ESSAY CEMETERY

  In his article Postmodernity, or Living with Ambivalence , Zygmunt Bauman characterizes Modernism as an era of certainty. In Modernity, Western civilization "was bent on dominating the rest of the world by dissolving its alterity" and conforming it to its own Western values. In this way, the difference was seemingly done away with, creating an all-encompassing universal truth. Modernity proposed one single mode in which to perceive and experience life. Along with difference, contingency was abolished, creating ostensible destiny, born of the sense that the fate of the individual is part of that universal truth. In Bauman's contemporary era, however, there came "the realization that … the hope [of destiny] will not come true and hence one needs to learn to live without the hope that supplied the meaning – the only meaning – to life." The postmodern subject, then, experiences "that state of discomfort and anxiety" from which the modern subject had be

Themes ·        Art ·        Popularity ·        Money ·        Metaliterary criticism ·        Suspicion ·        Tension Style and devices ·        Answering a question with a question ·        Repression/ reluctance to deal ·        The scenes are ordered backwards in time, except for scenes 5, 6, 7 which are in chronological order. ·        Dialogue that occurs on two levels because the knowledge of both sides doesn’t agree. Response ·        Tension regarding intellectual things – Emma has an inferiority complex? ROBERT: Oh… not much more to say on that subject, really, is there? EMMA: What do you consider the subject to be? ROBERT: Betrayal . EMMA: No, it isn’t. ROBERT: Isn’t it? What is it then? EMMA: I haven’t finished it yet. I’ll let you know. ROBERT: Well, do let me know. ·        Perhaps alcohol is symbolic of guilt, an emotion which is never expressed but implicit (or at least, ought to exist in the context of the

Scene I The play begins in a pub in the spring of 1977. Emma and Jerry are drinking together. Emma is friendly and tries to get Jerry to be friendly. Jerry opens up when he's had a couple of drinks. They are both married with kids; they had a marital affair for seven years. Jerry is a literary agent and Emma's husband Robert is a publisher. Emma shares that she might separate from her husband, because he has been cheating on her. Robert and Jerry are friends. They recall when they used to be in love. Jerry had bought a house to which they would sneak off. Jerry brings up Casey, a man with whom Emma is rumored to have been having an affair. Emma says she told Robert about the affair during a long conversation of the night before. Jerry feels bad because of his friendship with Robert. Scene II Robert and Jerry are in Jerry's house. It is still the spring of 1977. Jerry has invited Robert. He has a hard time saying anything and Robert brings up the issue