Tragedy Journal #4

Journal #4: Choose any two symbols that emerged in this scene and discuss their significance.  While you are certainly welcome to connect that significance to the entire text, I want you to focus on the details of how they are used in these first 12 pages.  Look at the stylistic choices surrounding their use and build up to a discussion on the role they play or will play in developing theme/character/setting/tension...


The first symbol I noticed in the play was knives. I feel that this symbol is significant because it captures part of the plot, by referencing a plot point that happened previously, as well as future plot in the end. The knife in the first scene characterizes the mother of the groom because of the death of her son and husband. Her strong hatred sets the stage for her irrational hatred of things due to the past. She not only hates knives, but also hates the Felix's for killing her family with a knife. Knives are used to cut things, and I found that in the play in the beginning there are a lot of words like "cut" and "slice". Knives cut, but the way in which the Felix's killed her son and husband with a knife, created a division between the families, slicing the community.


The second Symbol I noticed was the flowers and plants. I think that flowers and plants have some connection to death because at the end the bride wears the crown of orange blossoms like Jesus did when he died, and it the beginning flowers are talked about around the context of the death of the mothers son and husband. She says the he smelled like carnations and "two men like two beautiful flowers" (35). I think that flowers are used to set a the  mood for the play because they are this beautiful aspect of nature, although in the play they are associated with eerie things like death. I feel that it was important to use something of beauty to symbolize death because the play revolves around a wedding, which is supposed to be a happy event, although the bride ends up running away and in the end the groom, leonardo, and the bride all die which is not what is expected from a wedding.