|
|
The American Identity in the Works of David Mamet and Sam Shepard
Sičák, Michal ; Wallace, Clare (advisor) ; Ulmanová, Hana (referee)
In my thesis I focused on the matter of the relationship of Americans during the decades after World War II to their own identity, as well as to the myths of the West or consumer society. I wanted to compare these aspects on plays by Sam Shepard and David Mamet, two playwrights concerned with similar issues in 1960s and 1970s. In the theoretical part of the thesis I concentrated on the development of the American theater off Broadway. I described three significant theater groups of the era and the differences in their approach. I based the comparison of the plays on Richard Schechner's performance theory and J. L. Austin's theory of the so-called "performatives." Later I discussed the matters of rituals and myths in the postmodern society where I based my theory especially on Victor Turner's and Marie Maclean's work. The two main chapters are dealing with comparing two plays by each author with regard to the way Shepard and Mamet work with rituals and modern myths. Those are considered commonplace, insufficient, almost misleading in a modern society, and the plays' characters thus cannot cope with the society. They end up being on its outer edge and do not seem to be able to find the way back. As a result of the comparison of the plays based on the theoretical part I concluded that even though from the...
|
|
|
Mythology of dr. Who television series
Kužel, Martin ; Šoltys, Otakar (advisor) ; Baslarová, Iva (referee)
Main focus of my Master's Thesis is to conduct a research of mythological elements and themes that appear within the narrative structure of selected episodes of BBC television series Doctor Who, deriving from the initial hypothesis that such mythological patterns are still recurring and repeating even in the structure of stories produced by modern show-business industries, which renders their content intrinsically more attractive for any audience. We analyse selected episodes from both arks of the Doctor Who's story individually - the old one, which began in the sixties, and the new one, which is considered to be a reboot of the original series and aired in 2005. The originally intended educative element of the series and its sudden disappearance is also a part of our research. Main analysis of our paper consists of a semiotic analysis of the text of the television series utilizing the point of view of the critical reader that was introduced by Umberto Eco, and deriving from the definition of modern myth that appears in works of Roland Barthes, archaic myth, studied for example by Carl Lévi- Strauss, and Jungian archetypes.
|
|
|
The American Identity in the Works of David Mamet and Sam Shepard
Sičák, Michal ; Wallace, Clare (advisor) ; Ulmanová, Hana (referee)
In my thesis I focused on the matter of the relationship of Americans during the decades after World War II to their own identity, as well as to the myths of the West or consumer society. I wanted to compare these aspects on plays by Sam Shepard and David Mamet, two playwrights concerned with similar issues in 1960s and 1970s. In the theoretical part of the thesis I concentrated on the development of the American theater off Broadway. I described three significant theater groups of the era and the differences in their approach. I based the comparison of the plays on Richard Schechner's performance theory and J. L. Austin's theory of the so-called "performatives." Later I discussed the matters of rituals and myths in the postmodern society where I based my theory especially on Victor Turner's and Marie Maclean's work. The two main chapters are dealing with comparing two plays by each author with regard to the way Shepard and Mamet work with rituals and modern myths. Those are considered commonplace, insufficient, almost misleading in a modern society, and the plays' characters thus cannot cope with the society. They end up being on its outer edge and do not seem to be able to find the way back. As a result of the comparison of the plays based on the theoretical part I concluded that even though from the...
|
guest ::
