LIT-2300 Intro to Literature - Exam 2

Drama

Author of “Death of a Salesman”

Arthur Miller

Author of “Doctor Faustus”

Christopher Marlowe

Author of “The Glass Managerie”

Tennessee Williams

Author of “Beauty”

Jane Martin

Author of “Fences”

August Wilson

Author of “Hamlet”

William Shakespeare

Author of “Trifles”

Susan Glaspell

Plot of “Death of a Salesman”

Portrays the downfall of Willy Loman, a struggling salesman whose delusions of success and denial of reality destroy his career, family, and sense of self.

Plot of “Doctor Faustus”

The main character begins to regret his pact with Lucifer, but Mephistophilis distracts him with visions of the Seven Deadly Sins. His fleeting repentance fades, confirming his continued damnation.

Plot of “The Glass Managerie”

A family trapped in poverty and illusion struggles with their fading dreams as the son longs to escape, the mother clings to the past, and the daughter retreats into her fragile world of glass figures.

Plot of “Beauty”

Two cousins, one beautiful and one intelligent, are granted the chance to trade qualities by a mysterious figure. Their choice exposes the emptiness of envy and the illusion that external perfection guarantees happiness.

Plot of “Fences”

A former baseball player turned garbage collector battles racial barriers and personal bitterness, straining his family as he struggles to define manhood and legacy. The story reveals how pride and regret can fence people off from those they love.

Plot of “Hamlet”

A prince seeks revenge for his father’s murder by his uncle, who has seized the throne and married his mother. His pursuit of justice spirals into madness, deception, and death for nearly all involved.

Plot of “Trifles”

While men dismiss a murder as trivial, two women uncover the emotional abuse that drove the wife to kill her husband. Their silent understanding exposes gender bias and the power of overlooked details.

Quote: “I know what stillness is.”

Mrs. Peters, Trifles

Quote: “ I wish you’d seen Minnie Foster when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the choir and sang…Oh, I wish I’d come over here once in a while! That was a crime! That was a crime! Who’s going to punish that?”

Mrs. Hale, Trifles

Quote: “Forgive me, dear. I can’t cry. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t cry.”

Linda, Death of a Salesman

Quote: “I think hell’s a fable.”

Faustus, Doctor Faustus

Quote: “What will not I do to obtain his soul!”

Mephistophilis, Doctor Faustus

Quote: “All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be.”

Amanda, The Glass Managerie

Quote: “Yes I know — the tyranny of women!”

Amanda, The Glass Managerie

Quote: “Somebody needs to build your confidence up and make you proud instead of shy and turning away and — blushing — somebody ought to — ought to — kiss you”

Jim, The Glass Menagerie

Quote: “I go to the movies because — I like adventure.”

Tom, The Glass Menagerie

Quote: “You’ll never forgive me. I bet that was your favorite piece of glass.”

Jim, The Glass Menagerie

Quote: “Its okay, now he’s like all the other horses.”

Laura, The Glass Menagerie

Quote: “Some people build fences to keep people out…and other people build fences to keep people in.”

Bono, Fences

Quote: “I tool all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams, and buried them inside you.”

Rose, Fences

Quote: “Sometimes when he touched, he bruised. And sometimes when he took me in his arms he cut.”

Rose, Fences

Quote: “What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, or to the dreadful summit of the cliff…”

Horatio, Hamlet

Quote: “This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, though canst not then be false to any man.”

Polonius, Hamlet

Quote: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”

Marcellius, Hamlet

Quote: “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.”

Ghost, Hamlet

Quote: “Rest, rest, perturbed spirit! … O cursed spite that ever I was born to set it right!”

Hamlet

Quote: “As I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on…”

Hamlet

Quote: “By indirections find directions out”

Polonius, Hamlet

Quote: “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”

Polonius, Hamlet

Quote: “The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.”

Hamlet

Quote: “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all”

Hamlet

Quote: “It shall be so, madness in great ones must not unwatched go.”

King, Hamlet

Quote: “O, my offense is rank! It smells to heaven.”

King, Hamlet

Quote: “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.”

King, Hamlet

Quote: “…That I essentially am not in madness, but mad in craft.”

Hamlet

Quote: “O, from this time forth my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!”

Hamlet

Quote: “To cut his throat i’ the church.”

Laertes, Hamlet

Quote: “Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

Horatio, Hamlet

Dramatic question

The primary unresolved issue in a drama as it unfolds. Is the result of artful plotting, raising suspense, and expectation in a play’s action as it moves toward its outcome.

Climax

The moment of greatest intensity in a story, which almost inevitably occurs toward the end of the work. Often takes the form of a decisive confrontation between the protagonist and antagonist.

Foreshadowing

In plot construction, the technique of arranging events and information in such a way that later events are prepared for, or shadowed, beforehand.

Symbolism

Using a person, place, thing or idea to suggest meanings beyond the literal sense. Can contain multiple meanings and interpretations.

Theme

A generally recurring subject or idea conspicuously evident in a literary work.

Sililoquy

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. In traditional comedy, 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 humartia, in contrast to the idea that the tragic hero’s catastrophe is caused by an error in judgement.

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. Also a movement in 19th century European theater, it often focused in the middle and working classes, instead of aristocracy.

Naturalism

A type of drama in which the characters are presented as products or victims of environment or heredity/ Naturalism, 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 serious action, introducing a sharp contrast in mood.