Yesi Susanti
A 320080150
D
DRAMA
The Zoo Story
by Edward Albee
1. The theme in The Zoo Story
The theme is explores of isolation, loneliness, social disparity and dehumanization in a commercial world.
2. There are two Characters in The Zoo Story, they are:
a. Jerry, 40's-50's, who is an alienated and unhappy homosexual; Jerry is an isolated and disheartened man who lives in a boarding house and is very troubled.
b. Peter, 20's-30's - 40's-50's, a middle-aged ordinary straight guy. Peter is a middle-class publishing executive with a wife, two daughters, two cats and two parakeets who lives in ignorance of the world outside his settled life.
3. The setting in The Zoo Story
On a Sunday afternoon during the summertime, in New York City’s in a Central Zoo Park, America.
4. The meaning of The Zoo Story
The Zoo Story is a confrontation between middle-class America and the outcasts of society. Set in central park, Peter, an average American, is confronted by Jerry, a lonely man from the wrong side of the park. Jerry tries to teach Peter the realities of life that Peter has tried to ignore. He tries to teach Peter the nature of human existence and relationships. Through a serious of failed conversations and misinterpretations of the act of love, Jerry begins his experiment to see if the middle class Americas are animals after all.
5. The message of The Zoo Story
Be careful with the people that we didn’t know before, as a human being we are should be honest. We don’t know the character kind or bad of each other. So we should open minded with another, or not to be isolated.
6. The synopsis of The Zoo Story
The play is about a confrontation that happens in New York's Central Park. The characters are Jerry, who is an alienated and unhappy homosexual; the other person is Peter, a middle-aged ordinary straight guy. The play explores themes of isolation, loneliness, social disparity and dehumanization in a commercial world.
Peter is a middle-class publishing executive with a wife, two daughters, two cats and two parakeets who lives in ignorance of the world outside his settled life. Jerry is a disheartened and troubled guy who lives in a boarding house. The two men meet on a park bench in New York City's Central Park. Jerry is desperate to have a meaningful conversation with another human being. He intrudes on Peter’s peaceful state by interrogating him and forcing him to listen to stories from his life that includes in particular "The Story of Jerry and the Dog" and also the reason behind his frequent visits to the zoo. The ironic humor and dramatic suspense are brought to a climax when Jerry brings his victim down to his own savage level. Jerry frustrates all attempts of Peter to leave him alone. The shocking ending transpires when Peter eventually announces, "I really must be going home;..." in which Jerry, in response, begins to tickle Peter. Peter giggles, laughs and agrees to listen to Jerry finish telling "what happened at the zoo." At the same time Jerry begins to push Peter off the bench. Peter gets angry. Unexpectedly, Jerry pulls a knife on Peter, and then drops it as initiative for Peter to grab. When Peter holds the knife on instinct, Jerry charges him and serves himself on the knife. Now bleeding on the bench, Jerry finishes his zoo story by bringing it into the immediate present, "Could I have planned all this. No... no, I couldn't have. But I think I did." The horrified Peter flees from the scene, away from the dying Jerry. Finally, Jerry has succeeded in tricking Peter to help him (Jerry) to his planned death. It's a very absorbing play.
DRAMA
THE PROPOSAL
One play in one-act
1. The theme in The Proposal
The theme in The Proposal is a comedy or satires, include making fun of romance and marriage. In this act also the true nature of marriage, an institution of necessity.
2. There are three Characters in The Proposal, they are:
a. Stepan Stepanovitch Chubukov, 70 years old a landowner.
b. Natalya stepanovna as his daughter, 25 years old.
c. Ivan Vassilevitch Lomov, 35 years old a neighbour of Chubukov, a large and hearty, but suspicious landowner.
3. The setting in The Proposal
The setting in The Proposal is in the evening in Stephan’s home.
4. The meaning of The Proposal
A Marriage Proposal is about the tendency of wealthy families to seek other wealthy families, to increase their estates by encouraging marriages that made good economic sense, and the problems that arise in marriage. In the play, Ivan Vassiliyitch Lomov, long time wealthy neighbor of Stepan Stepanovitch Tschubukov, also wealthy, has come to seek marriage of Tschubukov's twenty-five year-old daughter, Natalia Stepanovna. Lomov and Stepanovna are bickerers at heart and fight throughout the play until the end, when they get married, only, presumably, to argue more after.
5. The message of The Proposal
The play points out the struggle to balance the economic necessities of marriage and what the characters themselves actually want. It shows the characters' desperation for marriage as comical. Marriage was a mean of economic stability for most people. They married to gain wealth and possessions or to satisfy social pressure. The few reasons from The Prposal play are, firstly to give the audience a play that would make them laugh and would not bore them. Secondly he wrote this play in this manner because he wanted it to have a message to it, rather than just amusing the audience. Finally, uses techniques like indirect comments to ensure that the audience gets the message he wants to convey without getting them angry or disappointed. Chekhov uses a combination of comedy and raising awareness in regards.
6. The synopsis of The Proposal
In the short play "A Marriage Proposal," Anton Chekhov describes the odd courtship of Lomov, who seeks a marriage with his neighbor's daughter. The man and the woman he wants to marry fight before he can make his proposal, fight while he proposes, and fight after she agrees to marry him. They tend toward a fight every time they speak to one another, and while this alarms her father at first, he decides that the two just like to fight with each other. In the end, the father calls this last fight the "launching of marital bliss," though it is doubtful that a couple can fight all the time and achieve anything like bliss. The idea expressed in this play is echoed in part in other examples from world literature. The statement itself embodies several ideas. First, it assumes that there is such a thing as true love and that it is a conception based on the idea that two people are literally meant for each other. Second, it states that these two people, though meant for each other, may have to endure a good deal before they can actually achieve the love they feel. This differs from what Chekhov shows in "A Marriage Proposal," however, in that Shakespeare shows two people who may fight yet learn they love each other, while Chekhov presents two people who love each other by fighting--at least, that is what Choobookov believes.
Ivan Vassiliyitch Lomov, a long-time neighbor of Stepan Stepanovitch Chubukov, has come to propose marriage to Chubukov's 25-year-old daughter, Natalia. After he has asked and received joyful permission to marry Natalia, she is invited into the room, and he tries to convey to her the proposal. Lomov is a hypochondriac, and, while trying to make clear his reasons for being there, he gets into an argument with Natalia about The Oxen Meadows, a disputed piece of land between their respective properties, which results in him having "palpitations" and numbness in his leg. After her father notices they are arguing, he joins in, and then sends Ivan out of the house. While Stepan rants about Lomov, he expresses his shock that "this fool dares to make you (Natalia) a proposal of marriage!" This news she immediately starts into hysterics, begging for her father to bring him back. He does, and Natalia and Ivan get into a second big argument, this time about the superiority of their respective hunting dogs, Otkatai and Ugadi. Ivan collapses from his exhaustion over arguing, and father and daughter fear he's died. However, after a few minutes he regains consciousness, and Tschubukov all but forces him and his daughter to accept the proposal with a kiss. Immediately following the kiss, the couple gets into another argument.
DRAMA
The Death of Salesman
1. The theme in The Death of Salesman
The theme in The Death of Salesman is the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. The theme in this drama is The Death of a Dream .The play centers primarily on the inability of Willy Loman to fulfill his dream of a more prosperous and rewarding life for himself and his family.
2. There are twelve Characters in The Death of Salesman they are:
a. Willy Loman: is an individual who craves attention and is governed by a desire for success and as an aging salesman. An aging salesman haunted by a feeling that his life has been a failure.
b. Linda Loman: Willy’s loyal wife. She accepts her role as a devoted and subservient housewife.
c. Biff Loman: Willy’s older son, who has trouble holding a job and getting along with his father. After he returns home from the West, his presence and his failure to get a job exasperate Willy.
d. Happy Loman: Willy’s younger son, who has a steady job but is afraid to take risks to better himself. Happy is a womanizer driven by his sexuality.
e. Charley: Successful businessman who lives next door to Willy. A long-time acquaintance of the Lomans. Charlie is a true friend to Willy, even though Willy is jealous of him.
f. Bernard: Charley’s son. He is intelligent, hard-working, and successful–everything Biff Loman is not.
g. Uncle Ben: Willy’s deceased older brother, who appears only in Willy’s hallucinations. He struck it rich at an early age in South African diamond mines. He symbolizes the success that has eluded Willy.
h. Howard Wagner: The son of Willy's former boss, Frank Wagner, whom Willy admired. Howard, who is now Willy’s boss, represents a new breed of business executive, interested more in advancing technology than people. He fires Willy because of his inability to perform satisfactorily.
i. Stanley: A waiter at a bar/restaurant where Willy meets his sons.
j. The Woman: An employee of a Boston company who has an affair with Willy. She is one of the subjects of his hallucinations.
k. Miss Forsythe and Letta: Young prostitutes. Attractive young women whom Hap and Biff meet in the bar/restaurant .
l. Jenny Charley's: a secretary.
3. The setting in The Death of Salesman
The setting takes place at Willy Loman’s house in the New York City area, as well as other New York locales, and in a hotel room in Boston. Some of the setting takes place in flashbacks while Willy hallucinates and at a Manhattan restaurant.
4. The meaning of The Death of Salesman
The death of salesman is a tragedy drama. The story tells the life of a family with a father, Willy, a man that has dreams larger than his standard life can offer him. It is the story of a misguided person sets out to accomplish something that he thinks is the right thing, but ironically it is that very thing that causes pain and anguish to himself and everyone around him. In the end, the people that truly care are the ones whose admiration usually goes unnoticed. From the drama, in face of life the man must be the wise. Experience being able to recognize the mistakes when make them again. Sometime, happiness is like a butterfly, the more chase it, the more it will elude. But if the men turn the attention to other things, it will come and softly descend upon the shoulder. But then it is not mean that the men just fold the hands. Success doesn’t come to the men, but go to it. Everything must be the balance. It is a fact of life.
5. The message of The Death of Salesman
As a human being of course we have a dream, and we should get it. But when fortunately didn’t come to us, we should keep spirit to get what we want. To get dream we can do it within the support from our family, so should be have good relationship with our family or each other. Everything must be the balance.
6. The synopsis of The Death of Salesman
The play begins on a Monday evening at the Loman family home in Brooklyn. After some light changes on stage and ambient flute music (the first instance of a motif connected to Willy Loman’s faint memory of his father, who was once a flute-maker and salesman), Willy, a sixty-three-year-old traveling salesman, returns home early from a trip, apparently exhausted. His wife, Linda, gets out of bed to greet him. She asks if he had an automobile accident, since he once drove off a bridge into a river. Irritated, he replies that nothing happened. Willy explains that he kept falling into a trance while driving—he reveals later that he almost hit a boy. Linda urges him to ask his employer, Howard Wagner, for a non-traveling job in New York City. Willy’s two adult sons, Biff and Happy, are visiting. Before he left that morning, Willy criticized Biff for working at manual labor on farms and horse ranches in the West. The argument that ensued was left unresolved. Willy says that his thirty-four-year-old son is a lazy bum. Shortly thereafter, he declares that Biff is anything but lazy. Willy’s habit of contradicting himself becomes quickly apparent in his conversation with Linda. Willy’s loud rambling wakes his sons. They speculate that he had another accident. Linda returns to bed while Willy goes to the kitchen to get something to eat. Happy and Biff reminisce about the good old days when they were young. Although Happy, thirty-two, is younger than Biff, he is more confident and more successful. Biff seems worn, apprehensive, and confused. Happy is worried about Willy’s habit of talking to himself. Most of the time, Happy observes, Willy talks to the absent Biff about his disappointment in Biff’s unsteadiness. Biff hopped from job to job after high school and is concerned that he has “waste[d] his life.” He is disappointed in himself and in the disparity between his life and the notions of value and success with which Willy indoctrinated him as a boy. Happy has a steady job in New York, but the rat race does not satisfy him. He and Biff fantasize briefly about going out west together. However, Happy still longs to become an important executive. He sleeps with the girlfriends and fiancées of his superiors and often takes bribes in an attempt to climb the corporate ladder from his position as an assistant to the assistant buyer in a department store. Biff plans to ask Bill Oliver, an old employer, for a loan to buy a ranch. He remembers that Oliver thought highly of him and offered to help him anytime. He wonders if Oliver still thinks that he stole a carton of basketballs while he was working at his store. Happy encourages his brother, commenting that Biff is “well liked”—a sure predictor of success in the Loman household. The boys are disgusted to hear Willy talking to himself downstairs. They try to go to sleep.
