How, and with what success, does Churchill use dramatic structure to engage your response to the presentation of women

1
How, and with what success, does Churchill use
dramatic structure to engage your response to the
presentation of womens situations in the play?

• Explain analyse the use of dramatic structure
• NB NOT dramatic technique
• How does it affect the audiences response to
  the characters, the issues?
• Womens situations define
• Evaluate the degree of success how effective?

2
Elements of dramatic structure

• Non-chronological sequencing
• Cyclic structure Act 3 loops back to Act 1
• Opening and closing of the play
• Juxtaposition of the dramatic action (between
  scenes via changes in setting fantastical vs
  realistic, public vs private within scenes
  mood shifts)
• Parallels and contrasts between characters
  emphasized onstage via role doubling
  juxtaposition of narratives.

3
Womens situations

• Defining their roles in the wider world
  (including the workplace) and in the family
• The failure to live out these roles successfully
  or to balance competing roles ? common
  experiences of loss, oppression and suffering
• Partly due to the impact of larger social forces
  (patriarchy, capitalism)
• Intra-gender competition no female solidarity?
  One womans success is another womans failure /
  suffering?

4
Engaging the audiences response

• Creating sympathy
• Raising questions / awareness
• Making connections
• Questioning their own assumptions and values

5
Non-chronological sequencing

• Reverse chronology, mostly linear sequencing
• Act 1 and Act 2 raise questions that leave the
  audience in suspense until the past is revealed
  in Act 3
• Cumulative revelation of character, esp Marlene
• Prompts the audience to re-evaluate their initial
  impressions of Marlene and the bourgeois-feminist
  values she represents
• Provides a more dramatic climax towards the end
  of the play

6
Cyclical structure

• Framed by a fantasy opening sequence that
  disintegrates into nightmare, and a closing
  reference to bad dream(s)
• The festive opening creates expectations that the
  rest of the dinner scene dismantles
• Raises questions about the possibly illusory
  nature of womens extraordinary achievements
• and the costs these achievements exact on women
  and the people around them
• Open ending gives no sense of closure, lingering
  unease about the future (frightening)

7
Juxtaposition

• Between scenes via contrasting settings
• Surreal (restaurant) vs realistic (office)
  contrast between (illusory?) celebration and
  reality
• Who is the real Marlene?
• Public (restaurant, office) vs private (backyard,
  kitchen) contrast between Marlenes old and new
  lives, the broken relationships and the career
  success
• Is it worth it?

8
Juxtaposition

• Within scenes mood shifts, especially in Act 1
• Juxtaposition of comedy and tragedy ? emotional
  engagement that prompts further consideration of
  key issues
• Eg. description of Pope Joans childbirth and
  execution initial comic subversion of religious
  authority ends tragically
• What questions are raised about womens
  situations?
• The price of crossing traditional gender
  boundaries? The validity of traditional gender
  roles?

9
Juxtaposition

• Juxtaposition of different narratives parallels
  and contrasts in womens life experiences
• Staged via technique of role doubling ? casting.
  Significance?
• See lecture on Act 1

10
With what success?

• Requires the audience to reconstruct the
  narratives ? heightens the sense of engagement
• Provokes changing emotional responses
• Causes the audience to re-evaluate values and
  assumptions
• No closure ? audience has to wrestle with the
  issues raised

11
With what success?

• Perhaps limited success, especially for a
  first-time audience?
• Difference between watching the play onstage and
  studying it?
• Hard to see the connections? Overlapping dialogue
  as a barrier to understanding?
• Act One Vs the rest of the play ? two separate
  plays? Lack of coherence?
• Too dependent on directorial vision / effective
  staging?

12
Things to note

• Dont just focus on Marlene and Joyce
• Good essays will cover a range of material and at
  least mention all the characters in the play,
  even if the focus is on just a few who embody the
  more urgent issues
• LINK your material the issue of womens situations