Saturday, February 26, 2005

"The Jews"

Religion these days is one of those touchy subjects that you try to avoid at all costs, like politics... But it seems as though in the times of this reading people were not quick to bite their toungue regarding their opinions of other religions. This reading makes a satire revolving the stereotypes of "the jews". The Baron's servant posing as a jew, with a beard to disguise him, is the one who is guilty of the Baron's assualt. After a series of interuptions, which occur throughout the dialogue thereby concealing the traveller's identity, we find out that he himself is Jewish. I enjoy reading dialogues because the reader gets to experience endless perspectives, as opposed to having one primary narrator. I thought it was clever how the author connected all the characters through the sniff box.

1 comment:

Nelly Yuki said...

I always have trouble reading plays because I don't like that there isn't much indication as to emotion or delivery of lines, and I feel like a lot of the dialogue in this play could be delivered in several different ways.
Lessing definitely has a skill for dialogue exchanges though, and I really liked how the characters interacted with each other, particularly when the men are trying to court Lissette and when Martin Krumm and the Traveller are arguing about the snuff box on page 26.