Godfrey Flashcards
(5 cards)
role
-patriarch of crump family and a widower
-his faith helps him feel grounded and thinks for him as he is afraid to think in a(fear drives all characters) world that persecutes him constantly ie already racismJIM CROW and red scare
-this contrasts with his daughters AND LILY SPECIALLY.
-he is basically being forced to accept crumbs of his own life
-his fear and grief are suppressed feelings surrounding racism and life in 50s.
- spends most of his life thinking about qs to ask fd
-by searching to someone for an answer(explores human impulse to find meaning to make sense of world and that it even wastes life too in. sense) like lily investigating in organisations that give them identity in 50s America that won’t let them.
-bakery, sweetness portrays romantacism Hollywood of his own world and the way he sees girls.
origins?————->south———>problematic
-both went to Brooklyn——Godfrey bc of religion, Lily bc of her communist views——both to escape, make a life for themselves.
(lily also looking for him perhaps?)
- and looking at some of the challenges I have encountered, I have come to realize that we each do the very best that we can at the time.
faith and hope and Meaning
-‘gesture is mechanical, the mark of unfamiliarity’ (pg 50) as he takes gerte’s hand. mechanical connotates consumerism as if by following FD, godfrey is made another customer with no identity just searching for happiness but afraid to do it his way.
-‘rips into the envelope with an unbridled pleasure’ (pg 20) rips connotates excitement but also negativity and ferocity which is emphasised by unbridled adjective a side of him we never see but as if by limiting freedom, FD gives him freedom
-‘You-are-one-of-the bl-bl-ess’ (pg 20) unability to read own letter also emphasises his need for hope bc don’t have much (illiteracy) but also broken language metaphor for as creates broke rhythm and pace as if his portraying how faith distorts reality but also explains reason he holds onto him.
-‘He knows how long we’ve been awaiting his arrival. Trust me, he won’t let us down’ (pg 54) repetition of pronoun as if close, draws an imagery of the hope he instills, ie ‘trust me’ and when he doesn’t he sits ‘frozen’ verb opposite of hope, ref ton the food they’d been eating
-‘Lights fade on a simmering Godfrey, leaving Ernestine and Lily in separate pools of light’ (PG 37). ‘LIGHT’ metaphor for how they see, we all see, the world in diff ways and why they are being ‘separate’.
fear and ignorance(romantacism also) meaning
-‘(Sing-song.) something in my pocket for my babies’ (pg 15) romantacism in his way. sing song rhythm and Melody pleasing linking to crumbs in his pocket as he works in Bakery, food is left over crumbs. also repeated at the end of the play as play comes to and end and gerte sings falling in love again as her last line and this is his last line too.
-‘-‘I smell the liquor and the sweat’ (Pg 44) and ‘stomps his feet’ use of five senses, and onoematopia bring out emotions and creates imagery as if there in the moment. makes it alive and fun and contrasts with the dull world earlier, making us see how hard it is for him to abstain from . the preposition make them things, as if enemies to him now out of fear.
-‘Ya want a cookie?’ (pg 46) cookie=sweetness. sweetness portrays romantacism Hollywood . gerte is upset so this is his way as well as FD of making her feel better about the world-through feeling good and forgetting about problems. sweet stuff are also ironic as also they are escapism they are also what traps him in a limited life-bakery
-‘Sweet Father, this city confuse me, but all I know is to keep the door shut’ (pg 77) improper language emphasises the idea he is lost and searching for meaning through not formulating sentences properly.
-‘my pockets are stuffed full of paper’ (pg 54) normally food, sweet in there. papers replaced by food, portrays romantacism of FD. artificial feel created paper-consumerism, filled, everywhere in the world around.
-‘we met, we fell in love, we married’ (pg 51) asyndeton creates rhythm contrasting with the fact he says it ‘defensively’ later also ernestine talks about finding crumbs in life like this.
critical thinking
-‘in the absence of a cloth he uses a piece of newspaper to buff his shoes’ (pg 17). ref to wealth, newspaper’s role isn’t for that, but in using it, its a metaphor for crumbs. a newspaper is ironic as its a source of info, but we know godfrey is almost afraid to think so by rubbing it on his shoes we are shown his perception to it.
-‘takes out his little pad and jots down some notes’ (pg 26) the pronoun ‘his’ personalises it making it his personality, as if unable to think. verb jots casual, and little contrasts with the big qs he asks as it trying to foreshadow he can’t fit all of it.
-scene where lily is drunk and ‘dances a circle around a steadfast Godfrey’. godfrey presented as dutiful, verb steadfast shows him as firm headed scared to think outside box contrasting with a dancing lily connotating freedom, looseness and ability to think. lily is dancing a circle also contrasts with steadfast…straight on
racism and loss
-‘wails like a god-awful banshee’ (pg 9) simile creates a tangible effect. banshee a spirit warns death shows how death has become his personality in some way.
-‘on the mantle is a photograph of sandra crump(…) smiling gloriously’ and ‘over the mantle hangs a huge photograph of Father Divine’
preposition on and over contrast as a metaphor show how FD is looming over Sandra’s memory, a replacement. the adjective huge emphasises this and adverb gloriously connotates heaven religion as if sandra was his religion salvation etc
-‘miracle elixir boasting to induce ‘peace of mind’ (pg 13) why he thought fd was in Brooklyn. link to consumerism, like a potion idea of magical- fake-loss of free will price of happiness. adverb boasting emphasise consumerism and elixir personified.
-‘with those two simple words, he can dismiss our wants, our desires, even our simplest pleasures. They white’ (pg 14). they pronoun distances them, segregates them further. asyndeton speeds rhythm and pace as if acting out his ear.
-‘like its all right for them to crack me in the face with a Coca-Cola bottle’ (pg 71) Coca Cola=consumerism which can be seen as a materialistic society that neglects other values. racism paralleled with this in this 50s demonstrates the loss of many.
-(flustered) ‘If…If…If…I had a…’ (pg 72) before bumping into ernestine doll. repetition of if and ellipses not only portray flusteredness but metaphor for racism and his stationary stance of the world, fears and loss explained here and knocking over her doll displays how dreams loss bc of it.
-‘Sister’s right’ (pg 72) shortness of sentence indicates not only how gerte doesn’t understand thus separating them but unlike gerte ‘sister’ connotates a familiar feel creating and highlighting relationships but Alsop showing segregated America more.
-‘only number he will ever play’ (pg 15) on listening to the radio and guessing marbles bc his wife guessed that number and won once. links to death literally crippling him and freezing him so that he is unable to move, Ironic as numbers connotate counting, however ernestine says someday he will win with that number meaning some people may live their lives how they want and it works—crumbs
