Analysis on The Proposal by Anton Chekov

The Proposal

By Anton Chekov

Analyzed by Asri Dwi Hastari A320080212

A.    The Characters

1. Stepan Stepanovich Chubukov 
2. Natalya Stepanovna 
3. Ivan Vassilevitch Lomov

B.     Characterization

1. Stepan Stepanovich Chubukov: 70 years old, a landowner. 
2. Natalya Stepanovna: Chubukov’s daughter, 25 years old. 
3. Ivan Vassilevitch Lomov: 35 years old, a neighbour of Tschubukov, a large and hearty, but very suspicious landowner.

C.     Plot

Ivan Vassiliyitch Lomov, a long-time neighbor of Stepan Stepanovitch Chubukov, has come to propose marriage to Chubukov's 25-year-old daughter, Natalia. After he has asked and received joyful permission to marry Natalia, she is invited into the room, and he tries to convey to her the proposal. Lomov is a hypochondriac, and, while trying to make clear his reasons for being there, he gets into an argument with Natalia about The Oxen Meadows, a disputed piece of land between their respective properties, which results in him having "palpitations" and numbness in his leg. After her father notices they are arguing, he joins in, and then sends Ivan out of the house. While Stepan rants about Lomov, he expresses his shock that "this fool dares to make you (Natalia) a proposal of marriage!" This news she immediately starts into hysterics, begging for her father to bring him back. He does, and Natalia and Ivan get into a second big argument, this time about the superiority of their respective hunting dogs, Otkatai and Ugadi. Ivan collapses from his exhaustion over arguing, and father and daughter fear he's died. However, after a few minutes he regains consciousness, and Tschubukov all but forces him and his daughter to accept the proposal with a kiss. Immediately following the kiss, the couple gets into another argument.

D.    Setting

1. Setting of place : In a country house of Chubukov 
2. Setting of time : In the past time

E.     Theme

The farce explores the process of getting married and could be read as a satire on the upper middle class and courtship. The play points out the struggle to balance the economic necessities of marriage and what the characters themselves actually want. It shows the characters' desperation for marriage as comical. In Chekhov's Russia, marriage was a mean of economic stability for most people. They married to gain wealth and possessions or to satisfy social pressure. The satire is conveyed successfully by emphasizing the couple's foolish arguments over small things. The main arguments in the play revolve around The Oxen Meadows and two dogs called Ugadi and Otkatai.

F.      Conclusion

In Chekhov's Russia, marriage was a means of economic stability for most people. They married to gain wealth and possessions. In this play, the concept of marriage is being satirized to show the real purpose of marriage - materialistic gain rather than true love. Thus, first, it assumes that there is such a thing as true love and that it is a conception based on the idea that two people are literally meant for each other. Second, it states that these two people, though meant for each other, may have to endure a good deal before they can actually achieve the love they feel.

G.    Man vs. Society

It is a man vs. society drama because in the proposal drama there are some conflicts among its characters. Moreover in this drama there is no natural event.

Analysis on The Zoo Story by Edward Albee

The Zoo Story

By Edward Albee

Analized by Asri Dwi Hastari A320080212

A.    The title

The writer gives the title The Zoo Story because it tells about Jerry, one of main characters in this story, Jerry is an isolated and disheartened man who lives in a boarding house and is very troubled. “Zoo” word in the title reflects Jerry’s behavior which is like zoo.

B.     The Characters

Peter, a man in his early forties, neither fat nor gaunt, neither
handsome nor homely He wears tweeds, smokes a pipe, carries
horn-rimmed glasses. Although he is moving into middle age, his
dress and his manner would suggest a man younger.

Jerry, a man in his late thirties, not poorly dressed, but carelessly.
What was once a trim and lightly muscled body has begun to go to fat;
and while he is no longer handsome, it is evident that he once was.
His fall from physical grace should not suggest debauchery; he has, to
come closest to it. A great weariness.

C.     The Synopsis

A man named Peter, a complacent publishing executive of middle age and upper-middle income, is comfortably reading a book on his favorite bench in New York's Central Park on a sunny afternoon. Along comes Jerry, an aggressive, seedy, erratic loner. Jerry announces that he has been to the (Central Park) Zoo and eventually gets Peter, who clearly would rather be left alone, to put down his book and actually enter into a conversation. With pushy questions, Jerry learns that Peter lives on the fashionable East Side of the Park (they are near Fifth Avenue and 74th Street), that the firm for which he works publishes textbooks, and that his household is female-dominated: one wife, two daughters, two cats, and two parakeets. Jerry easily guesses that Peter would rather have a dog than cats and that he wishes he had a son. More perceptively, Jerry guesses that there will be no more children, and that that decision was made by Peter's wife. Ruefully, Peter admits the truth of these guesses.

The subjects of the Zoo and Jerry's visit to it come up several times, at one of which Jerry says mysteriously, "You'll read about it in the papers tomorrow, if you don't see it on your TV tonight.'' The play never completely clarifies this remark. Some critics think, because of statements Jerry makes about the animals, that he may have released some from their cages, while others think Jerry is talking about a death which has not yet happened, which might be headlined "Murder Near Central Park Zoo.''

The catalyst for the shocking ending transpires when Peter announces, he really must be going home. And then Jerry gives response, begins to tickle Peter. Peter giggles laughs and agrees to listen to Jerry finish telling happened at the zoo. At the same time Jerry begins pushing Peter off the bench. Peter decides to fight for his territory on the bench and becomes angry. Unexpectedly, Jerry pulls a knife on Peter, and then drops it as initiative for Peter to grab. When Peter holds the knife defensively, Jerry charges him and impales himself on the knife. Bleeding on the park bench, Jerry finishes his zoo story by bringing it into the immediate present, "Could I have planned all this. No... no, I couldn't have. But I think I did." Horrified, Peter runs away from Jerry whose dying words, "Oh...my...God".

D.    The Message of the Story

It can be seen that there is different social class between Jerry and Peter. We can learn about life value which is multi leveled play dealing with issues of human isolation, loneliness, class differences, and the dangers of inaction within American society. It focuses on the need for people to acknowledge and understand each other's differences.          

E.     The Kind of the Story

This story is classified as “man vs. society”, because the conflict arises because of Jerry with his bad behavior which caused of his social life condition.

DEATH OF SALESMAN By Arthur Miller

Asri Dwi Hastari

A320080212

Class F

Death of Salesman

By Arthur Miller

A.    The Title

The title has several layers of meaning. The most blatantly obvious one is that this big "Death of a Salesman" refers to Willy Loman’s physical death. He is simply a salesman who dies. That one is pretty clear. The title also refers to the death of his salesman dream – the dream to be financially successful and a father to hotshot sons. The title also refers to Willy’s idealized way of dying; he wants a massive funeral with everyone weeping and beating their chests and so forth.

B.     The Characters

1.      Willy Loman - An insecure, self-deluded traveling salesman. Willy believes wholeheartedly in the American Dream of easy success and wealth, but he never achieves it. Nor do his sons fulfill his hope that they will succeed where he has failed. When Willy’s illusions begin to fail under the pressing realities of his life, his mental health begins to unravel. The overwhelming tensions caused by this disparity, as well as those caused by the societal imperatives that drive Willy, form the essential conflict of Death of a Salesman.

2.      Biff Loman - Willy’s thirty-four-year-old elder son. Biff led a charmed life in high school as a football star with scholarship prospects, good male friends, and fawning female admirers. He failed math, however, and did not have enough credits to graduate. Since then, his kleptomania has gotten him fired from every job that he has held. Biff represents Willy’s vulnerable, poetic, tragic side. He cannot ignore his instincts, which tell him to abandon Willy’s paralyzing dreams and move out West to work with his hands. He ultimately fails to reconcile his life with Willy’s expectations of him.

3.      Linda Loman - Willy’s loyal, loving wife. Linda suffers through Willy’s grandiose dreams and self-delusions. Occasionally, she seems to be taken in by Willy’s self-deluded hopes for future glory and success, but at other times, she seems far more realistic and less fragile than her husband. She has nurtured the family through all of Willy’s misguided attempts at success, and her emotional strength and perseverance support Willy until his collapse.

4.      Happy Loman - Willy’s thirty-two-year-old younger son. Happy has lived in Biff’s shadow all of his life, but he compensates by nurturing his relentless sex drive and professional ambition. Happy represents Willy’s sense of self-importance, ambition, and blind servitude to societal expectations. Although he works as an assistant to an assistant buyer in a department store, Happy presents himself as supremely important. Additionally, he practices bad business ethics and sleeps with the girlfriends of his.

5.      Bernard - A bookish friend of Biff and Happy who urges Biff to study in high school to no avail, however, he himself makes it as a prominent lawyer and goes to argue a case to the supreme court at the end of the play.

6.      Charley - Bernard’s father who is fairly successful and offers Willy a job which Willy refuses on the basis of pride.

C.    Synopsis

Willy Loman is a salesman, who gets no salary anymore and works with mere commission. He's 63 years old and he's tired of traveling around the country. His wife Linda understands him and loves him. His sons, Biff and Happy are visiting home. Willy has a troubled relationship with Biff. His son once loved and admired his father very much. It all changed when he found out about his father's crime, of committing adultery. Loman is losing his mind. He can be living two times at the same time. He steps from today's world into the past, mostly those joyful times of his life. He speaks with his now deceased brother Ben, who went to Africa and became a wealthy man.

D.    The Message

Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman shows us how one man's blind faith in a misconception of the American Dream becomes an obsession of accomplishment that destroys his life and nearly that of his family. It told us that if we want to get what we want and being needed by others we should work hard to get and to be that. If we just imagine and imagine or day dreaming, that won’t be come true.

E.     The Kind of Story

This story is classified as “man vs. society”, because the conflict arises because of Willy can not be proper father for his family and as a man in his society he is failed.

THE LESSON by Eugene Lonesco

Asri Dwi Hastari

A320080212

Class F

THE LESSON

BY EUGENE LONESCO

A.    The Title

The writer gives the title “The Lesson” because the setting of this story mostly is lesson situation between the professor and his pupil. It is a story about teaching, the process of pedagogy, the student-teacher relationship and its innate power structure and a radical subversion of that power equation

B.     The Characters

1.      Professor, The Professor is associated as the cleverest and the highest. He is 50 to 60 years old. He cannot control his emotion. He is an aggressive person, excessively polite, very timid, his voice deadened by his timidity, dominating and unstable.

2.      The young pupil aged 18. She is a rich person, and fool person but she is attractive, polite and dynamic. 

3.      The Maid, aged 45 to 50. She is friendly, patient, red faced. She is always pay attention to the professor.

C.    The Synopsis

Set on the office of the old professor in France, this play presents three main characters: the maid aged 45 to 50, the professor aged 50-60, and the young pupil aged 18. In the beginning of the play, the young pupil is eager to learn and she dominates the professor with her confidence and youth, but as the story develops she is getting meek and vulnerable. Even more she is suffering from the professor’s voice and explanation, such as toothache, earache, headache and eyes ache. The maid, Marie, always warns the professor about his “health” and calamity that might happen. Unfortunately the professor, instead of listening to his maid, ignores her every time she warns him. In the end of the play, the professor kills the pupil with an imaginative knife and with the help of his maid he could get rid of her corpse and then the stage is set again with another young pupil who is ready for the lesson.

D.    The Kinds of Drama

This story is classified as “man vs. society”, because the conflict arises between professor and his pupil. where the professor with his unstable killed his pupil. She wasn’t the first pupil but there were many runaway pupils before. It shows that the professor having difficulties to his society.

E.     Moral Values

1.         Reminds us to control our emotion when we are in difficult situations.

2.         Reminds to not underestimate to other people.

3.         Remind us in order to be open minded.