Irony, Desires and the Suspension of Reality
This week, I attended a play called
“The Duchess of Malfi”, performed by the American Shakespeare Center. This
analysis will relate the play to “Ode to American English”, by Barbara Hamby,
“Suburban”, by John Ciardi, and “The Cask of Amontillado”, by Edgar Allan Poe.
The play that I attended happens to relate perfectly to the readings mentioned
above. Each one of these stories touched me in a different way, and made me
think back to different experiences in my life that relate to the Jesuit
education. Irony, desires and the suspension of reality are the general themes
of the stories and poems mentioned above.
In “The Cask of Amontillado”, by
Edgar Allan Poe, one of the major themes is the suspension of reality. The
narrator, Montresor, puts on a masquerade at the carnival. Montresor is on a
mission to get revenge on his acquaintance, Fortunato, because Fortunato
humiliated him. Montresor has a plan that involves tricking Fortunato into
drinking fake Amontillado (sherry). When Montresor puts on the masquerade, he
is abandoning social convention and that leaves him vulnerable to crime. The
masquerade allows Montresor to suspend reality and get the revenge that he is
seeking. This relates to the play, “The Duchess of Malfi”, because one of the
main characters, Bosola, puts on a mask and costume at the end of the play to
allow himself to kill the Duchess. By putting on the mask and costume, Bosola
is suspending his reality and performing a task that he deems in the back of
his mind to be wrong. The mask makes him vulnerable and more open to perform
the task of killing the Duchess. Putting on a masquerade is not what the Jesuit
education is all about. The Jesuit education stresses the importance of being
open to yourself, your friends and the community at large. Hiding is not the
answer. Both this part of the play, and the story by Edgar Allan Poe, go
against the norms of the Jesuit education. Relating to a personal experience of
my own, I sometimes put a ‘mask’ on to suspend reality. I don’t relate to these
two stories exactly though, because I would never kill another human being,
especially a friend of mine. My experiences with hiding and putting a mask on
relate to technology. Every time I want to suspend reality, I always turn to
technology to take me to another place. I am not, in my opinion, abandoning
social convention because I feel like many people today do the same thing. I
can remember a time where my parents were having an argument a few years back
that really caused me sadness and concern over their relationship. I turned to
my XBOX and my computer to drown out the sadness and suspend my reality.
Technology today allows anyone to forget about the world for a short matter of
time. But, as shown in the two stories above, everyone has to enter back into
reality sometime and you have to face what you were hiding from.
In “Ode to American English”, by
Barbara Hamby, one of the major themes is desire. The narrator takes the whole
poem to basically list out everything she misses or desires from America. The
narrator is sitting in Paris, yearning for the culture that is stereotypical
American. This relates to the play because in the play, the Duchesses brothers,
Ferdinand and the Cardinal, desire all the riches in the land. They also desire
that their sister, the Duchess, never marry again because then they can retain
the power over the land. These two stories do not necessarily desire the same
thing, but the theme of desire is a major theme in both. Hamby’s poem is
craving for all the non-vital things that she left behind in America and in the
play, the desire for material wealth and power triumphs over the Duchesses real
desires and dreams to get re-married and have a family. Relating to the Jesuit
education, these two stories end up not relating. I feel like the Jesuit
education strives for people to not be hungry for material goods and power. I
also feel like the Jesuit education is not about yearning for the non-vital
items in life. The Jesuit education is about giving. Giving back to the
community and to the world. I know that, in this life, I desire personal
wealth. But from what the Jesuit education has taught me in the past 3 years I
have been here at Loyola, personal wealth is not everything. It is a great
thing to be able to attain, but giving back to the community is much more
important. I would rather donate most of my wealth to causes that actually need
it, rather than for my own personal satisfaction. The Jesuit education has
taught me not to be selfish and give back to the people in this world that really
need it.
Finally, in “Suburban”, by John
Ciardi, one of the major themes is irony. The poem centers on an intolerant
neighbor named Mrs. Friar, and the narrator/ her neighbor, Mr. Ciardi. Mrs.
Friar calls Mr. Ciardi because she finds dog poop in her flowers. Mr. Ciardi
comes over to remove the dog poop anyway, even though he knows it wasn’t his
dog because his dog is in Vermont with his son. This poem is ironic because the
narrator ends up picking the dog poop anyway, even though he knows it wasn’t
his dog that did it. The suburban lifestyle is also a major theme. Relating to
the play, they both have irony as a major theme. In the play, it is ironic that
Bosola ends up killing the Duchess, because deep down in his heart he knows it
is wrong. Why would he kill if he knew it was wrong? It is also ironic that one
of the Duchesses brothers, Ferdinand, would want his sister dead after her
marriage to Antonio, yet at the end is depressed that his sister is gone. I
also seem to find that my life is a bit ironic. I have a lot of friends that
always say that are or aren’t going to do something, but in the end they always
do the opposite. For example, one of my high school friends would also talk
about how smoking is so bad for your lungs and so bad for your overall health.
She would also always go on about how people who smoke smell and get yellow
teeth. Towards the end of high school, I found out that all this time she
smoked. She smoked behind my back, because she knew it would upset everyone. I
would have been less upset if she was honest about it in the first place, instead
of coming up with stories about how bad it is for you. She taught me the hard
truth about irony.
The cast and crew of “The Duchess
of Malfi” did a great job. The performance was solid and the play was great. I
had never heard of this play before that night, but I really enjoyed the
storyline. The cast made it seem more modern and that helped make it enjoyable.
The cast also performed modern songs during the intermission, which made is
also seem like a concert, which was really cool! I would definitely see them
live again!
Matt Sandelands
Event Analysis
10/3/2012
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