Wednesday, October 12, 2016

10/12 Blog Post

This past week I made the trip down to the Everyman Theatre in Baltimore to see the play, Wait Until Dark.  It is a very interesting and entertaining play, focusing on a group criminals attempting to retrieve a doll from a women's apartment.  The group of four thieves go about it by convincing the women that her husband has had an affair, killed his mistress, and the doll was a present for the mistress.  One of the thieves pretends to be a war buddy of her husband, and persuades the wife to give up the doll so the police will not suspect her husband.  Over the course of the play the wife realizes the men are not who they say they are not who they say they are.  A fight ensues that she amazingly wins.

One of the major themes of Wait Until Dark is independence.  The wife is blind, and it is often stated and shown that her husband makes her do things for herself.  He tells her to walk to his office without asking for help, and to not have girl that lives upstairs do household chores.  He did not want her disability to be her defining characteristic.  He wanted his wife to be a person who happens to be blind rather than a blind person.  It was ultimately the fact that his wife was blind that saved the day.  When she realized the man masquerading as her husband's war buddy was a fraud, along with the other men, she disconnected all the lights in her apartment to prepare for a fight she feared would take place.  By plunging the apartment into darkness she put her enemy at a disadvantage.  She was used to navigating the apartment by memory, tough, sound, and smell, but her opponent was not.  She ultimately used her "disability" to her advantage, and was able to prove just how independent she could be.

Edgar Allen Poe's short story, The Cask of Amontillado, is one of my favorites.  One of my favorites things about The Cask of Amontillado is the amount of foreshadowing Poe incorporates.  When Fortunato follows Montresor into the crypts he is thrown into a coughing fit.  It is caused by the dampness of the air and the nitre, potassium nitrate, that coat the walls.  Montresor then proceeds to say that they should return to the surface.  Montresor says that if they stay in the crypts Fortunato will take ill, and it will be Montresor's fault.  These lines are repeated many times throughout the short story.  Montresor insists they leave the crypts, because they will be detrimental to Fortunato's health, but Fortunato insists they stay so he can taste the Amontillado.  I find these bits of foreshadowing to be filled with comedy, especially if you have already read The Cask of Amontillado.  The first time you read Edgar Allen Poe's short story you have some idea that Montresor will hurt Fortunato due to the remarks concerning revenge he makes in the opening lines.  However, once you know the full the story it turns a dark and creeping tale into a story that you cannot help but to chuckle at as you read.  Edgar Allen Poe's extensive use of foreshadowing turns The Cask of Amontillado, a grim tale of murder, into a humerus story that is entertaining to read.

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