brecht - contempory society (1 Viewer)

ellirene

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"how are these large and complex ideas relavent to a contempory society"


does any one know anything relating to this question? :) would be MUCH appreciated, we have trials on monday,my costume design is also due on monday, art trials are also monday, ancient history trial is weds and final gp is thursday :|
i havent had time to study or even practise gp with all these major works ive had [also pip and art major which is due friday :s]
so please! if anyone out there knows anything about this question, i'd be delighted to read what you know :D
 

goosiegoo

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Ummm... well, i would probably talk about how alot Brecht's ideas are universal... how a lot of the ideas in his plays are still as meaningful today, even if it's in a different way. Such as the corruption of Azdak in the Caucasian Chalk Circle, if you're doing that, and poverty, etc etc...
Any it'd probably be a good idea to relate contemporary events that have been happening to things that happened in Brechts plays.

I hope that helps... that's just off the top of my head.

Good luck with your major works! I know how you feel, haha. Luckily my trials are over with.
 

ellirene

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hey :)
thanks heaps for that i really do appreciate :D

i've written a paragraph on alienation to do with mother courage.
i'm unsure if its right or not [i suck at drama essays, and rullllee at english ones :p]



Brecht didn’t want audiences to react emotionally to his characters, because that would mean they wouldn’t be likely to go out in the world planning to make a difference. This is why he tried his best to make his characters so disgraceful, thus alienating them away from the audience. Brecht does exactly this in Mother Courage, as Anna Feirling, herself turns symbolically away from her cart and confesses:
“Chaplain and me, we’re off to buy a Catholic flag”[scene 3]
Thus showing, Feirling’s corruption of morality to conform to other side of the on-going war, making us; the audience alienated as we have followed Feirling’s every decision. In saying this, it makes the audience think whether they, themselves should morally detach themselves too. By alienating the audience, they, metaphorically feel alone thus creating an elusive thought of ‘what would I do in this scenario’. The relation of acceptance/dissent towards homosexuality in a modern contempory outlook can metaphorically relate to an audiences opinion on ‘should we follow firling/should we not’. In reality, people who suddenly choose to become homosexual may be looked at under a new light, thus alienating both sides; which metaphorically creates a ‘war’ of opinion. This, opinion of critism/non-critism, relates greatly to the outsiders own morals.
 

SpunkT

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ellirene said:
"how are these large and complex ideas relavent to a contempory society"


does any one know anything relating to this question? :) would be MUCH appreciated, we have trials on monday,my costume design is also due on monday, art trials are also monday, ancient history trial is weds and final gp is thursday :|
i havent had time to study or even practise gp with all these major works ive had [also pip and art major which is due friday :s]
so please! if anyone out there knows anything about this question, i'd be delighted to read what you know :D
Hey there ellirene,

I don't know if you still need help, but i thought id plaster my two cents here for you. :)

Okay, firstly, the question

"how are these large and complex ideas relavent to a contempory society"

So when we look at the question in terms of brecht, we immediately look have to go, okay, firstly what is meant by large and complex ideas.

for me, this would be where i would just, place brecht, in his political and artistic context, stating how he strove to make a new theatre in which, he could make the audience think about something that only a play could show.

Taking, The threepenny opera as an example, i would just say, that in his "new theatre" his audience wasnt solely and wholley caught up in the story. Brecht worked hard to prevent his audiences from establishing an empathy with the characters and a total belief of the story. So in Threepenny opera, brecht was able to get the ideas of relentless economy (where society is unlimitied because everything has a price and is for sale - our trust, our soul, our bodies etc) thought of by the audience, because of theatre of alienation techniques. such as Vermfumsdung (which is the convention, of distancing the audience, through making the performance "strange" or "hyper-realistic" so the audience treats the play as if they are watching a play, as observers as oppose to witnesses)

This idea of relentless economy, and that of responsibility and ownership that are brought up in the caucasion chlk circle, are universal. which means regardless of time or context, they are present. In contemporary society, dominant cultural is the slave of consumerism, and the oil fields in iraq, are fought over much like the child in CCC.

but yeah, the whole arrangement of brecht's plays was tp cause his audience to discuss and choose a position on universal themes and their climate in their society. the complex and large ideas, are always relevent because they are universal... corruption is a natural human phenionuem(mispelt?)

umm yeah that was a large rent, but its essentially the line of arguement id take, just backing it up with more experientail work.

apologies for no reference to your text, mother courage and her children, i have done very little study on this text and yeah...wouldnt want to sound clumsy....

hope this helped in some small way and you do well in your exams :)

- Todd :)
 

RosyCheeks

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hey i was just wondering what all of your teachers are like because my drama teacher started... and i say STARTED... teaching us one of our texts (thats out of 4 of them) 1 week before the end of school forever!!! that was a week ago!! and we only spent max four lessons on anouther one. with those two combined we are supposed to write an essay on them. she also barely taught us nething on a beautiful life.. wat do you think of that...? and when we did or ips she constantly tried to
imput. i was doing script writtin so it was easy for me to tell her where to shove it but she would make changes to other ppls work with out even telling them.. tell me what you think.
 
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abigg

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I think we share the same teacher. She did the exact same thing, and we pretty much just do all our own study in our own time , not really knowing what we're looking for. Stabbing in the dark at ideas that she doesnt even ...grr. im annoyed, the hsc exam is this afternoon and i want to stab her in the dark.
x
 

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