Literary Study in Representation of City Images in Contemporary Theater: A Comparative study of Modern American and Modern European Theater

  • Published : 2005.06.30

Abstract

The difference between presentation of cities in the European modern drama and its counterpart the American modern drama denotes and comes from two very different images of cities. While the European modern drama presented cities that were desolate and fantastic to certain measure, the American modern drama presented the images of actual cities that can be identified by the spectators and readers. Although one cannot 'actually' identify any actual representation of cities in both the European and the American dramas, the images of cities can be discerned in the dialogues of the characters in the plays themselves. In this perspective the images of cities that are represented in any work of modern drama are actually represented through metaphors and connotations. The images in this instance rests and can only be identified within the boundaries of psychology. The dialogues are means through which the author communicates with the spectators. Because drama is above all categorized as being a work of text before representation, deciphering drama also falls in to same cadre as any other literary texts. Through the means of 'decontextualisation' the reader/spectator identifies with the associated images that the text proposes.

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