Bertolt Brecht's 'The Good Woman of Setzuan' portrays the struggle to be good while living in a corrupt society and the delicate balance needed to survive within it.
Abstract An analysis of Bertolt Brecht's play 'The Good Woman of Setzuan'. Throughout the play Shen Te juggles her promise to be good with the necessity to be bad. The author finds through the protagonist and the creation of her doppelganger, 'The Good Woman of Setzuan' portrays the struggle to be good while living in a corrupt society, and the delicate balance needed to survive within it as seen in Shen Te's struggle as a good woman leading the life of a prostitute.
From the Paper "Shen Te, a good woman, a prostitute, and the only one willing to take three gods into her home is rewarded with 1000 silver dollars, with which she is to "above all be good"(712). This mission tears her in two. Shen Te and her doppelganger Shui Ta are in a delicate balance of power. Shen Te needs to keep her promise to the gods by being a good woman, helping those around her in need. Because Shen Te is too good, those she helps threaten to ruin her own survival. To remain a good woman Shen Te must create someone to fight for her. Like parents, both Shui Ta and Shen Te make up the whole of one unit. Shen Te is a nurturing, sweet mother-type while Shui Ta becomes a strict, disciplinarian, father-type. Through the protagonist and the creation of her doppelganger, Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan portrays the struggle to be good while living in a corrupt society, and the delicate balance needed to survive within it."
This paper discusses the Doppelganger, a sinister double of legend, and its use as a literary device by focusing on Robert Louis Stevenson's short novel "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and Fyodor Dostoevsky's short novel "The Double".
1,575 words (approx. 6.3 pages), 5 sources, 1981, $ 55.95
From the Paper Robert Louis Stevenson's short novel "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and Fyodor Dostoevsky's short novel "The Double" both involve the theme of the double, the alternative personality within each of us that in these two novels emerges as a separate entity. Stevenson is interested in the dual nature of the human soul and in why the opposing natures of good and evil are intermixed, while Dostoevsky utilizes the double as external evidence of the pathological nature of the main character. Both writers draw on the tradition of the Doppelg?nger, the sinister double of legend and literature.
Stevenson presents the difference between Jekyll and Hyde in several ways. One of these is in terms of freedom versus restraint, with Hyde having complete freedom because he is bound by no civilizing emotions or strictures."
Abstract Hitchcock employs many of the thematic and cinematic elements of earlier film genres; in particular that of German Expressionism. This essay will argue that Hitchcock uses the Expressionist device of the doppelganger or double to delve into the darker areas of the human mind. The brilliance of Hitchcock's employment of this in "Shadow of a Doubt", it will be argued, lies in Hitchcock's realization that the monstrous is intimately linked and may in fact be produced by, normality.
Abstract This paper explores the role of isolation in Aflred Hitchcock's 1960 horror film "Psycho". It argues that it is through rejection from general society that Marion is pushed to the criminal act of theft, while Norman Bates isolation from American society turns him into a serial killer. It implies that the increasing isolation of individuals in American culture was an anxiety held by many in the 1950s and 1960s and how that disconnection could turn any one to violence and crime. The paper is based on both the film and an article by Thomas Hemmeter (referenced in the works cited).
From the Paper "Since Marion is Norman's doppelganger it is not surprising that her situation, that of social isolation, parallels his. The physical representation of Marion's entrapment is the confined spaces in which she resides. The hotel room where she meets Sam Loomis (John Gavin), her lover, is bland, she shares office space with another secretary, Caroline (Patricia Hitchcock), her sister, Lila Crane (Vera Miles), shares a tiny, impersonal apartment with her, and Marion spends the rest of the film either in a car, at the Bates Motel, and finally the most claustrophobic space of them all, the shower."
Tags: bates, crime, disconnection, doppelganger, horror, marion
Abstract This paper explains that, in "Mrs. Dalloway", which is considered the
most schizophrenic of English novels, Virginia Woolf creates the character Septimus as the protagonist Clarissa's doppelganger to mirror Woolf's struggle with mental illness; stream of consciousness inexorably binds together Septimus, Clarissa and Woolf. The author points out that, as Woolf's multi-layered consciousness building becomes increasingly complex, so do her revelations about her characters, which are each a study in contrasts. The paper relates that all of Woolf's characters are broken souls and Woolf is quite evolved in understanding that misery is ultimately about self-absorption; therefore, it is understandable that, by focusing on the theme of madness, "Mrs. Dalloway" explores the enforced development of a society of outsiders.
From the Paper "Clarissa Dalloway's character is drawn from Woolf's mother, who she described as an angel. She is aware that she is "an 'animated mirror' of the shallow world she reflects." Woolf shows us her thoughts about herself: "Nothing else had she of the slightest importance; could not think, write, even play the piano. She...loved success; hated discomfort...talked oceans of nonsense..." In this passage, we can hear Woolf stepping back to pass judgment, but still presenting the thought as Clarissa's: "How much she wanted it--that people should look pleased as she came in...""
Abstract This paper compares the way that three major theoretical perspectives deal with the incongruity of Victor's actions in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein". The paper explains that this incongruity concerns Victor's decision to abandon his creation and to continually refuse to take any responsibility for it throughout the novel. By critically examining Warren Montag's article "The Workshop of Filthy Creation," Johanna M. Smith's "'Cooped Up': Feminine Domesticity in Frankenstein" and David Collins' article, "The Monster and the Imaginary Mother: A Lacanian Reading of Frankenstein", the paper looks at three different approaches to dealing with this incongruity and demonstrates where the arguments in the articles fall short. The paper highlights how all three articles subvert the text in favor of their own agendas and offers an alternative interpretation of these characters and events.
From the Paper "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has become a cultural icon. The characters of Victor, the scientist, and his creation, the Wretch, have become myths that exist independently from Shelley's text. Thus, Hollywood adaptations and rewritings have often reworked her story into simplified terms. The typical retelling focuses on the Promethean aspect of the novel, which explores the dangers of "stealing the fire of the gods". In these depictions, Victor is a mad scientist who pursues taboo knowledge with an intense mania, and his creation is a dumb, murderous brute. The scene of the Wretch's awakening is usually heralded by maniacal laughter and glee on the part of the scientist. This depiction, however, is actually very different from the original text."
Tags: Victor, Wretch, Elizabeth, monster, doppelganger, double, marriage
