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I will be writing about the drama Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw (1914), and the novel Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1966). During this assignment I will establish how action is portrayed in the genres, and will discuss comparisons between the two texts. In reading the text of a drama and a novel, it is often easy to see many similarities in the way both have been written. But what one mustn’t forget is that although a text for a drama is in written form, the text is ultimately written to be performed, and various interpretations can ensue. It is a guide to how the drama should be played, and is not the entirety of its self. As such, there will be many different ways in which a drama portrays action compared to a novel, but there will also be similarities. The idea for Shaw's drama, written in 1912, was based on the myth of sculptor Pygmalion. Pygmalion was a man who could not find a woman that satisfied his expectations, so he set about creating a sculpture that captured the perfection of a woman’s form in his eyes. She was beautiful, and made of ivory. This idea of creating the ideal woman must have interested Shaw, and the drama Pygmalion was born. As the drama took its’ beginnings from classical myth, it seems appropriate that Shaw conforms with conventions derived from ancient classical dramas, choosing to write the drama in five acts, following the example of the Roman philosopher Seneca. Rhys drew largely from her own background and heritage for the basis of Wide Sargasso Sea. Upon reading the novel Jane Eyre (1848), she perhaps felt unsatisfied with the story behind Antoinette’s circumstances. A novelist has to work within some tight constraints as regards to the portrayal of action. A novel is written to be read, and the action, in whatever form it takes, is limited to the narration, and the imagination of the reader. By comparison, a drama has flexibility to portray action in a number of ways. Obviously there is the use of visual performance as a use to portray action.
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