English Study Buddy

1. What do you learn about characterization from the presentation of Beatie Bryant and one other character from Roots?

2. What do you find interesting and vivid in the plot and structure of Roots.

3. How effectively, in your opinion, is the setting and atmosphere of Roots used?

4. What do you find interesting and vivid in the way Wesker presents the Bryant family through what they say and the language they use.

5. What, in your opinion, is Wesker’s attitude to (a) Ronnie Kahn and (b) the relationship between Beatie and Ronnie.

1. Riders to the Sea:

A. “Riders to the Sea is pathetic but not tragic.”  Discuss.

B. “In spite of its apparent simplicity, Riders to the Sea is a very carefully constructed play.” Discuss.

2. The Playboy of the Western World:

A. “Extravagant comedy”, “farce”, “satire”, “tragedy”…..all these labels have been applied to The Playboy of the Western World. Is any one of them really apt?

B. “Picturesque, poetical, fantastical, a masterpiece of style and of music, the supreme work of our dialect theatre.” (Yeats). Consider the justice of this claim in relation to The Playboy.

A. Select two characters from the play (other than the Inspector) and compare and contrast their reactions to the life and death of Eva Smith.

B. Although Sheila is a typical girl of her era, she emerges as the strongest character in the play. Do you agree? In your answer you should refer to:

• How she faces up to her foolish action
• How she copes with the Inspector
• How she deals with her parents after the Inspector leaves
• Any other ideas you think relevant.

C. Compare the ways in which three characters behaved towards Eva Smith and comment on how you think the author wants you to respond to their behavior.

D. An Inspector Calls was first performed in 1946 just after World War II. It is set in 1912, just before World War I. It is still popular today. What do you think it has to say about history, society and morality, which have allowed it to convey something to each of these three periods in the twentieth century?

Refer closely to the text to support your answer.

Read from

Birling: [heartily]: Nonsense! You’ll have a good laugh over it yet.
Look, you’d better ask Gerald for that ring you gave back to
hadn’t you. Then you’ll feel better.

To:

The end of the play when the curtain falls.

Birling: [heartily]: Nonsense! You’ll have a good laugh over it yet.
Look, you’d better ask Gerald for that ring you gave back to
hadn’t you. Then you’ll feel better.

A. Give three examples from this extract which show that Sheila has changed as a result of the Inspector’s visit.

B. Earlier in the play the Inspector reminded Mr Birling that public men have responsibilities as well as privileges. Describe and comment on three examples from the play which show Mr Birling is not aware of his responsibilities. (Your answer should be about 3/4 of a page in length.)

C. This extract ends with a real police inspector on his way. Give an account of how two of the characters might respond now that they have been forewarned. (Your answer should be about one page in length.)

Refer closely to the text to support your answer.

Read from

Gerald: Anyway we’ll see. [He goes to telephone and looks up number. The others watch tensely.] Brumley eight nine eight six…. Is that the infirmary?

To:

Sheila [tensely]: I want to get out of this. It frightens me the way you talk.

A. What does this section reveal about Gerald, Mr. Birling and Sheila.
What is its significance to the play as a whole?

Read the passage printed below and answer all parts of the question that follows.  Spend half your time on part B.

INSPECTOR: We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish. [He walks straight out, leaving them staring, subdued and wondering.]
[SHEILA is still quietly crying. MRS. BIRLING has collapsed into a chair. ERIC is brooding desperately. BIRLING, the only active one, hears the front door slam, moves hesitatingly towards the door, stops, looks gloomily at the other three, then pours himself out a drink, which he hastily swallows.]
BIRLING [angrily to ERIC]: You’re the one I blame for this.
ERIC: I’ll bet I am.
BIRLING [angrily]: Yes, and you don’t realise yet all you’ve done. Most of this is bound to come out. There’ll be public scandal.
ERIC: Well, I don’t care now.
BIRLING: You! You don’t seem to care about anything. But I care. I was almost certain for a knighthood in the next Honours List  [ERIC laughs rather hysterically, pointing at him.]
BIRLING [stormily]: It doesn’t matter to you. Apparently nothing matters to you. But it may interest you to know that until every penny of that money you stole is repaid, you’ll work for nothing. And there is going to be no more of this drinking around the town - and picking up women in the Palace bar.
MRS. BIRLING [coming to life]: I should think not Eric, I’m absolutely ashamed of you.
ERIC: Well, I don’t blame you. But don’t forget I’m ashamed of you as well - yes, both of you.
BIRLING [angrily]: Drop that. There’s every excuse for what both your mother and I did - it turned out unfortunately, that’s all.
SHEILA [scornfully]: That’s all.
BIRLING: Well, what have you to say?
SHEILA: I don’t know where to begin.
BIRLING: Then don’t begin. Nobody wants you to.
SHEILA: I behaved badly too. I know I did. I’m ashamed of it. But now you’re beginning all over again to pretend that nothing much has happened
BIRLING: Nothing much has happened! Haven’t I already said there’ll be a public scandal - unless we’re lucky - and who here will suffer from that more than I will?
SHEILA: But that’s not what I’m talking about. I don’t care about that. The point is, you don’t seem to have learnt anything.
BIRLING: Don’t I? Well, you’re quite wrong there. I’ve learnt plenty tonight.

A. In the extract, the members of the family react differently when the Inspector calls. Explain what the stage directions shown in the extract tell you about the feel each of the following:

• Birling
• Mrs. Birling
• Eric
• Sheila.

B. What do you feel about the different members of the Birling family at this point in the  play, remembering what has happened already?

Consider the following exchange and discuss the ways in which it helped you towards a fuller understanding of the play as a whole:

Yolland. Some years ago we lived fairly close to a poet-well, about three miles away.
Hugh.    His name?
Yolland. Wordsworth-William Wordsworth.
Hugh. Did he speak of me to you?
Yolland. ctually I never talked to him. I just saw him out walking-in the distance.
Hugh. Wordsworth?…No, I’m afraid we’re not familiar with your literature, Lieutenant. We feel closer to the warm Mediterranean. We tend to overlook your island.

What dramatic use does Friel make of the historical setting of the play? You might wish to write about:

•   Reference to potato blight
•   The ‘march to Sligo’ in 1798
•   The Royal Engineers’ Programme in County Donegal
•   The National Schools
•   Inis Meahon
•   Baile Beag
•   The Liberator
•   Hedge Schools
•   Tobair Free.

1. Write about your reactions to Mirad as a character.  You should write about:

• What he says
• What he does in Holland
• What he does in Bosnia
• His feelings towards his family
• His feelings towards other people
• His importance in the play.

2. Write about the ways this play has influenced your thoughts and feelings about Bosnia.  You should write about:

• Your feelings about some of the characters
• Your reaction to one or two key episodes
• The way the story is presented
• How your views have developed.

3. Comment on Mirad’s character and his contribution to the play.  You should write about:

• What he says and does in key episodes
• How he is seen by other people
• How Mirad brings out themes and ideas important to the play as a whole
• Your reactions to Mirad.

4. How far is this a play about the whole world rather than just about Bosnia?  You should write about:

• The central themes of the play
•  How the different groups of Bosnian people are portrayed
• Why the author chose to write about Bosnia
•  Your reactions to the play’s style and ideas.

A. Choose two scenes which you consider to be particularly tense.  Explain why they are dramatic and why they are important in the play. You might write about:
1) What happens in the scenes
2) What makes them particularly dramatic
3) What is revealed about the characters in the scene.

B. Choose two of the following contrasts and show how they are developed in the play:
1) Male and female
2) Young and old
3) Italy and America.

A. The following speech comes at the very beginning of the play. Read the passage and answer the questions that follow.

ALFIERI: You wouldn’t have known it, but something amusing has just happened. You see how uneasily they nod to me? That’s because I am a lawyer. In this neighborhood to meet a lawyer or a priest on the street is unlucky. We’re only thought of in connection with disasters, and they’d rather not get too close.

I often think that behind that suspicious little nod of theirs lie three thousand years of distrust. A lawyer means the law, and in Sicily, from where their fathers came, the law has not been a friendly idea since the Greeks were beaten.

I am inclined to notice the ruins in things, perhaps because I was born in Italy…I only came here when I was twenty-five. In those days, Al Capone, the greatest Carthaginian of all, was learning his trade on these pavements, and Frankie Yale himself was cut precisely in half by a machine-gun on the corner of Union Street, two blocks away. Oh, there were many here who were justly shot by unjust men. Justice is very important here.

But this is Red Hook, not Sicily. This is the slum that faces the bay on the seaward side of Brooklyn Bridge. This is the gullet of New York swallowing the tonnage of the world. And now we are quite civilized, quite American. Now we settle for half, and I like it better. I no longer keep a pistol in my filing cabinet.

And my practice is entirely unromantic.

My wife has warned me, so have my friends; they tell me the people in this neighborhood lack elegance, glamour. After all, who have I dealt with in my life? Longshoremen and their wives, and fathers, and grandfathers, compensation cases, evictions, family squabbles - the petty troubles of the poor - and yet… every few years there is still a case, and as the parties tell me what the trouble is, the flat air in my office suddenly washes in with the green scent of the sea, the dust in this air is blown away and the thought comes that in some Caesar’s year, in Calabria perhaps or on the cliff at Syracuse, another lawyer, quite differently dressed, heard the same complaint and sat there as powerless as I, and watched it runs its bloody course.

1) How does Alfieri bring out some of the differences between Italy and America in this speech?

2) Explain how this speech helps you to understand Alfieri’s function in this play as a whole.