Escapism

Since I have been reading Hemingway in English class, I have a lot of different understandings and approaches on people who are suffering in the reality and they choose to escape from it. In the story, I have noticed that all these four characters are trying to get out of their life which they are having now.

For Tom, the problem he is facing is that he is stucked with his mother and sister which means that he is having a life he hates, but he cannot change easily. The situation is that he cannot find the perfect way to leave the broken home. He cannot leave his sister behind, but he also cannot bring his sister with him because his sister is such a weak person who is always depends on other people. This situation is the direct trigger which caused his leaving from home. I see this character as the person who is telling the story with a negative emotion which set him as an unreliable narrator. I would play this character as if he was going through the darkest memory in his past experience.

For Amanda, since I mentioned the Tom I would expect her to be the worst behaving character in the entire play. She is always living in her own self built world where she is still young and beautiful, so she can still pretend her pride and self respect. She is one of these kind people who always want the attention and control everything in her life since she made a wrong decision once.

For Laura, she is the glasses in the pay. She is this beautiful little thing, and she wants to escape from the plate the control, so she can start her own life. However, no matter how realistic these animals are, they can never be real. She will always be controlled by her mother.

The last is Jim. Who is similar to the mother, but what he missed is the feeling under spot light. He is always trying to tell Tom how “different” they are from other workers. It is just like how he once felt “different” from others in the school.

This is what I have so far on all these characters, and I will dig deeper as we practice more and perform more on stage. I think this is a great piece for us to work on as class unit, and we all have familiar character we used to play, but within new excitement and challenges.