Advanced search
Start date
Betweenand


Formal analysis of Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller and Rasga Coração by Oduvaldo Vianna Filho: the use of the epic

Full text
Author(s):
Ewerton Silva de Oliveira
Total Authors: 1
Document type: Master's Dissertation
Press: São Paulo.
Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
Defense date:
Examining board members:
Maria Silvia Betti; Mayumi Denise Senoi Ilari Defina; Alexandre Daniel de Souza Feldman
Advisor: Maria Silvia Betti
Abstract

The objective of this research is to analyze and compare the plays Death of a Salesman (1949), by the American playwright Arthur Miller (1915-2005), and Rasga Coração, by the Brazilian playwright Oduvaldo Vianna Filho (Vianinha) (1936-1974), especially concerning their use of epic elements. Both plays have a formal structure that presents past and present simultaneously on stage. Since a dramatic work always presupposes the scenic exposure of the present as a central characteristic, the fact that the past is part of the structure of Death of a Salesman and Rasga Coração transforms it into the most important epic element in both plays. Other epic elements of importance for the repre-sentation of social and historical conflicts of the United States in the forties and of Bra-zil in the first seven decades of the XX century will be examined as well. Another char-acteristic shared by these two plays is the fact that they discuss the generation conflict between father and son(s) in a way that combines the representation of private family affairs to the one of bigger social and historical forces. To study the nature of these so-cial forces represented in the two plays is another objective of this research, which will discuss and point out similarities and differences between them and their respective so-cial contexts. (AU)