Anton Chekhov

Method Guide to SEMINAR in LITERARY ANALYSIS

For the 2-nd year students of the English Department

Compiled by

Candidate of Philology Skuropat M.Y.

TOPIC: DRAMA ANALYSIS

Analysis of the drama by Anton Chekhov THE BEAR

Activity 1

• Study the paragraphs Drama as a literary form; Genres of drama; The basic elements of drama in this method guide.

• Answer the questions.

Questions

1. What elements of drama were defined by Aristotle? Are all of them essential for the modern drama?

2. What genres of drama do you know? Give their short characteristics.

3. What is the plot structure of a play?

4. Why action is called the essence of the stage play?

5. What types of conflict can be observed in drama?

6. What is the difference between dramatic point of view and the point of views in narrative fiction?

7. What is a character in drama? What types of characters are there?

8. What means of characterization are not typical of drama? What special techniques are employed by the playwrights for revealing the thoughts and emotions of characters?

Activity 2

• Read the one-act drama by Anton Chekhov THE BEAR

• Study the analytical essays.

• Answer the questions.

QUESTIONS to the plot

1. What does the setting of the play tell you about the characters?

2. What is the situation at the opening of The Bear? How long has Mrs. Popov been in mourning? What are your reactions to her situation and her attitudes? Why has Smirnov come to the house? What is he like, and how do you draw conclusions about him? What does he say about women, and why does he present these conclusions?

3. What kind of life did Mrs. Popov have with her late husband? What did she learn about him after his death? How has this knowledge affected her? To what degree is she concealing some of her feelings about her husband?

4. Of what importance is Luka? What is he like as a character? How do his responses highlight both the action and also the emotions developing between Smirnov and Mrs. Popov?

5. What leads Mrs. Popov to call Smirnov a bear, a brute (жестокий человек), a monster? What is his immediate response?

6. What is the significance of Toby? To what extent does he symbolize the shifting of Mrs. Popov's emotions in the course of the play?

GENERAL QUESTIONS

1. To what does the title of the play refer? To what extent is the word ironic?

2. What elements of the plot can be traced in this short play?

3. Where in the play were you moved to laughter? Analyze those moments and try to determine the circumstances and causes of laughter.

4. On the basis of action and business in the play, what conclusions can you draw about the nature of farce (приукрашивать) as a dramatic form? You might consider such things as the breaking chairs, the many exclamations and shouts, the sudden anger, the improbable (невероятный) challenge to a duel, the sudden shift of feelings -the unlikely attitude of Smirnov toward being shot, the occasions of laughter etc.

5. Even though Smirnov and Mrs. Popov have declared their intentions to remain unmarried, they fall in love by the play's end. How does Chekhov's presentation of their characters make their reversal (полное изменение) of feelings seem normal and logical, although sudden, unexpected, and surprising?

6. What are the major and minor conflicts in the play?

7. What are the major ideas or themes in The Bear? You might consider topics such as the strength of allegiances that the living make to the dead, the difficulty of keeping resolutions, the nature and power of strong emotions the need for observing expected and conventional behaviors, etc.

Drama as a literary form. Genres of drama.

Drama, a kind of literature form intended for performance at theatre, has gained popularity and appreciation among the people in the world. Because much of drama appeals to the audience and it tells an entertaining story. And the primary purpose of a drama is to hold the readers attention, arouses laughter or excitement. As to the elements of drama, Aristotle, in his Poetics (perhaps the most significant and influential work on dramatic criticism ever written) categorized drama into the following six elements: plot, character, thought, diction, music and spectacle. Modern drama cannot be judged exclusively on the basis of Aristotle’s six aspects, but his list illustrates the continuity of dramatic elements and techniques.

Aristotle divided all drama into tragedy and comedy. Tragedy recounts (рассказывать, излагать подробно) the fall of an individual; it begins in prosperity and ends in adversity (несчастья). Comedy describes the reformation of a group of people or a society; it begins in adversity and resolves in prosperity. We can also make a distinction between drama that is serious (at least makes a pretense of being serious) and drama that is intended to evoke laughter. Pure forms of tragedy and comedy have rarely been written since the classical period in literature (for example, Shakespeare’s tragedies include witty and humorous scenes, and his comedies often deal with serious and threatening problems). When the patterns and emotions are truly mixed, the play is called a tragicomedy. Other forms of drama include farce (насмешка, грубая шутка), melodrama and social drama. Farce is a form of comedy crammed (напичканный) full of humorous actions and dialogue, with rapid shifts in action and emotion. Melodrama is a debased form of tragedy with a happy ending.

Full length plays are dramas that usually contain three or five separate acts. One act plays flow smoothly from episode to episode without a break.

It is important to feel and understand the experiences and ideas that each play offers us.

THE BASIC ELEMENTS OF DRAMA

PLOT, ACTION, CONFLICT

Plot in drama , as in fiction is an ordered chain (цепочка) of physical, emotional, or intellectual events that ties the action together. It is a planned sequence (последовательность) of interrelated actions that begins in a state of imbalance, grows out of conflict, reaches the peak of complication, and resolves into some new situation. The essence (сущность) of the stage play is the action. The playwright (драматург) tells the audience / the readers/ about his characters by showing what they do. This requires an engaging (зацепляющий) dramatic situation and ingenious (изобретательный, оригинальный) plotting of the action. The action of the play is rapid. It begins with the introduction of the dramatic situation, or problem and does not end until the situation has been resolved. Dramatic situation – dynamic relationship of a character to an objective (some goal) and the obstacle that comes between them.

The mainspring (главная движущая сила) of the plot is conflict which can be physical, psychological, social (Man vs man, man vs environment, man vs himself.) or a combination of all three.

In most plays we can trace (установить) a five stage plot structure of exposition, complication, crisis or climax, catastrophe and resolution. The German critic Gustav Freytag in the 19^th century noted that this structure follows the pattern of a pyramid, in which the rising action (exposition and complication) leads up to the point of crisis or climax and is followed by the falling action (catastrophe and resolution). This five-stage plot structure – exposition, complication, crisis or climax, catastrophe and resolution – may be observed in most plays. It allows the action to unfold in reasonable order. In the exposition (описание) the audience receives essential background information, we are introduced the main characters, In the second stage, the complication (осложнение), the conflicts grow heated and the plot becomes more involved (запутанный). Complication leads into the climax (from Greek “ladder” (лестница)), the turning point of the play. In the third stage the hero or heroine often faces a crucial decision or chooses the course of action that determines the outcome (последствие, результат) of the play. At this point the complications become so tightly knotted (запутанный, переплетённый) that the play can be resolved in only one direction.

1. exposition/ introduction

2. Rising action (complication and development)

3. Crisis or Climax

4. Falling action, Catastrophe

5. (denouement/ resolution)

The pyramid begins its downward slope in stage four, the catastrophe. The catastrophe is that single moment of revelation when all the pieces fall into place. It is often caused by the discovery of certain information or event that has been unknown to most of the characters up to that instant. During the final stage, the resolution, conflicts are resolved, lives are straightened out or ended, and loose ends are tired up.

However, most plays do not perfectly follow this five-stage structure. The pattern is merely a model to explain plot.

Plays that are written in a pyramidal pattern divide the plot into three essential parts. The first part is the rising action, in which complication creates some sort of conflict for the protagonist. The second part is the climax, the moment of greatest emotional tension in a narrative, usually marking a turning point in the plot at which the rising action reverses to become the falling action. The third part, the falling action (or resolution) is characterized by diminishing tensions and the resolution of the plot’s conflicts and complications.

A character in a play is a person created by a playwright to carry the action, language, ideas and emotions of the play. Characters can be static and dynamic. We can also find protagonists and antagonists. The major difference between the characters in prose fiction and characters in drama is found in the way they are unfolded. Playwrights do not have the fiction writer’s freedom to tell us directly about a character. We learn about characters in plays by paying attention to their words and actions, by listening to what other characters say about them, and h-watching what other characters do to them. Finally, however, we arrive at our own judgment or understanding of characters; the playwright will almost never do this for us.

Point of view in drama is strikingly different from the comparable element in prose fiction or poetry. Since plays almost never have narrators, there is no way to create a perspective that is specifically first-person-protagonist or third-person-omniscient. Instead, playwrights usually employ the dramatic point of view in which we receive only the information communicated by the characters. The key to the dramatic point of view is that the playwright gives us the objective raw materials—the action and the words— but does not overtly guide us toward any conclusions. Naturally, we draw conclusions from the details presented in the play.

Within these limits playwrights do have techniques to lead an audience to see from a specific character's perspective. The authors often introduce monologues spoken by the character to reveal his thoughts. Another commonly used device is the soliloquy (наедине) in which the hero or villain reveals his her thoughts directly to the audience. Soliloquies were common techniques for revealing the thoughts and emotions of characters in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century plays. In the twentieth century they have again become an important element in experimental and nonrealistic drama. Another device, called an aside (в сторону), allows a character to address brief remarks to the audience, the reader, or another character which the other characters on stage are unable to hear.

Setting, Sets, and Scenery

Setting in drama serves to place the action in a specific time and place and to help create the appropriate mood. In the text of a play, the setting is described in words, usually in the opening stage direction. In a production, however, the setting is brought to life through lighting, props, and scenery. Like characters, setting (or set) may be realistic or nonrealistic. Realistic settings require extensive scenery and stage furniture; the idea is to create as real an environment as possible. Nonrealistic settings are symbolic or representational; they are often pro­duced by unit sets—a single series of platforms, stairs, and playing areas that serve for all the scenery and the settings of the play.

Playwrights also use settings to convey information about the charac­ters and the world of the play.

ANTON CHEKHOV (1860-1904)