In both Equus and Amadeus Shaffer shows insanity in his characters. He does this not only to stress the characters feelings and state of mind of which they are in. Also, he attempts to cast a blanket over the reader; it gives the reader the feeling that Shaffer designed the characters to express and reflect the beauty in insanity and to convey the ugliness on normality.
“Madness, if not out rightly divine, is at best preferable to the 20th century’s ruthless and uninspired sanity, is in this play, as it is so much fashionable philosophizing, totally dependent on a pleasant, aesthetically rational form of derangement for the credibility of its argument” (Richardson 389). Shaffer brings us into these feelings with the story of Alan Strang,
…show more content…
Shaffer is questioning the notion or sanity and normality and this intrigues the reader. But when it comes time for Dysart to do his job, what will happen to the boy? “There’s no question that the boy himself is in deep pain and distress” (Shaffer 356). Is Dysart the savior to the hell that Alan is going through or is he the fiend that will show Alan the hell that is normality?
Amadeus begins with the “savage whispers” and snakelike hissing” of the Ventricelli, the two Little Winds who appear throughout the play, spreading rumors. They spew forth words from their mouths like curses, First “Saliere” and “assassin” emerge, followed by the talk of Mozart’s death, or murder, and the question that we are left with: Did Saliere murder Mozart? If he did, why did he wait thirty-two years to make his confession (Morace 37)?
Saliere starts his story off by telling us about his bargain with God. He says that in exchange for God’s making him a composer, he would dedicate his art to God and his life to serving God and man (Morace 37). This is the Saliere with love in his heart and good fortune in his future, but he soon changes his way of looking at the good that God does.
“The Saliere of 1781 is an honored and prolific composer in the court of Joseph II, Emperor of Austria, who he has dedicated his life and his talents to the greater honor and glory of God and has obtained fame. Salieri belongs to a clique of Italians who have culturally
The internal conflict that Dysart deals with is with himself and deciding whether taking away the passion and life from his patients that he envies for is fair or not. This then ties into the the theme of normality, because by taking his patient's faith aways - like Alan’s - he is taking away their originality. Although Dysart is primarily focusing on Alan as his patient throughout the entirety of the play, the underlying story in the play is about Dysart trying to find himself, like Alan already has, even if it is
A comparison of two major Baroque composers: Claudio Monteverdi and Domenico Scarlatti The purpose of this paper is to analyze two psalms by Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi (1567-1643) and Giovanni Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) and compare and contrast the two pieces to find out how music changed throughout the Baroque period.
In Cervantes’s Don Quixote, we can see remarkably clear pictures of both the kind of unfair stigmatization of madness that McKay and Mitchell decry and the essentially demeaning nature of insanity to which Gardner and Macklem draw our attention. Don Quixote is treated with astounding cruelty. He is made an object of ridicule and trickery by almost everyone he meets.
‘Peter Shaffer’ uses ‘Equus’ as a device to standardize and make the abnormal acceptable. In reality many of the themes and actions dealt with challenge our sense of normality so by introducing an element of innocence into Strang’s character, we as an audience, are suddenly forced to connect and sympathise for him. The innocence is ultimately illustrated by Strang’s worship and love for Equus. Without the element of innocence it would be difficult to forgive his defiance of the ‘comfortable view’ of what is normal. Yet without the defiance we would be unable to forgive him for fitting the societies view of what is normal. Essentially this innocence is the element, which balances the personality of Alan Strang beautifully. Interestingly these are the very elements that Dysart is lacking. ‘That's what his stare has been
Produced by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1787, Don Giovanni is regarded as one the best operas ever made. The piece is based on the legend of Don Juan, an illusory libertine and seducer of women (Kerns, 2010). At first, Mozart’s opera seems more like a story of the romantic adventures of a dissolute nobleman and his disgrace. However, there is much more to Don Giovanni than just a series of events and serious laughs, just as the protagonist is much more than a notorious, single-minded, and unprincipled seducer. Closer examination of the piece reveals its core themes of social classes and divisions as depicted by Leporello’s complaints about his servitude to his employer in the first scene (Mozart, Fisher, & Ponte, 2007). The play also touches on vital human traits and principles, including loyalty, faithfulness, and sincerity. More importantly, Don Giovanni centers on the ambiguity intrinsic to human relations, the intricate connection between life and death, and the interminable tension between love and the risk of its extermination.
Historically, there is evidence from Mozart's own written letters that there was some sort of antagonism between Salieri and Mozart, "If he is allied with Salieri, I won't ever get a thing out of him." Be it jealousy or a difference in personality, one cannot say, however, the conflict between Salieri's mediocrity and Mozart's genius is evident throughout the play. Salieri himself is musically competent, he has been educated and has learnt the skills of music and so is able to recognise Mozart's greatness, however, he seems to be the only one in Mozart's age to have recognised it, ."..my only reward...is to be the sole man alive in this time who shall clearly recognize your Incarnation!" He shows his obvious awareness of Mozart's posterity and his own "mediocrity." We can see Salieri and Mozart in the light of Nietzsche's opposing struggle of the Apollian and Dionysian personalities. Mozart embodies the Dionysian elements of a
Produced by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1787, Don Giovanni is regarded as one the best operas ever made. The piece is based on the legend of Don Juan, an illusory libertine and seducer of women (Kerns, 2010). At first, Mozart’s opera seems more like a story of the romantic adventures of a dissolute nobleman and his disgrace. However, there is much more to Don Giovanni than just a series of events and serious laughs, just as the protagonist is much more than a notorious, single-minded, and unprincipled seducer. Closer examination of the piece reveals its core themes of social classes and divisions as depicted by Leporello’s complaints about his servitude to his employer in the first scene (Mozart, Fisher, & Ponte, 2007). The play also touches on vital human traits and principles, including loyalty, faithfulness, and sincerity. More importantly, Don Giovanni centers on the ambiguity intrinsic to human relations, the intricate connection between life and death, and the interminable tension between love and the risk of its extermination.
[b]"Tomorrow is the day Diana Findlay becomes an Albright." [/b]A high pitched voice yelled down the hallways of the Diana's current residence. Irregular high heel clicks on the marble floors indicated an intoxicated woman. Agatha Haynes had not arrived on Diana's doorstep the night before her wedding for any fun business. Today there would be no talk of strippers but instead the most important part of a relationship sex.
As the occasion arose Haydn tried his hand in a variety of musical genres, composing sacred works, and pieces of instrumental music. He attracted the attention of music-loving patrons. For several years before he served as music director to Count Karl Joseph Franz Morzin (1717-83), in 1757 or 58, Haydn worked for the family of Baron Carl Joseph Fürnberg (ca.1727-67),
Hitchcock’s and Foucault’s treatment of madness were different. In their attempts to render madness through different appeals to the avant-garde Hitchcock and Foucault both exemplify the modernist tradition of schizophilia. French sociologist Rene Lourau coined the term “Schizopilia”, a cultural practice where the mad are frequently depicted as dangerous, monstrous, and symptoms of madness are constantly appropriated for creative and critical endeavours. Hitchcock approached madness by exploring the real and he was equally interested in surrealism’s dependence on the irrational. In this aspect both Foucault and Hithcock was working on the same line when they approached madness. By positioning Psycho in the context of deinsituionalization
The storyline of Amadeus, which is based on the original play of the same title written by Peter Shaffer, mainly revolves around the entire life of Mozart and his music. Basically, the movie’s plot is based on the rumor that Salieri poisoned Mozart because of his jealousy to Mozart’s musical talent. Even if the rumor, which had spread over Vienna in the 1820s, clearly turned out not to be true through several historical research, still, the movie Amadeus depicts the fictional life of Mozart and Salieri’s plan to murder him in a realistic way by delicately displacing Mozart’s great works to show Salieri’s intense inferiority to Mozart and his music. The movie’s plot – the story of Mozart’s life in Vienna and his early death – is mainly unfolded with the confession of aged Salieri after his suicide attempt feeling severe guilty conscience that he murders Mozart. Salieri reveals during his confession that he wants to murder Mozart because of his inferiority to the genius of Mozart. With Salieri’s feeling of jealousy to Mozart, the movie develops its storyline based on the musical rivalry and conflict between Mozart and Salieri. Considering the underlying reason of the rivalry – their musical talent – between two characters, Mozart’s music works as an essential role to move forward the plot of the film. By arranging Mozart’s music at the episodes that cause Salieri to feel
It is not difficult to point out the error of Salieri’s ways. However, there is something about his passion, and about the cruelty of his situation, that allows us to put ourselves in his shoes. He is a man who wants nothing but to be a great artist, who has been endowed with the artistic drive, but who lacks that one, elusive trait that differentiates the great from the average.
One of the most important themes in Shakespeare’s play, Twelfth Night, is the theme of madness. It is one of the driving forces to this play. Madness plays a key role due to the effect it has on the many people themselves. Just like in our world, we notice the madness. We know the madness is there. We know that others are aware of its presence as well. The only thing we don’t do, is find the purpose for it. As humans, we don’t try to find reason or sanity with the madness in this world. In fact, we go along with it. That’s why the roles of madness is so important.
Johann Sebastian Bach, a composer from the Baroque period, is one of the most influential and famous composers of all time. Examples of some famous musicians he has influenced are, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, and Robert Schumann. Bach wrote over a thousand works, and many of them are masterpieces which people still listen to today. This paper covers his life and upbringing to see what he went through as a composer. A list of Bach’s surviving works is provided at the end of the paper. We will discover if he was as famous as he is today and why he is known as one of the greatest composers of all time.
It has been demonstrated that Shakespeare's portrayal of madness parallels Bright's A Treatise of Melancholie (Wilson 309-20), yet, the medical model alone is insufficient to describe the madness of Shakespeare’ s King Lear. Shakespeare was not limited to a single book in his understanding of madness; he had at his disposal the sum total of his society's understanding of the issue. Since Lear's madness is derived from a mixture of sources, it can only be effectively described in this larger context.