Literature - Test 2

Soliloquy

In drama, a speech by a character alone onstage in which he or she utters his or her thoughts aloud.

Aside

A speech that a character addresses directly to the audience, unheard by the other characters on stage, as when the villain in a melodrama chortles: “Heh! Heh! Now she’s in my power!”

Stage business

Nonverbal action that engages the attention of an audience.

Tragedy

A play that portrays a serious conflict between human beings and some superior, overwhelming force. It ends sorrowfully and disastrously, an outcome that seems inevitable.

Comedy

A literary work aimed at amusing an audience. Traditionally, the protagonist often faces obstacles and complications that threaten disaster but are overturned at the last moment to produce a happy ending.

High comedy

A comic genre evoking thoughtful laughter from an audience in response to the play’s depiction of the folly, pretense, and hypocrisy of human behavior.

Low comedy

A comic style arousing laughter through jokes, slapstick antics, sight gags, boisterous clowning, and vulgar humor.

Tragic flaw

A fatal weakness or moral flaw in the protagonist that brings him or her to a bad end. Sometimes offered as an alternative understanding of hamartia, in contrast to the idea that the tragic hero’s catastrophe is caused by an error in judgment.

Hubris

Overweening pride, outrageous behavior, or the insolence that leads to ruin, the antithesis of moderation or rectitude.

Realism

An attempt to reproduce faithfully on the stage the surface appearance of life, especially that of ordinary people in everyday situations.

Naturalism

A type of drama in which the characters are presented as products or victims of environment and heredity. Considered an extreme form of Realism, customarily depicts the social, psychological, and economic milieu of the primary characters.

Comic relief

The appearance of a comic situation or character, or clownish humor in the midst of a serious action, introducing a sharp contrast in mood.

Christopher Marlowe

Doctor Faustus

Tennessee Williams

The Glass Menagerie

Jane Martin

Beauty

August Wilson

Fences

William Shakespeare

Hamlet

Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman

Susan Glaspell

Trifles

Doctor Faustus

A brilliant scholar desires unlimited knowledge and power. Believing that hell is not real, he signs a blood pact with a demon named Mephistophilis, selling his soul for unlimited power. He is given chances to repent and turn back to God but he refuses. Ultimately, he is taken to hell.

Trifles 

A man was murdered in a farmhouse. Two women who knew his wife accompany investigators and gather some of her things. While the men are unable to discover a motive, the two women discover a broken birdcage and dead bird. Because of the dead man’s unkind treatment of his wife, the women hide the evidence to protect her.

Death of a Salesman

An aging salesman, named Willy, frequently has flashbacks about his son Biff’s potential for success. He believes success originates from being well-liked. Neither he nor his son achieve the American dream. Biff has a stealing problem and gives up his dreams due to Willy’s infidelity. His son Biff shatters his delusions at the end, saying that he is a dime a dozen. Ultimately Willy commits suicide to provide for his family.

Beauty

Two women are friends but envy each other’s lives. Bethany is smart while Carla is beautiful. Bethany uses her last wish from a Genie to swap places with Carla. Afterwards, they realize that they both have new problems which they did not consider before.

The Glass Menagerie

A brother, named Tom, reminisces on his life with his mother and sister Laura. Laura is physically disabled and incredibly shy. His mother pressures him to provide for the family and find a husband for his sister. After an unsuccessful dinner with his friend who flirts with Laura but is engaged, Tom leaves and does not return. This guilt follows him for the rest of his life.

Fences

Trox Maxson is a middle aged garbage collector in Pittsburgh in the 1950s. Major conflicts involve racism, responsibility to family, and Troy’s pride. He prevents his son, Cory, from pursuing college football, recalling his failure to succeed at professional baseball due to racism. He has an illegitimate child through an affair and drives Cory away. The play ends with his funeral.

Hamlet

The prince of Denmark is confronted by the ghost of his, who recently passed away. He learns that his uncle, the current king, murdered his father and then married his mother. The prince seems to go mad, conflicted with scorn for his mother and the need to avenge his father. At the end of the play, all of the major figures are dead.