Fairy tales: Beginning and Ending

More often than not, Fairy tales feature; a 'happy ending' and start with 'Once upon a time'.
This occurs in;
The princess and the pea
Hansel and Grettle
Little Red Riding Hood
Etc.

It is perhaps used because the typical audience is children and a happy ending is more desirable to a younger audience and more understandable than a complex ending that doesn't work out in the end.
Once upon a time is used becuase it works on a childs imagination and is said to help them picture the story and believe it is is real.

Frankenstein: Chapter 11 (Audiences' impressions of the monster)

In Chapter 11 The monster’s growing understanding of the significance and importance of otherness and family is linked to his lack of togetherness and relationship with his father and creator Frankenstein. This makes the audice feel sympathy for the monster as he is helpless and his unfortunate physical appearance makes people afraid of him; 'before the children shrieked, and one of the women fainted' The fact that the monsters appearance frightens people, his helplessness is even heightened as people are unwilling to help him and only fear him. The cottagers’ devotion to each other underscores Victor’s total abandonment of the monster; ironically, observing their kindness actually causes the monster to suffer, as he realizes how truly alone, and how far from being the recipient of such kindness, he is. This lack of interaction with others, in addition to his namelessness, compounds the monster’s lack of social identity.

The theme of nature’s sublimity, of the connection between human moods and natural surroundings, resurfaces in the monster’s childlike reaction to springtime. Nature proves as important to the monster as it is to Victor: as the temperature rises and the winter ice melts, the monster takes comfort in a suddenly green and blooming world, glorying in nature’s creation when he cannot rejoice in his own. For a moment, he is able to forget his own ugliness and unnaturalness.

Three letters from Robert Walton

Walton’s letters to his sister form a frame around the main narrative, Victor Frankenstein’s tragic story. Walton captains a North Pole–bound ship that gets trapped between sheets of ice. While waiting for the ice to thaw, he and his crew pick up Victor, weak and emaciated from his long chase after the monster. Victor recovers somewhat, tells Walton the story of his life, and then dies. Walton laments the death of a man with whom he felt a strong, meaningful friendship beginning to form in his letters to his sister, he explains his feelings and emotions on the matter, and from this we then see that the character of Walton and Victor are somewhat more similar than what first meets the eye. Walton functions as the conduit through which the reader hears the story of Victor and his monster. Like Victor, Walton is an explorer, chasing after that “country of eternal light”—unprocessed knowledge. Victor’s influence on him is paradoxical: one moment he exhorts Walton’s almost-mutinous men to stay the path courageously, regardless of danger; the next, he serves as an abject example of the dangers of heedless scientific ambition. In his ultimate decision to terminate his treacherous pursuit, Walton serves as a foil (someone whose traits or actions contrast with, and thereby highlight, those of another character) to Victor, either not obsessive enough to risk almost-certain death or not courageous enough to allow his passion to drive him. The significance of the letters from Walton to his sister would therefore be a narrative frame, setting up later events in the book and leads nicely to the retrospective but chronological telling of the story of Frankenstein.

What did mrs Davis do with us...

• She spent a lot of time and work helping us understand that Dr Faustus can be seen as a morality play, which were popular at the time Faustus was written, the 1400s to the 1580s. She explained how Faustus held elements of a morality play, such as about ther fate of a single individual's soul, included vice and temptation characters to attempt to corrupt the Everyman's figure. A reform or relapse pattern is repeated several times.
• Increased our knowledge of renaissance ideas; the body and soul are linked with different elements and humours. Catholicism was banned in England and the Pope was considered by antichrist by some.
• went through some more acts in more detail and undestanding ideas, from this we learnt about low comedy and why it is important or effective in plays, especially in the time Faustus was written.

Blog about performance

Dr Faustus is highly 'non-realistic' also highly symbollic, this opens the play up to a wide variety of kinds of staging. Shows of devils dancing and allegorical characters makes an interesting play with interesting effects. The way Dr Faustus is performed will vary and the props used and positioning of characters will also vary, this will form different opinions from the audiences as they are largely important in getting across key ideas during plays from the shakesperian era. It was believeed that the first performance of Dr Faustus was performed at the Rose theatre, on the 30th September 1594. It was said to be a real money-spinner for the theatre as it included many exciting special effects such as fireworks and a dragon, which was rare from a 16th centrury production. The unrealistic props such as the dragon add to the unrealistic tone of Dr Faustus. Many characters used in Dr Faustus plays will often have to play more than one charcter, this reinforces the neccesity of the chorus giving a brief introduction about the play to make a more informative audience.

There was tension between catholics and protestants in Renaissance/ Elizabeth England?

From the early sixteenth centrury Protestantism and Catholicism had never managed to gain supremecy in England. The name 'Protestant' derives from Martin Luthers protest in 1529 at the Catholic Church's opposition to the reformation; Protestant churches rejecting the authority of the Pope. At the time Dr Faustus was written, Catholicism had been banned in England as Queen Elizabeth I succeeded her half sister Mary after her death in 1558. In books, pamphlets and speeches, the pope was refered to as 'Antichrist' and the catholic church was refered to as the 'Whore of babylon'. Various laws and taxes were instituted during Elizabeths reign in an attempt to re-educate the public. War with Catholic Spain and intestified the hostility towards Catholicism. Links previously made with the Pope had been stained. By 1670 Pope Pius was gathering Catholics and asking them to overthrow Elizabeth.

Audience's first impressions of Faustus!

Dr Faustus opens with the CHORUS, this includes repitition of Faustus' intelligence;
'That shortly he was Grac'd with doctors name'
'To Wertenberg he went'
Immediatly, the audience are aware that Faustus holds some of the traits of a gothic protagonist. This hints at Faustus' other traits for example, his involvement with the supernatural. Which will foreshadow what happens later in the play, when he sells his soul to the devil. He is also often in touch with the 'Good' and 'Bad' angels. Instead of the audience being directly told in the chorus that Faustus is has links with the supernatural creates a tone of suspension, and a sharp, interested focus on Faustus.

In particular the second quote is interesting as it uses past tense 'went' this linked with the previous quotation of;
'Now he is born, his parents base of stock'
This uses present tense, it gives the audience a feeling empathy towards Faustus as they get a sense of involvement in him growing up. This combined with knowing that he went to 'Wertenberg' gives the audience a more clear view of his life and him growing up.

Their is a element of sympathy from the audience towards Faustus;
'Settle my studies,Faustus, and begin'
The audience are initially are told in the chorus to hold back their judgements of Faustus, immediatly leading them to question why? If he's so intelligent, Faustus relates to himself in third person, this could suggest he is confused, not fully to grip with himself. If this is the interpretation the audience get of Faustus they could feel some what level of sympathy for Faustus.

The audience are immediatly met with Faustus' strong sense of ambition;
'Having commenc'd, be a divine in show'
Here Faustus is saying he wants to be divine and get the best he possibly can out of his intelligence, putting it to good use. Also;
'A greater subject fitteth Faustus wit'
Faustus puts forward the idea that he is better than a philosopher and can do better than that career, going on to explore other career aspirations.

With Faustus' ambition comes his arrogance;
'A greater subject fitteth Faustus' wit'
Here Faustus is explaining how he feels he is better than philosophy. Also;
'Too servile and illiberal for me'
Previously Faustus has just rejected three of the best recognised careers, he rejects law simply because he thinks he is too good for it, he wants to be free and refuses to work for anyone else, leaving the audience with a clear idea of how Fautus feels he is better than anyone or anything and will not be told what to do, wanting to be a free spirit, another element of a Gothic protagonist.

The audience are also left with the gothic side to Fautus'character, Marlowes Dr Faustus has a similarity with later published Gothic tale of terror Frannkenstein,1818. The monster created in Frankenstein has a link to the 'unhumanbeing' Faustus wishes to create of himself. This would make the audience wary of Faustus as he tries to excell all careers and be as recognisable and powerful as god, who was a very powerful figure at the time Marlowe wrote Dr Fautus. Faustus on more than one occasion disregards the bible;
'Stipendium peccati mors est. Ha!'
This would be considered as blastpheming, leaving the audience shocked. The fact Faustus dares to say this demonstrates his confidence, the audience again could take this for his arrogance.