Arcadia by Tom Stoppard - Analysis
Style and devices
·
Ambiguous responses
SEPTIMUS: Ah. Yes, I am ashamed. Carnal
embrace is sexual congress, which is the insertion of the male genital organ
into the female genital organ for purposes of procreation and pleasure.
Fermat's last theorem, by contrast, asserts that when x, y and z are
whole numbers each raised to power of n, the sum of the first two can
never equal the third when n is greater than 2.
(Pause.)
THOMASINA: Eurghhh!
SEPTIMUS: Nevertheless, that is the
theorem.
·
Paradoxical
statements – he says free will but points to it being unchangeable, that is,
predetermined
THOMASINA: Well, I do. You cannot stir
things apart.
SEPTIMUS: No more you can, time must
needs run backward, and since it will not, we must stir our way onward mixing
as we go, disorder out of disorder into disorder until pink is complete,
unchanging and unchangeable, and we are done with it for ever. This is known
as free will or self-determination.
·
Multiple meanings
(two levels/understandings)- landscaping/sex
LADY CROOM: Oh, no! Not the gazebo!
(She enters, followed by BRICE who
carries a leatherbound sketch book.)
Mr Noakes! What is this I hear?
BRICE: Not only the gazebo, but the boat-house,
the Chinese bridge, the shrubbery –
CHATER: By God, sir! Not possible!
BRICE: Mr Noakes will have it so.
SEPTIMUS: Mr Noakes, this is monstrous!
LADY CROOM: I am glad to hear it from you,
Mr Hodge.
·
Another
contradiction, this time between god and man's handiwork
LADY CROOM: But Sidley Park is already a
picture, and a most amiable picture too. The slopes are green and gentle. The
trees are companionably grouped at intervals that show them to advantage. The rill is a serpentine ribbon unwound from the
lake peaceably contained by meadows on which the right amount of sheep are
tastefully arranged – in short, it is nature as God intended
Themes and recurring elements
·
Lying
·
Religion
·
Punning
·
The irony of
building ruins without them having been a house first
·
Knowledge is not
fixed
LADY CROOM: Mr Chater, you are a welcome
guest at Sidley Park but while you are one, The Castle of
Otranto was written by whomsoever I say it was,
otherwise what is the point of being a guest or having one?
·
Identity hiding
(Bernard)
·
Breaking politesse
limits
·
Originality,
nostalgia, looking for idealism in the present, facsimile of facsimile
· From Enlightenment to Romanticism
· From Enlightenment to Romanticism
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