Commentary for “The May Poles and Their Queen” Essay

When recitation the Greek myth Orpheus, I was with push by means of delay struck by the heroism of the central char operateer. Orpheus is the classic male hero, overcoming tot solelyy obstacles to bring back his beloved Eurydice, only to be eventu every(prenominal)y discomfited by something even more(prenominal) powerful than his heroism his proclaim love. Because of the essentially classical, romanticized disposition of Orpheus, I felt up it would be an ideal source schoolbook for a modern-day interpretation.In come out to gain a come out in understanding of the text, I ab initio adopted, in Stuart Halls terms, the like reading that is, how the audience are meant to read a text, who they are judge to empathise with and what conclusions they are meant to draw. Applying Greimass structuralist scheme, I found it easy to severalize Orpheus as the subject or, according to Propps spheres of influence, the hero. Orpheus net in any case be identified as Propps donor o custody through his extraordinary skill at playing the lyre, which put ups him with apparently infinite power when it comes to charming the gods of the inferno.The sender would be Eurydice, for dying and afterwards send Orpheus on his bespeak to the perdition. The villain could be Aristaeus for chasing Eurydice, or any of the creatures of the underworld for opposing Orpheus. Alternatively, and perhaps more interestingly, the villain could be Orpheuss own love, which is so strong it forces him to look back, and lose his wife forever. Eurydice can in like manner be identified as Greimass tendency or Propps princess the object of Orpheuss quest, whose only skill is to be desired by the subject, Orpheus.I as well applied Tzvetan Tordorovs theory that in that location is a similar narrative framework to all stories. For Todorov, a stage usually begins with a state of peace and harmony, an sense of balance Orpheus has his love, his unison and is happy. This indeed evolves i nto disruption Eurydice dies and Orpheus must journey to the underworld to bring her back. Then Orpheus attempts to vivify the disequilibrium, by charming the creatures of the underworld. Next, according to Todorov, a new equilibrium is oftentimes found. However, in Orpheus, this is not the case. Eurydice is left in the underworld and Orpheuss luff is left singing alone in the upper world, still gross out for his lost love, unable to occur his new equilibrium by being denied even unity in death.Applying these structuralist theories, I found, only served to express the essentially patriarchal nature of the myth. The literary theorist Terry Eagleton dialogue of how a texts 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 received news report, can throw overboard for sumal perspectives other than the conventional, preferred reading. In reference to Orpheus, I felt that the constituent of Eurydice, and her account of events, was a very important blindness, which had been by and large ignored by Greek mythology. Because of this, I decided to adopt a more oppositional reading, as Hall would characterise it, and subsequently, a more feminist approach, making Eurydice the classic hero.This opened up a miscellany of possibilities to me concerning the other roles. Could Orpheus (or Christian in my re-working) now become the villain, his quest, from her perspective, becoming more akin to a hunting down? The object could now become Edies desire to be recognised and appreciated. Could Christians underworld not be Edies new equilibrium? I also thought it would be interesting to strip Christian of his donor role by making his musical talent all a faade. I felt that it was a perfectly reasonable reading of the original text to believe that the reason Orpheus required Eurydice was simply to act as his muse and inspire him to create beautiful music. By rendering Orpheus need for Eurydice on a more literal level, I could hold in Edie the one who was the true musician. This makes Christians need for her all the more desperate as, without Edie, Christian feels he can no longer be a successful musician, as is the case in the original text.I also felt that the tale of Orpheus had al well-nigh become too romanticized and was subsequently open to a parody. Consequently, I tried to create a carnivalesque interpretation, that is, overdraw some of the key aspects of the characters until they almost become grotesque, in club to evoke humour. I decided to make my target audience corned 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 attempt to invert the original tales gender stereotyping. As I wanted to create a visually dynamic as well as linguistically cockeyed component part, I chose the writing style of a television drama a genre like ly to appeal to my target audience. This also allows the piece to suddenly break out of realism in order to give the drama a straightforwardly surreal edge, for caseful, the impromptu arrival of the snake. I felt the make senseition of this element of magical realism to the piece would tag on to the farcical nature and heighten the comedy.The opening few scenes are key to establishing the tone of the piece, and also the characters relationships. The opening scene of a rock band performing on stage is designed to grab the viewers attention, whilst also kindly to my target audience. Christian uses the informal register of the archetypal rock unity Weve been Christian and the May Poles Goodnight This type of lexis has connotations of arrogance and vanity, which is designed to railway line with the un politicness of Orpheuss kilt and also the band name Christian and the May Poles, a pun on the original Maenads.By having Edie backstage, providing the real musical talent, she init ially issues a relatively oppressed, marginalised character always forced to stay in the background Yeah. Well, I aint Christian, am I? There is a sense that Edie has accepted the belief imposed upon her by Christian that she is simply an accessory to his success. I gave her a distinct Yankee accent in order to turn out more down to priming than her rock star counterpart, and also to appeal more to the audience as the under-dog.Throughout, Christian is portrayed as the archetypal, vain, male rock star. I attempted to try this vanity linguistically, through his self-obsessed use of language Youve already got flowers. My flowers. Flowers handpicked by moi and also through his obsession with his eyebrows. I felt that by giving this conventionally effeminate concern to both Christian and Al, I could further parody the strong male stereotype associated with Greek myths. angiotensin-converting enzyme of the key changes that I made to the original text was that in my drama, Edie run s forth from Christian as opposed to Aristaeus. She is also leadingly bitten by the snake. By having Edie willingly leave Christian for the underworld, this is in keeping with my boilersuit feminist angle of approach, as it now becomes Edies quest to find her role as a performer.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 setting, and, by drawing inspiration from the character of the serpent, introduced the idea of a pantomime work of the Bible in the hope that this would generate further humour.Deliberately playing with the notion of stereotypes, that is foregrounding the whole issue, was also a comic device. beneficial as Christian is the stereotypical 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 mental strain figures and the language associated with them, such as the wise Yorkshiremen would also speed up audience recognition and mean the characters would not need to be independently introduced.In 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 incorporated monologues, in the style of Jim Cartwrights Road, in an attempt to provide greater character insight. However, these monologues seemed to jar with the other scenes and make the beginning search flat, without really adding to the piece. Although they established the characters, they did so in a sooner bland, pedestrian way, so these scenes were reworked.However, 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 master(prenominal) ways I did this was through my ch oice of language. Because my chosen setting was a theatre, I wanted to give the language of the underworld a distinct theatrical edge. peerless of the ways I tried to achieve this was through my use of luvvies discourse, for example, the Serpents line How marvellous, an indication of the moved(p) register of language associated with the theatre. This inflated speech is in immediate contrast to both Christian and Edies more down to earth, blue dialect and I tried to emphasize this contrast by having the cardinal types of speech juxtaposed in order that they might break against separately other and subsequently, generate humour Greetings Child/Who the hell are you? some other theatrical device which I made use of was the one lining a device associated with pantomime in the hope that this would make the piece feel like a pantomime production of Orpheus as it were. For example the serpents one-liner Im playing the serpent apropos attempts to add humour by overstatement, as I in terpreted this character on a literal level and made my serpent, an actor wearying 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 preview into future events.The wise men, Rod, Bob and Todd were added to act as a Cerebus figure. I gave them distri howeverively a pint of beer in order that they might foam at the mouth as Cerebus was famed for doing, and made them drunk and quite menacing in order to, like Cerebus, be perceived as sinful. Through their physical similarity and the syntactical correspondency of their language, they are designed to appear like a club-act, finishing off each others sentences in an almost pantomime patter style, in order to clump up on Christian We are wise men./The wise men of Yorkshire. I also made them speak simultaneously, in order to appear a s though they are one being with three heads We distinguishI transformed the original mythological character of Charon into another actor, tiny Ron. I combined many of the traditionalistic aspects of Charon such as the poser and cape, with sunglasses in order to contrast with Charons blazing eyeball motif. I also made him exceptionally short in order to dismiss any preconceptions which the audience may have of Charon being flyaway and all powerful. As opposed to Orpheus paying Charon one facile coin 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 God smoking.One 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 Im an actress, Chris. By changing the original endin g, Edie has found her real existence in the underworld, and to her, it is the upper world which is full of misery. Christian, however becomes a classic prospect of male melancholy homeless and unable to even strum his guitar. He is an allusion to the current crisis in masculinity, a phenomenon often voiced in the media, his traditional role as the performer taken over by his female counterpart abandoned for Keith Harris. Because of this, Christian feels his masculinity has been threatened. This is then made dry by his final effeminate cry of My tweezersIn the final scene, I had Edie 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 transformation 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 top.BIBLIOGRAPHYPhilip, Neil. The Illus trated Book of Myths, (DK, 2000)Hughes, Ted. Ted Hughes Collected Plays for Children, (Faber, 2001)Widdicombe, Rupert. The sunshine Times, (4 September 1994, CINEMA, pages 10-11)Ross, Alison and Greatrex, Jen. A2 English Language and Literature, (Heinemann, 2001)Eagleton, Terry. Literary scheme, An Introduction (Blackwell, 1996)Machery, Pierre. A Theory of Literary Production (Routlege and Kegan Paul. 1978)Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths1 (Penguin, 1955)Vogler, Christopher. The Writers expedition Mythic Structure for Writers(Michael Wiese Productions, 1998)Cartwright, Jim. Road (Samuel French, 1989)