'Commentary for “The May Poles and Their Queen” Essay\r'

'When recitation the Greek novel Orpheus, I was immediately struck by the resolution of the central char operationer. Orpheus is the classic manly hero, overcoming all obstacles to process hind end his beloved Eurydice, only to be in the end thwarted by something stock-still more coercive than his heroism: his plant birth love. Beca accustom of the fundamentally classical, romanticized nature of Orpheus, I matt-up it would be an ideal source schoolbook for a contemporaneous interpretation.\r\nIn put to net a better understanding of the text, I initially resumeed, in Stuart trail sign’s terms, the ‘preferred’ reading; that is, how the audience argon ‘meant’ to read a text, who they are expected to empathise with and what conclusions they are meant to draw. Applying Greimas’s structuralist scheme, I comprise it easy to identify Orpheus as the ‘ radical’ or, according to Propp’s ‘spheres of influenceà ¢â‚¬â„¢, the ‘hero’. Orpheus set up alike be identified as Propp’s ‘donor’ figure finished his extraordinary skill at playing the lyre, which brooks him with apparently limitless earth-beater when it comes to charming the gods of the netherworld.\r\nThe ‘sender’ would be Eurydice, for dying and after ‘sending’ Orpheus on his chase to the hell on earth. The ‘villain’ could be Aristaeus for chasing Eurydice, or any of the creatures of the underworld for opposing Orpheus. Alternatively, and mayhap more interestingly, the ‘villain’ could be Orpheus’s own love, which is so strong it forces him to look back, and lose his married woman forever. Eurydice can as well be identified as Greimas’s ‘ bearing’ or Propp’s ‘princess’: the ‘object’ of Orpheus’s seek, whose only ‘skill’ is to be sought after by the ‘subje ct’, Orpheus.\r\nI alike employ Tzvetan Tordorov’s theory that there is a identical narrative framework to all stories. For Todorov, a layer usually begins with a state of peace and harmony, an ‘ offset’: Orpheus has his love, his music and is happy. This then evolves into ‘disruption’: Eurydice dies and Orpheus must transit to the underworld to bring her back. Then Orpheus try ons to repair the ‘dis symmetry’, by charming the creatures of the underworld. Next, according to Todorov, a ‘ new(a) equilibrium’ is frequently found. However, in Orpheus, this is not the case. Eurydice is left in the underworld and Orpheus’s head is left telling alone in the velocity world, still weeping out for his lost love, unable to find his ‘new equilibrium’ by beingness denied even single in death.\r\nApplying these structuralist theories, I found, only served to under trace the essentially patriarchal n ature of the myth. The literary theorist terry Eagleton talks of how â€Å"[a text’s] blindnesses, what it does not say and how it does not say it… [is] maybe as important as what it articulates” (Eagleton, 1996) i.e. the ‘untold’ story, the ‘gaps’ in the headmaster tale, can waive for sumal perspectives other(a) than the conventional, ‘preferred’ reading. In fibre to Orpheus, I snarl that the character of Eurydice, and her account of events, was a very important ‘blindness’, which had been largely unattended by Greek mythology. Beca lend oneself of this, I obstinate to adopt a more ‘oppositional reading’, as Hall would characterise it, and subsequently, a more ‘ feminist’ approach, key out Eurydice the classic hero.\r\nThis opened up a pattern of possibilities to me concerning the other aims. Could Orpheus (or Christian in my re-working) today stick the ‘villainâ⠂¬â„¢, his ‘quest’, from her perspective, becoming more kindred to a ‘hunting shine’? The ‘object’ could now become Edie’s desire to be recognise and appreciated. Could Christian’s ‘underworld’ not be Edie’s ‘new equilibrium’? I also thought it would be interesting to strip Christian of his ‘donor’ role by making his musical comedy comedy talent all a fa�ade. I felt that it was a perfectly reasonable reading of the victor text to believe that the reason Orpheus ‘required’ Eurydice was barely to act as his ‘muse’ and inspire him to fabricate beautiful music. By interpreting Orpheus’ desire for Eurydice on a more vocal level, I could aim Edie the one who was the true musician. This makes Christian’s need for her all the more desperate as, without Edie, Christian feels he can no longer be a successful musician, as is the case i n the received text.\r\nI also felt that the tale of Orpheus had nearly become too romanticized and was subsequently open to a parody. Consequently, I tried to create a carnivalesque interpretation, that is, overdo some of the key aspects of the characters until they almost become ‘ rattling(a)’, in society to evoke humour. I decided to make my target audience aged 14-18, as I felt that they would feel comfortable with the modern-day, often egotistical, music culture, and also be open to, and appreciate, the flack to invert the reliable tale’s gender stereotyping. As I wanted to create a visually dynamic as well as linguistically strange piece, I chose the genre of a television drama: a genre possible to solicitation to my target audience. This also allows the piece to utterly break out of realism in ordination to give the drama a distinctly surreal edge, for example, the impromptu arrival of the snake. I felt the pass onition of this element of â₠¬Ëœmagical realism’ to the piece would add to the farcical nature and heighten the comedy.\r\nThe porta few scenes are key to establishing the tone of the piece, and also the characters’ relationships. The opening scene of a â€Å"rock fate” acting on stage is intentional to grab the dish’s attention, whilst also appealing to my target audience. Christian uses the informal register of the archetypal ‘rock angiotensin-converting enzyme’: â€Å"We’ve been Christian and the May Poles! Goodnight!” This type of lexis has connotations of arrogance and vanity, which is designed to subscriber line with the stupidity of Orpheus’s kilt and also the band name ‘Christian and the May Poles’, a punning on the overlord ‘Maenads’.\r\nBy having Edie backstage, providing the real musical talent, she initially issues a relatively oppressed, marginalised character: endlessly forced to stay in the backgrou nd: â€Å"Yeah. Well, I ain’t ‘Christian’, am I?” There is a sense that Edie has accepted the precept imposed upon her by Christian: that she is simply an attendant to his success. I gave her a distinct Northern artistic style in shape to appear more ‘down to res publica’ than her ‘rock star’ counterpart, and also to appeal more to the audience as the ‘under-dog’.\r\nThroughout, Christian is get windd as the archetypal, vain, male ‘rock star’. I attempted to emphasize this vanity linguistically, with his self-obsessed use of style †â€Å"You’ve already got flowers. My flowers. Flowers handpicked by moi” †and also through his obsession with his eyebrows. I felt that by freehand this conventionally ‘effeminate’ concern to both(prenominal) Christian and Al, I could further parody the ‘strong’ male stereotype associated with Greek myths.\r\n hotshot of the key changes that I do to the original text was that in my drama, Edie runs extraneous from Christian as opposed to â€Å"Aristaeus”. She is also willingly ‘bitten’ by the snake. By having Edie willingly leave Christian for the ‘underworld’, this is in keeping with my overall ‘feminist’ angle of approach, as it now becomes Edie’s ‘quest’ to find her role as a performer.\r\n instead of making the characters of my ‘underworld’ subtly linked to the characters in the original myth, I decided on overstating their most obvious physical features in order to provide an out and out carnivalesque adaptation. Because of this, I decided that a theatre would be an ideal place, and, by plan inspiration from the character of the serpent, introduced the idea of a roleplay production of the record in the hope that this would depict further humour.\r\nDeliberately playing with the notion of stereotypes, that i s foreground processing the whole issue, was also a comic device. dear as Christian is the ‘ uninventive rock star’, so all the characters of the underworld are stereotypical actors, as I felt this would add a new angle to these conventionally frightening characters. The use of ‘stock’ figures and the language associated with them, †such as the ‘ invigorated’ Yorkshiremen †would also speed up audience acknowledgement and mean the characters would not need to be apiece introduced.\r\nIn earlier drafts, I had attempted to give the beginning a more serious edge, in order to contrast with the absurdity of the underworld. I had structured monologues, in the style of Jim Cartwright’s path, in an attempt to provide greater character insight. However, these monologues seemed to ‘jar’ with the other scenes and make the beginning appear ‘flat’, without unfeignedly adding to the piece. Although they establi shed the characters, they did so in a quite a bland, pedestrian way, so these scenes were reworked.\r\nHowever, I still felt I had to emphasize the difference between the characters of the ‘upper world’ and those of the ‘underworld’ and one of the main slipway I did this was through my choice of language. Because my chosen setting was a theatre, I wanted to give the language of the ‘underworld’ a distinct theatrical edge. unmatchable of the ways I tried to achieve this was through my use of â€Å"luvvies” discourse, for example, the Serpent’s line â€Å"How extraordinary!”, an indication of the affected register of language associated with the theatre. This high-sounding speech is in immediate contrast to both Christian and Edie’s more ‘down to earth’, Northern dialect and I tried to emphasize this contrast by having the two types of speech juxtapose in order that they might ‘break againstâ₠¬â„¢ from each one other and subsequently, generate humour: â€Å"Greetings Child/Who the hell on earth are you?”\r\nAnother theatrical device which I made use of was the ‘one liner’ †a device associated with mimic †in the hope that this would make the piece feel like a â€Å"pantomime production of Orpheus” as it were. For example the serpent’s ‘one-liner’ â€Å"I’m playing the serpent by the way” attempts to add humour by overstatement, as I interpreted this character on a literal level and made my serpent, an actor â€Å"wearing a giant green snake costume”. This line also refers to both the pantomime production of the Bible and the original Greek myth. It will inform viewers already familiar with the myth that the ‘descent into the underworld’ is about to begin, and provide a ‘sneak dawdler’ into future events.\r\nThe ‘wise men’, Rod, Bob and Todd were added to act as a Cerebus figure. I gave them each a pint of beer in order that they might ‘ form bubbles at the mouth’ as Cerebus was famed for doing, and made them â€Å"drunk and… quite menacing” in order to, like Cerebus, be perceived as ‘ toxicant’. Through their physical similarity and the syntactical correspondency of their language, they are designed to appear like a ‘club-act’, finis off each other’s sentences in an almost ‘pantomime patter’ style, in order to ‘gang up’ on Christian: â€Å"We are wise men./The wise men of Yorkshire”. I also made them speak simultaneously, in order to appear as though they are ‘one being with three heads’: â€Å"We know!”\r\nI transformed the original mythological character of Charon into another actor, secondary Ron. I combined many of the traditional aspects of Charon such as the hood and cape, with sunglasses in order to contrast wi th Charon’s ‘blazing eyes’ motif. I also made him exceptionally short in order to dismiss any preconceptions which the audience may get down of Charon being ‘spooky’ and ‘all powerful’. As opposed to Orpheus paying Charon ‘one silver cash’ to descend in the underworld, Christian instead gives Little Ron a cigarette. I felt this fitted in with my modern-day outlook and also would add a comical element by effectively having â€Å"God” smoking.\r\nOne of the most dramatic changes I made to the original tale was that in my version, Edie chooses to stay in the ‘underworld’, and it is she, as opposed to Des/Hades, who sends Christian back to the ‘upper world’ with the dismissive remark â€Å"I’m an actress, Chris”. By changing the original ending, Edie has found her real existence in the underworld, and to her, it is the upper world which is full of misery. Christian, however become s a classic picture of male melancholy: â€Å"homeless and unable to even strum his guitar.” He is an allusion to the current crisis in maleness, a phenomenon often voiced in the media, his ‘traditional role’ as the performer taken over by his female counterpart: abandoned for â€Å"Keith Harris”. Because of this, Christian feels his masculinity has been threatened. This is then made ironic by his nett effeminate cry of â€Å"My tweezers!”\r\nIn the final scene, I had Edie â€Å"smiling sadistically” as she plucks her eyebrows, indicative of her mocking of Christian, a reversal of the original patriarchal tale. For whereas in the original text, it is the ‘hero’ Orpheus who ‘goes on his quest and fails’, in my mutation it is the ‘heroine’ Edie, who not only sets off on her ‘quest’ but also succeeds and ultimately, it is she who ‘comes out on heyday’.\r\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\r\nPhilip, Neil. The Illustrated Book of Myths, (DK, 2000)\r\nHughes, Ted. Ted Hughes’ Collected Plays for Children, (Faber, 2001)\r\nWiddicombe, Rupert. The Sunday Times, (4 September 1994, CINEMA, pages 10-11)\r\nRoss, Alison and Greatrex, Jen. A2 face Language and Literature, (Heinemann, 2001)\r\nEagleton, Terry. Literary opening, An Introduction (Blackwell, 1996)\r\nMachery, Pierre. A Theory of Literary Production (Routlege and Kegan Paul. 1978)\r\nGraves, Robert. The Greek Myths:1 (Penguin, 1955)\r\nVogler, Christopher. The source’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers\r\n(Michael Wiese Productions, 1998)\r\nCartwright, Jim. Road (Samuel French, 1989)\r\n'