Global Literature: A Unified View of Ideas & Themes - Essay Sample

Introduction

World literature can be viewed as the work of literature which extends from the mere national research, essential for a given country. World literature extends its importance over the globe. The work of literature can now be viewed to be intertwined or rotating within similar ideas, views, and contexts. Most authors from different parts of the world find themselves revolving around the same framework. If two various texts can be compared while identifying the main ideas and themes, there is a high likelihood that both pieces of work will share most ideas and focus. This context focuses on exploring in-depth how written texts contribute to the work of world literature by traveling to and revolving around some texts or contexts which were existing earlier or exceeding the work which has been in existence whether historically or geographically.

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For this particular text, we try to explore two pieces of work from different authors, Griselda Gambaro Information for Foreigners (model) and Antigone (rewritten) by Elizabeth Wyckoff. We try to explore the resonance, relocations, and differences within the two texts and make conclusions depending on the findings obtained. In Griselda Gambaro's text Information for Foreigners, different themes such as accountability, voyeurism, and action are found to be dominant throughout the text. The production of the play during early 1972 shows future predictions depict6inh possibility of violence, facing Argentina's "Dirty War" between 1976 - 1963. The author of the game Dianna Tylor says, "In Argentina, during the 1970s both State and anti-State terrorism competed to capture the public's attention and control its behavior by staging highly dramatic acts of violence. Terrorism, with its scenes of torture and abductions, proved highly theatrical both on a practical and on a symbolic level" (Taylor & Dianna 165). Action, as used in the play, shows the effects of the war on both parties. The use of work has led to the birth of voyeurism which can be seen through the complicated audience gathering around the performance doing absolutely nothing, acting as a safe for the thespians within the performance who represent the viewers. Deficiency of deed within the game allurements into attention the quest for accountability. The readers are left to wonder the party responsible for parts such as sideshow of horrors, which has been used throughout the play, who will be held accountable to stop it? Can it be stoppable?

The general structure for the play is very unusual. Tylor states, "By introducing fragments of theatrical scenes with acts of criminal violence, Gambaro indicates the degree to which theater in Latin America is the arena of intense and dangerous conflict" (Taylor & Dianna 169). This particular style has been used to showcase real-life events which been presented at a certain level of fiction. Just as a horror movie, the target audience is the adults, the message being addressed is the horror life during the military regime. Holding that scene 20 is last in the performance; the rest of the audience appears to be out of order. The whole play can be viewed as a puzzle game trying to draw answers from the audience, asking a mind-challenging question such as "what is behind the scene." The audience is meant to feel as if they were being carried to a cultural museum, and their work is only to view the actions without necessarily having any input. The movements presented borders on absurd in various ways, present of suspects and police officers having dressing bizarrely with comical overreaction. The pair of farce and verisimilitude depicts the Argentina violence history and how complicated its citizens are. The author goes further in this particular concept to compare, actors, audience and torture victims to one another "as they stood in (albeit unwillingly) for someone or something else (Taylor & Dianna 180)."

The symbolic implication of a tour guide can be represented by the witnesses to and perpetrators of Argentina's Criminal act. Because the audience is unable to wander through the bizarre set, he is only left to be the tour guide showing the rest the various places (Taylor & Dianna 165). As a result, the audience remains privy within the contained actions in the play. The audience has a complete idea of every activity taking place within the game but has no control over them, i.e., he cannot stop the horrific happenings in the play. The audience recites the various instances within the newspaper article such as "Information for Foreigners" events which ordinary citizens accused of "subversive behavior" were rarely found, abducted and tortured. The audience refers to these horrific actions using word-phrase "matter-of-factly" (Taylor & Dianna 165), showing the measures were reasonable and ordinary. The role of the audience in this play dims him as both inactive spectator and active participant.

The perception of things happening to be standard combines the action and participation to a certain degree. The concept of operation of the audience refers to the viewer seen rambling from place to place at the enactment area as opposed to the ones deskbound. The general setting of the play shows a full extent beyond the usual "breaking through the fourth wall" (Taylor & Dianna 175) though the particular device has been widely used in the text information for Foreigners. The audience is asked to walk around the performance area by the actor who acts as the tour guide in the play, although the audience can be seen doing other actions apart from just walking such as taking wine which is offered by an actress from the stage (Taylor & Dianna 170). According to Tylor, "The witnesses [of Argentinean terrorism], like obedient spectators in a theater, we're encouraged to suspend their disbelief" (Taylor & Dianna 165). By using this particular statement shows difference witness and audience as both are referred to be spectators of something larger than themselves. The context goes further to show the difference between the passive and active and passive audience. People remain silent even after being the first-hand witnesses of the crimes and violence as implied by "there is nothing they can do" (Taylor & Dianna 167).

On the other side, the play Antigone edited by Elizabeth Wyckoff, themes such as justice vs. administrative Duties, Religious duties, Individual conscience Vs. State, patriarchial hierarchy, political sphere, among others. The text raises various questions about nature such as statesmanship in terms of lack of sovereignty, laws corresponding to the acknowledgment of subjective views and objective justice, source of legitimacy, order maintenance, responsiveness, and Authoritarianism to counsel among others. The plot of the play reflects unintentional meaning and consequences of action and unpredictability associated with it.

By looking briefly on the Antigone Sophocles the context and the message been addressed is quite similar to Information for Foreigners. The text revolves around violence and blindness of the victims. Through the continuation of the Oedipus narrative, at first, we are told that he dies while at exile. Secondly, on leaving the throne to his sons Polyneices and Eteocles, there is an outbreak of civil war when Eteocles defies the order to relinquish the throne (Griffith & Mark, 1999). The ongoing conflict has forced Polyneices being overwhelmed by the greed for authority to attack his brother Eteocles to retaliate (Griffith & Mark, 1999). The play kicks off when the two brothers have murdered each other, and the brother to Oedipus Creon has inherited the throne. Antigone and Ismene daughters to Oedipus makes an epic journey to Thebes to save their brothers from an ancient curse, "they will kill each other without knowing (Griffith & Mark, 1999)." On arrival, they realize that their brothers are long dead. Oedipus brother gives Eteocles a decent burial but denies Polyneices for he believes he is a traitor who has launched an attack on his own country (Griffith & Mark, 1999). Antigone gives out her views concerning the need for a decent burial to their brother Polyneices, Isme appears not to agree with this idea since she believes the men's words are final. Antigone defies the norms and conducts the burial ritual. On finding out that Polyneices has been buried, Creon threatens to kill the guard if the perpetrator is not found (Griffith & Mark, 1999).

Though the two texts differ in ideologies and setting, their messages tend to be revolving on the same concept, i.e., dominion over a weaker individual - both context address about violence and the resultant effects. In Antigone, Isme and the guard represent the vulnerable, passive subjects who are aware of what is happening but have no power to take any action. In both cases, the audience is out of order all through. The audience is perceived to be on tour; they have no control over what is happening around them hence in both cases. Through reviewing both texts, this is indeed world literature with context revolving on historical contexts as well as geographical backgrounds.

Works Cited

Taylor, Diana. "Theater and Terrorism: Griselda Gambaro's" Information for Foreigners"." Theatre Journal 42.2 (1990): 165-182.Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/3207753

Griffith, Mark, ed. Sophocles: Antigone. Cambridge University Press, 1999. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=WrEJrSGG018C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=antigone+sophocles&ots=6ROkeHu1WL&sig=Syxue7_J5UQkyX50ZlPZg5TscHg