Act Without Words Literary Elements

Act Without Words Literary Elements

Genre

Drama, play, theater of the absurd

Language

English

Setting and Context

Desert, time not specified, context not literally specified.

Narrator and Point of View

Stage Directions (Narrator), Third-Person Objective (Narrator-Point of View)

Tone and Mood

Formal-Playful (Tone); Hopeless (Mood)

Protagonist and Antagonist

Man (Protagonist), God (Antagonist, implied)

Major Conflict

A man is trying to get water but cannot reach it.

Climax

Everything is taken up into the flies (above).

Foreshadowing

At first there is nothing, then the man comes. It is foreshadowed, this is how it will end.

Understatement

"Man is flung backwards", as if he came from the vaginal canal, and this foreshadows he will eventually die.

Allusions

The text alludes to Lucky's character in Waiting for Godot and the clowning and tramps in Waiting for Godot and Endgame, both by Beckett.

Imagery

Desert, Dazzling light

Paradox

meager tuft of palms

Parallelism

n/a

Personification

It has a single bough three yards from the ground and at its summit meager tufts of palms casting at its foot a circle of shadow.

Use of Dramatic Devices

The whole text uses stage directions.

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