Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Priest - hes crowned, look,/and the laurel wreath bright with berries
(147;94-54)
Kreon Drive the corruption from the landdont nurse it in your soil
root it out! (147; 109-111)
Violence not a byproduct of the situation but a choice
o Torture used to coax information out of the shepherd Twist his
arms back.. Oedipus (176;1270)
o Raising the pins, raking them down his eyes./ And at each
stroke blood spurts from the roots,/splashing his beard, a swirl of
it, nerves and clots -/ black hail of blood pulsing, gushing down.
Messenger (179; 1413-6)
Chorus You are the first I call, daughter of Zeus/deathless Athena I
call your sister artemis,/heart of the market place enthroned in
glory,/guardian of our earth./ I call Apollo, Archer astride the
thunderheads of heaven 150-151
o Strophe: 168-190 hopeful, active, invoking
o Antistrophe: 191-227 antithesis, starts with no no, miseries, etc.
we are all dying
o Strophe: 228-244
Oedipus - Next,/if anyone knows the murderer is a stranger, a man
from alien soil, come, speak up. (151;261-4)
Oedipus Let no crops grow out of the earth for them - / shrivel their
women, kill their sons (153;308-9) the ultimate punishment,
listed first, is to cause infertility in agriculture, in line with the
importance of the garden in Elliott
Oedipus Strange responseunlawful,/unfriendly too to the state
that bred and reared you - /you withhold the word of god
unbelievably nationalism to your city state (154;367-9)
o No, theres nothing worse:/ branded a traitor in the city, a
traitor/to all of you and my good friends. Kreon (159;581-3)
worst possible scenario is being disassociated from your national
identity, no relation with the outside
Duets formed by the incredibly dualities in fate vs. free will, sight vs.
blindness, call and response style music
o So,/you mock my blindness? Let me tell you this./ You with your
precious eyes/youre blind to the corruption of your life,/to the
house you live in, those you live with Tiresias (156; 469-72)
o Blind who now has eyes, beggar who now is rich Tiresias
(157;517)
o Son and husband both Tiresias (158; 522)
o You,/youll see no more the pin I suffered, all the pain I caused!/
Too long you looked on the ones you never should have seen,/
blind to the ones you longed to see, to know! Blind/ from this
hour on! Blind in the darkness blind! Messenger recounting
o There are certain plants you only plant at night. Orchids. Plants
wth provocative shapes. Plants you want to touch. Sexy plants.
My garden is so sexy. If I was young, Id bring all the guys here
I sit out here at night, imagine romances in the spaces between
banana leaves. See myself as a teenager, in Puerto Rico, a
whole different body on these bones. Im with a boyfriend,
covered in dirt. (21) garden and nature strongly tied to
fertility and vitality, same theme in Oedipus
o If you want a taste of this ripe avocado, you got to pick if off the
tree all by yourself. Ginny (47)
humanizing the others Today this one little shrimp kept hanging
around, chasing after the tank. Looking at me with these eyes. I gave
him my crackers I was saving for idnner. I made funny faces and he
called me dinky dow. Thats Vietnamese for crazy, I guessHe inhaled
those crackers, then he smiled and hugged my leg. He was so small
he only came up to my knee. (25) also The guy says the Vietnamese
word for mother. / He has a soft voice/ Dog tags. / The wife. / The
children. / Handwriting. / A family portrait. all 3 men, (30-1)
though the war is a creature of violence, the actual depiction of it in
the play is minimal. A simple spoken Bang indicates the gunshots
the first time Elliot and Pop kill their first men.
Importance of sound: whispers, echoes, boots squishing in the end
Oedipus wishes he deafened himself too
Grandpops description of the fugues perfectly reflects
strophe/antistrophe: The fugue is like an argument. It starts in one
voice. The voice is the melody, the single solitary melodic line. The
statement. Another voice creeps up on the first one. Voice two
responds to voice one. They tangle together. They argue, they become
messy. They create dissonance Two, three, four lines clashing. (35)
Seventy four thorns dug deep into his skin. Ginny Seventy-four
barbs chew into his bone. Pop (40-1)
Maybe 41-42 language dissolution a little bit when hes injured nah
I was trying to forget, but thats how they see me now. Thats what I
am. Thats how Stephanie sees me. And the guys. (56) trying so
hard to maintain his original identity, just as Oedipus searches for his,
but both have this constructed fallacy of who they are that they must
eschew
parallelism between Pop and Elliots injuries: infected leg injuries that
are itchy and stick to gauze