For this response essay, you can select either Ruined or School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play to focus your  paper.

Start with a statement of the play’s intention. That is, your interpretation of the “audience experience” each play text produces when it is performed) and then proceed to a discussion of the specific perspective you have chosen (story, world, character, etc.).

Then write a response essay on how you interpret the play through the eyes of the perspectives given below.

Perspectives:

World of the play: each play has its own society, morality, psychology, and aesthetic reality.

Issues: ideas running throughout the play, a topic, or problem that the play reveals.

Story: the play’s narrative thrust, the events that make up the narrative. Think of basic plots: man vs. nature, man vs. man, man vs. environment, man vs. machine/technology, and man vs. god/religion.

Character: “the agent for action” the human being who is embroiled in the narrative. What social, psychological, moral function does the character fill? What is her/his/their function in the play?

Symbolism, Metaphors, and Patterns: symbolism is the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities. A metaphor is a figure of speech making an implicit, implied, or hidden comparison between two unrelated things that share some common characteristics; patterns are repeating style, language, images, ideas, etc.

You can choose whichever play you want. If you have any questions I will be attentive to my email.