Tom Stoppard's 'Arcadia'

Paper Summary:

This paper details Tom Stoppard's play, "Arcadia", and offers complete analysis of the characters and their relationships with one another. The way Stoppard provides social commentary, through his skillful juxtaposition of two different centuries within the same play and through the development of the characters in those centuries, is described and analyzed as well.

From the Paper:

"Gracefully gliding between two different centuries, Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia" brilliantly juxtaposes two sets of characters on the same set, the English estate of Sidley Park. The play traces two separate generations of the Coverly family and the interactions of odd scholars, ridiculous researchers, and "wannabe" authors. The most interesting relationships within Stoppard's play the gentle one between Thomasina and Septimus and the considerably more acrimonious one between Hannah and Bernard-- illustrate most of the social commentary the work is known for. Stoppard succeeds in developing platonic relationships-- disrupted by natural curiosity and universal truth-- against a poignant sense of a paradise doomed."

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