Oedipus Journal #3

Dramatic Life:
I agree with the statement that "Drama is but life with the dull bits cut out" to a certain extent. In order for the audience be captivated, the play needs to progress at a semi-rapid pass because it would get awfully boring if there was not enough "drama" as it were. The dramatic scenes of Oedipus and Wild Duck are what keep them engaging and readable. Although we can't see the actions of the characters as if we were watching the play, the language and tension that is created through the language makes the play entertaining and portrays the meanings of certain things. The drama that is created in Oedipus is strong even without viewing the actual actions of the characters as would be the case in the actual play. Imagining the actions of the characters is enough to get a good feeling of the intentions of the author. The play Oedipus really has little content that does not add to the suspense or drama of the play. It really is just a quick snapshot of the setting created by the author. It gets into the meat of the story and then gets out. Sophocles pulls us into the story really fast and brings us out even faster. That is why Oedipus is written in a trilogy because he thought it be of his best interest to have the short, quick plays that were more interesting because they were smaller and easier to manipulate. He uses the place holders in the trilogy as a quick break between action-packed nuggets of plays that are easy to read and act out and bring instant entertainment to the audience that was always hungry for that sort of thing, because they were mainly hungry ALL the time and didn't have much else to do. As for Wild Duck, there are less stage directions and less of the up and down tension swings to entertain, but Ibsen finds other ways that are less dramatic to serve the same purpose. Drama is life with all of the dull parts taken out which serve to entertain and illuminate a certain theme in the human experience.