A150 The Island Flashcards
Strategy II
Authority
The Island
The characters and THEIR authority
Exam Strategy
Need to prepare :
A brief statement about authority
A brief statement about The Island
A list of characters & their ‘authority’ – on the day, you can hail
whoever appears as an old chum!
These will inform all your work on the play.
Exam example - Brief description of AUTHORITY
Authority is broadly defined as the power to influence the ideas and actions of others and exists in writers and in their works. Works which endure because they are reognised to have this authority are referred to as ‘canonical’ and their writer acquires authoritative status.
A Greek play by Sophocles, a Foundation text of European Theatre - Battersby E 2004.
Authority II
Based on things that actually happened
Freedom from oppression and justice genres
Canonical status for the writer - major canon - classics
The authority of God and justice over the unfair apartheid system
Authority of Antigone - foundation work, many performances, Island becomes this also
Authority Exam Example
Authority is broadly defined as the power to influence the ideas and actions of others and exists in writers and in their works. Works which endure because they are reognised to have this authority are referred to as ‘canonical’ and their writer acquires authoritative status. Fugard, a playwright with such status, elected to adapt Sophocles Antigone, a play dating from the beginnings of Western culture which has endured both because of the power of Sophocles’ writing and the continuing relevance of its themes, the relationship between the political and the personal, between reason and belief. Antigone’s actions, based on belief in the law of the Gods and on her personal desire to see her brother, who had gone against the state, nevertheless given a decent burial, conflicts with the edicts of her uncle, Creon, ruler of Thebes who tries to maintain it is the law of the state, not of Gods, which ought to prevail, a clear conflict about what ‘authority’ should prevail.
Dealing with political prisoners on Robben Island, Fugard uses a perfomance of part of Antigone to demonstrate the continuing relevance of Sophocles’ ideas, the prisoners’ principled reistance to an unjust system resulting in their incarceration. In this extract… .describe
Exam Example - Brief Statement About the a Island
The apartheid-era drama, inspired by real conditions, is set in an unnamed prison clearly based on South Africa’s notorious Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was held for twenty-seven years. It focuses on two cellmates, one whose successful appeal means that his release draws near and one who must remain in prison for many years to come.
It is a political play that draws on a classical canonical text for it’s authority - Sophocles’ Antigone and the known suffering of the ANC detainees
The Island has become a canonical modern play – as arguably it has – it is because it fuses its basis in Greek tragedy with a wider concern for individual identity in the conflict between private and public
morality.”
The play draws parallels between Antigone’s situation and the situation of black political prisoners, the testing of their relationship between the political and the personal, between reason and belief
They spend their days at futile physical labor and nights rehearsing in their cell for a performance of Sophocles’ Antigone in front of the other prisoners.
Tensions arise as the performance approaches, especially when one of the prisoners learns that he has won an early release and the men’s deep friendship is tested. The Island bears testament to the resiliency of the human heart.
Dealing with political prisoners on Robben Island, Fugard uses a perfomance of part of Antigone to demonstrate the continuing relevance of Sophocles’ ideas, the prisoners’ principled reistance to an unjust system resulting in their incarceration.
The Island II
Political play from the apartheid era, based on a classical canonical text
One prisoner goes one stays
Principled resistance to the racial discrimination and tyranny of apartheid
Draws parallels between Antigone’s plight and that of black political prisoners
Resilience of friendship and the human heart to endure
Exam Example - A list of characters and their authority
John/Creon - a suffering prisoner, whose crime was to be member of a banned political organisation. The dominant and guiding character of the two who also plays the leading character, Creon, in the play the figure of authority who will enforce the law regardless of its perceived (by Antigone, Tiresius and Haemon and others) unfairness. He speaks as Creon but is here used to epitomise the authority of the Apartheid state, the agent of real injustice and their incarceration.
Winston/Antigone - A suffering prisoner whose crime was to burn his hated passbook, issued under the People’s Registration Act of 1949 in front of the the agents of Apartheid authority, the police. The second and to a certain extent, led character (by John) he plays Antigone in the play but whilst not an authoritative character in the play, assumes a greater and more moral authority by standing for justice and the freedom of the individual to do the morally right thing with respect to family, public and religious morality. He asserts the authority of God, justice and fairness over the draconian and for him unfair decrees of The State.
Hodoshe - a symbol of real authority within the Island, an unseen personification of The State referred to only verbally or by the sound of a prison whistle. A sadistic character who can dispense physical and mental punishment at whim. His name Hodoshe, is one of utter contempt given to him by inmates, Hodoshe being the green carrion corpse fly that lives off the dead, this being the state that John and Winston now feel they are in, physically alive, but dead to the world outside and prey, mentally and to an extent physically, to Hodoshe’s fancy.
What sort of play?
What is Apartheid?
ANC?
Political play that draws on a classical canonical text for it’s authority - Sophocles’ Antigone and the known suffering of the ANC detainees
A Dutch/English word meaning ‘apartness’, emerges 1930 becomes a law in 1949 - The Population Registration Act where racial groups can/can’t live sectors for white, black, Asian and coloureds (mixed race)
Emerges 1912, Mandela released 1990, 1st Black President
Antigone, When?
Authority
441 BC Athens, - 5th Century BCE
Apart from Sophocles Antigone which is a Foundation text of European theatre, the modern play’s language is mixed representing all the cultures in conflict - Although the play is in English, Afrikaans and Xhosa words are spoken too. Authority comes also from the fact that the men who played the parts (and the play was based on real characters) suffered the pain. It is also a play based on freedom from oppression and justice genres e.g. A tale of two cities, Spartacus, the count of monte christo, “The Island has become a canonical modern play – as arguably it has – it is because it fuses its basis in Greek tragedy with a wider concern for individual identity in the conflict between private and public
morality.”
What and who?
A Greek play by Sophocles, a Foundation text of European Theatre - Battersby E 2004. King Creon of Thebes - refuses to bury Antigone’s brother Polyneices who was on the losing side of a civil war but will bury his brother Eteocles. Ismene, Antigone’s sister is fearful of disobeying but will die to support her sister. Haemon, Creon’s son and Antigone’s fiancé tries to convince Creon not to sentence to death Antigone for wanting to bury Polyneices but is refused. Tiresias the blind poet convinces Creon to change his mind, too late. Antigone has hanged herself, Haemon has stabbed himself, Eurydice commits suicide in grief over Haemon and curses Creon, who is now a broken man due to his stubbornness
What is The Island?
What is its story?
The Island is a play devised by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona. The John and Winston of the play, it is st in Robben Island.
The apartheid-era drama, inspired by a true story, is set in an unnamed prison clearly based on South Africa’s notorious Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was held for twenty-seven years. It focuses on two cellmates, one whose successful appeal means that his release draws near and one who must remain in prison for many years to come.
Why are they there?
John has been imprisoned for belonging to a banned organization.
Winston, we find out later was imprisoned for burning his passbook in front of the police. This was a serious crime, as the passbook was used to segregate and control the South African people.
Hodoshe, an unseen character: he is referred to and represented by the sound of a prison whistle. He is a symbolic of the apartheid state and racist rule.’
What do the characters John (Creon) and Winston (Antigone) do?
They spend their days at futile physical labor and nights rehearsing in their cell for a performance of Sophocles’ Antigone in front of the other prisoners. One takes the part of Antigone, who defies the laws of the state to bury her brother, and the other takes the part of her uncle Creon, who sentences her to die for her crime of conscience. The play draws parallels between Antigone’s situation and the situation of black political prisoners. Tensions arise as the performance approaches, especially when one of the prisoners (John) learns that he has won an early release and the men’s deep friendship is tested. The Island bears testament to the resiliency of the human heart.
Antigone’s/Winston’s words of resistance.
After John-as-Creon sentences Winston-as-Antigone to be walled up in a cave for having defied him and done her duty towards her dead brother, Winston pulls off Antigone’s wig and yells ‘ Gods of Our Fathers! My Land! My Home! Time waits no longer. I go now to my living death, because I honoured those things to which honour belongs.’ The final image is of John and Winston, chained together once more, running hard as the siren wails.
