Analyze the way each play uses the theme or character type, individually. Determine what you think each author is doing with the theme or character type; what meaning are they making with it?

Assignment Question

The two plays: Fedra by J Nicole Brooks and Phedre by Jean Racine. You’ll use close reading and analysis to make meaning out of two plays and the issues they raise. You’ll analyze the way each play uses the theme or character type, individually. Determine what you think each author is doing with the theme or character type; what meaning are they making with it? Since this is an analysis, naturally, you want to focus mainly on the how and the why of it: how does each playwright use the theme/character? Why do you think they do so? Then, you’ll compare and contrast the two plays’ treatments: how do the plays use the theme/character similarly and how differently?

You must then account for the differences and similarities: Why does one play present a theme differently than the other? Why is the presentation of a character type so similar, despite other differences between the plays? And, most importantly, how are the play and its adaptation informed and affected by the historical periods they were written in? My notes from feedback with the professor in addition to the feedback given to me (please find attached): Find something, the medium, something that happened then and now and how they’re similar, how it has something to say about the first piece and elaborate on it. make it personal.

Read phedre by jean racine and Fedra by j Nicole brooks (in the book “contemporary plays by African American women – 10 complete works by Sandra Adell) What are the values of neoclassical France? What does it have to say about honor and loyalty? What about this piece feels French to Racine in this time period? What does it have to do with the time period ? Who is he speaking to, who is he writing about, what is he asking them if he’s asking a question? What is the conversation here? Why would Brooks choose this play to have a conversation with Racine? Given her social historical, and political content is about as far removed from Racine’s as you can get. What’s her argument?