In both The Zoo Story and Six
Characters in Search for an Author the question of reality comes into
play. In The Zoo Story, Jerry and Peter engaged to what seems to be a very
normal conversation between two strangers. Jerry starts to manipulate the
conversation and alters Peter’s sense of reality. Jerry changes Peter’s
perception tremendously. By the end of the play, Peter is starting to take
ownership of a park bench and starts defending himself against Jerry. The fight
turns physical and Jerry starts to defend himself. This leads to Jerry
accidently stabbing himself to death. Once Peter sees what he has done, reality
hits Peter and he runs off.
In Six Characters in Search of an Author, the characters struggle to
grasp reality. For people, reality is often an illusion and can be altered. For
characters, they have to create a sense of reality. The lines between reality
and acting often blur together in this play. For example, the conflict between
the Father and Stepdaughter seems to cross the lines of just acting and enters
reality. The aspect of time also plays an important role in reality in this
play. Characters have an ever-lasting reality, where human’s reality is
constantly changing. The Father gets into a conflict with the Manager trying to
understand his identity and purpose. Characters have to create reality to an
audience, but they are not actually real. This play blends the perception of
reality in acting.
I like that you brought up the idea of reality. Something I have always found interesting about it is the fact that it is different for every single person. This being said, if something has so much variation, how can it always be true?? The visual you used states it in an interesting way as well.
ReplyDeleteI like your interpretation of how Jerry and Peter’s conversation transpired. I never thought about how Jerry is manipulating the conversation and Peter’s current sense of reality at the same time. Your explanation that characters have an ever-lasting reality is very insightful. Many might say that that is obvious, but I had never thought about it that way until I read that.
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