a Salesman† David Henry Hwang’s play raises a crucial issue of identity that stems from the different perspective that his two protagonists have about what it means to be Asian American. Indeed, Benjamin and Ronnie’s arguments about identity pose the problem about culture and ethnicity. When Ronnie questions Benjamin’s Asian roots he only takes into consideration his racial identity as a white man but ignores his ethnic background as the adopted child of Asian parents: â€Å"I don’t know what kind of bullshit ethnic studies program they’re running over in Wisconsin, but did they teach you that in order to find your Asian ‘roots,’ it’s good idea first to be Asian? (Hwang) Ronnie denies Benjamin’s Asian roots based on the color of his skin and does not take into consideration his parents’ ethnic background. This denial hurts Benjamin who deeply feels Asian and faces rejection because of his physical traits. He complains: â€Å" I forget that a society wedded to racial constructs constantly forces me to explain my very existence† (Hwang). This painful observation expresses the plight Benjamin has to undergo in a society that judges people according to their racial identity. Even though both authors portray the same issue, they employ different approaches that foreground the conflict between culture and ethnicity but also the lack of self-realization. The setting of the plays participates in providing more understanding and identifying the tragic and comic heroes.

Film Analysis - The Truman Show Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Film Analysis - The Truman Show - Essay Example These different stages in the story of a drama are organized in to a sequence by the construction of certain devises called as ‘narrative’.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  It is the narrative that defines a story in terms of space and time. It also decides and structures the dramatic elements and the events of the story. The narrative can also manipulate the awareness of audience by using a series of â€Å"co-creative techniques† such as â€Å"flashbacks, replays of action, slow motion, speeding up, jumping between places and times for constructing the story world for specific effects† (Schmidt 2011). There exist some theories that govern the narrative that share some links with the theories of drama. Both the narrative and the drama draw their theories from Aristotle’s â€Å"Poetics†, where he explains that topics such as â€Å"character, plot, beginnings and endings, poetic justice, and the goals of representation, are as re levant to narrative theory as to a poetics of drama†. In the modern times, however, most theorists follow the view of Roland Barthes who stated that â€Å"narrative is present in myth, legend, fable, tale, novella, epic, history, tragedy, drama, comedy, mime, painting [think of Carpaccio's Saint Ursula], stained glass windows, cinema, comics, news item, conversation" (Richardson  2012).  Ã‚  Ã‚   Though there are similarities in the literary and filmic narratives, there exist diverse dissimilarities when the narrative strategy is articulated through the medium of films. Since films use various cinematographic modes for the aesthetic expression of narrative, the concept of generalization that rules a dramatic film and a literary text gets obscured. The filmic... This study is an analysis of a drama film, â€Å"The Truman Show† and the narrative constructed in it. "The Truman Show" (1998) is an American drama film directed by Peter SWeir and written by Andrew M. Niccol. The film has a voyeuristic setting that allows its viewers to gaze upon the everyday life of Truman. A few close-up shots of the producers and the main characters of the Show provide an insight as well as the base for the main plot of the film, which is Truman's life. The time marker and the show credits are inserted in the Show while allowing the show viewers to watch their star Truman. Thus, the filmic audiences are provided with a 'window within a window' style of spectatorship. For instance, Truman is being gazed by the hidden camera in Meryl's necklace; his neighbors, friends and colleagues; the actors on the set; the production crew; the 'global' audience members of the television show on the film set; the real film spectators in the theaters; and finally the gaze effected by the subjectivity and reflexivity of the narrative text. Reality is a perception created by the temporal and spatial continuum. A successive and mutual blending of images gives these images a chronological function. In this film, the representation of reality is done not by the conventional integration or dissociation of time and space and image and sound. The subject of the show, Truman’s life, is a continuum in the electronic space, for the broadcast viewers. Truman's life, like any theater performance, is a staged performance by a group of artists who plays their roles to perfection.