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The Zoo Story

Name : Maula Akhadin
NIM  : A 320080273
Class : H

The Zoo Story

1. The Characters
a. Peter : A man in his early forties, married, embarrassed, childish, serious person.
b. Jerry : A man in late thirties, unmarried, insecure, verbally aggressive.

2. Plot
Tone of book is humorous. The Zoo Story is a confrontation between middle-class America and the outcasts of society. Jerry tries to teach Peter the realities of life that Peter has tried to ignore. He tries to teach Peter the nature of human existence and relationships. Through a serious of failed conversations and misinterpretations of the act of love, Jerry begins his experiment to see if the middle class Americas are animals after all.

3. Setting
Set in central park, New York.

4. Style
Mostly dialog, Person - rotating 1st, a lot of play on words, a lot of stream of consciousness, generic/vague references to death/punishment, moderately detailed references to deaths.

5. Theme/ issues
Jerry′ s problems and aims:
Problems:
- he feels lonely
- he lacks company
- he has no one to talk to
- he feels misunderstood
- he desperately tries to come into contact with other people
- he is an outsider, utterly depressed, unhappy
- he is unable to establish a relationship with other people.
Aims:
- he tries to establish a relationship with another person
- he tries to befriend somebody
Reasons for Jerry′ s inability to make friends/for his loneliness:
- childhood experiences (no real family life in his youth)
- psychological problems (he cannot deal with other people)
- anonymity/impersonality of a big city
- alienation of the individual in big cities/in modern society
- big gap between the haves and the have-nots
Peter is a middle-class publishing executive with a wife, two daughters, two cats and two parakeets who lives in ignorance of the world outside his settled life. jerry is an isolated and disheartened man who lives in a boarding house and is very play the zoo story.

6. Conclusion
There is a similarity between the way in which animals live in the zoo and the way in which human beings live together/communicate with one another. The play explores themes of isolation, loneliness, social disparity and dehumanisation in a commercial world. The end of the story, Jerry has succeeded in establishing a relationship with another human being (with Peter) under absurd (lethal, suicidal fight; planned "murder-suicide" (after the "story" with the dog Jerry is disillusioned and plans his death carefully) circumstances and for a very short time (at the moment of dying). MAN VS SOCIETY

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The Proposal


Nama : Maula Akhadin
Nim   : A320080273
Class : H

 
          The Proposal

 Characters
a. Stepan Stepanovich Chubukov
b. Natalya Stepanovna
c. Ivan Vassilevitch Lomov
Characterization :
a. Stepan Stepanovich Chubukov: 70 years old, a landowner.
b. Natalya Stepanovna: Chubukov’s daughter, 25 years old.
c. Ivan Vassilevitch Lomov: 35 years old, a neighbour of Tschubukov, a large and hearty, but very suspicious landowner.
Plot :
Ivan Vassiliyitch Lomov, a long-time neighbor of Stepan Stepanovitch Chubukov, has come to propose marriage to Chubukov's 25-year-old daughter, Natalia. After he has asked and received joyful permission to marry Natalia, she is invited into the room, and he tries to convey to her the proposal. Lomov is a hypochondriac, and, while trying to make clear his reasons for being there, he gets into an argument with Natalia about The Oxen Meadows, a disputed piece of land between their respective properties, which results in him having "palpitations" and numbness in his leg. After her father notices they are arguing, he joins in, and then sends Ivan out of the house. While Stepan rants about Lomov, he expresses his shock that "this fool dares to make you (Natalia) a proposal of marriage!" This news she immediately starts into hysterics, begging for her father to bring him back. He does, and Natalia and Ivan get into a second big argument, this time about the superiority of their respective hunting dogs, Otkatai and Ugadi. Ivan collapses from his exhaustion over arguing, and father and daughter fear he's died. However, after a few minutes he regains consciousness, and Tschubukov all but forces him and his daughter to accept the proposal with a kiss. Immediately following the kiss, the couple gets into another argument.
Setting :
a. Setting of place : In a country house of Chubukov
b. Setting of time : In the past time
Theme :
The farce explores the process of getting married and could be read as a satire on the upper middle class and courtship.
The play points out the struggle to balance the economic necessities of marriage and what the characters themselves actually want. It shows the characters' desperation for marriage as comical.
In Chekhov's Russia, marriage was a mean of economic stability for most people. They married to gain wealth and possessions or to satisfy social pressure. The satire is conveyed successfully by emphasizing the couple's foolish arguments over small things. The main arguments in the play revolve around The Oxen Meadows and two dogs called Ugadi and Otkatai.
Conclusion :
In Chekhov's Russia, marriage was a means of economic stability for most people. They married to gain wealth and possessions. In this play, the concept of marriage is being satirized to show the real purpose of marriage - materialistic gain rather than true love.
Thus, first, it assumes that there is such a thing as true love and that it is a conception based on the idea that two people are literally meant for each other. Second, it states that these two people, though meant for each other, may have to endure a good deal before they can actually achieve the love they feel.
Man vs. Society :
It is a man vs. society drama because in the proposal drama there are some conflicts among its characters. Moreover in this drama there is no natural event.

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The Death Salesman


Name    : Maula Akhadin
NIM      : A 320080273

Class     : H

The Death of  Salesman

1. The Characters

a. Willy Loman is an individual who craves attention and is governed by a desire   for success and as an aging salesman.
b. Linda Loman Willy Loman's wife. She is Willy's champion and takes it upon herself to reconcile her family.
c. Biff Loman The Lomans' older son. Biff is the only member of the family who knows about Willy's affair, and he resents his father bitterly.
d. Happy Loman The Lomans' younger son. Happy is a womanizer driven by his sexuality.
e. Uncle Ben Willy's older brother. He made a fortune in the African jungle by the time he     was 21 years old.
f. Charley A long-time acquaintance of the Lomans. Charlie is a true friend to Willy, even     though Willy is jealous of him.
g. Bernard Charley's son. He is a successful lawyer.
h. The Woman Willy's former lover, with whom he had an affair many years ago in     Boston.
I. Howard Wagner Willy's current boss. Howard is a businessman, unaffected by the facts     that Willy worked for his father and named him as a child.
j. Jenny Charley's secretary.
k. Stanley A waiter.
l. Miss Forsythe and Letta Young prostitutes.

2. Plot
Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice.

3. Setting
Death of a Salesman takes place in New York and Boston, at a Manhattan restaurant.

4. Style
Tragedy
There is much discussion of whether Death of a Salesman can be considered a tragedy. ‘Tragedy’ as  a form was defined by the Greek playwright Aristotle in 330 BCE. He defined a tragic character . Language , the use of language in Death of a Salesman is entirely Realistic. Miller’s dialogue is carefully constructed to  follow the exact speech patterns of ordinary New Yorkers. It is very dense and fast, with repetitions,  hesitations, and contradictions. The characters often use slang and clichés .

5. Theme/issue
Willy is deteriorating and suicidal, Biff is told to get serious.
Here comes the conflict, right on schedule. Willy’s mental wanderings are getting worse; he is preoccupied with Biff’s aimlessness and inability to find success in business. Linda informs her sons that Willy has been trying to commit suicide and tells Biff that his father’s life is in his hands. Biff needs to get a job and get serious or take the blame for his father’s actions.


6. Conclusion
Biff rejects his father’s misguided dream, but Happy runs with it.
At the conclusion of the play, it is totally clear that Willy was wrong about himself. Not that we ever thought otherwise, but practically no one comes to his funeral. Biff now realizes that his father didn’t know himself and picked the wrong path. He will certainly not follow in his father’s footsteps. Happy, on the other hand, defends his father’s misguided dreams and decides to take them on himself. MAN VS SOCIETY

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