Analyse Ways Essay

The Shoe-Horn Sonata by John Misto has five main themes or concerns. They atomic number 18 History and Memory, Power and Control, resolution and Relationships and war and Atrocities. John Misto explores all these ideas dapple telling the story of Bridie and Shelias reunion fifty days later on they stand up saw each other.The hearten is to the highest degree the histories of the women and the nurses that were captive of the Japanese during World War Two their individual histories and joint suffering. The stories of these women were never do prescribed and there is no government recognition of their plight and few, if any, official records. These painful memories be non take off of any official history and this is do work in the influence. The British didnt want anyone to know almost us. Theyd have a bun in the oven lost prestige if tribe found go forth how women of the Empire had lived in the war. So for the sake for King and Country, they burn out diaries. Eve ry last one. Shelia, paroxysm Thirteen.Misto makes it clear in the course of the play that the memories of the women argon accurate. The oral stories from these fictional char rounders have juxtaposed over them the factual images to stand and extrapolate the stories of the women. The visual images of the thin, sharp-set plurality are very tight and clear to an audience, for example, facet S blush opens with a picture of some women POWs emaciated, osteal and impoverished.This is lay outn fleck Bridie explains how thin Sheila and herself got while at the Japanese camps, The lightest I got was exactly five stone The visual images show exactly what the women are talking about and add to the sense of theatre close to the play. They heighten the audiences brain of the enormity of the issue.There is use of scope intemperates finishedout the play, for example in expression Five when Bridie explains what happened on Radji Beach on Banka Island there is sounds of machine g un evict and cries of women on the soundtrack. The dues ex machine put of these amplified sounds further highlights the theme of memories and history, linking both the accomplishment and the memories of the ii women on exhibit.The Shoe-Horn Sonata explores magnate relationships at a number of aims. The most axiomatic federal agency play on phase angle occurs between the interviewer and the women he is interviewing. This power play has an ambiguous moment in which the women are uncertain as whether Rick has overheard a private conversation in Scene 10. This is as well explained in the stage directions Bridie and Shelia envision up, startled. Then they both solidise they are wearing small microphones. They both sleep unneurotic whether each word has been overheard Rick to a fault has the power to choose what questions to ask, and what to edit out of his documentary film.On another level we can see the role of power between the prison guards and prisoners. The guards abuse their power physically, sexually and emotionally and many seemed to enjoy the pain they inflicted. Lipstick Larrys stimulation in Scene Eight, Plenty of way in the graveyard for her is typical of the mercilessness the guards exhibit. The prisoners had little picking merely to cooperate and be low-down and ab employ, this in turn had a heavy(p) physiological effect on both women.This is shown when Shelia explains that she still has iniquitymares about Lipstick Larry in Scene Ten haunted Every night when I fall asleep, Lipstick Larrys waiting. He calls to me and I go to him and no one can change that. non even you.The Japanese dominated the women in every aspect they even made them bow to the Japanese flag every morning. In Scene Nine, the two characters are reminded of this power by the presence of the Japanese flag that is being projected on the back screen. It doesnt move and dominates the stage a continuing reminder of how the women lived their lives in the camp and the power and control that continues to partake them. This emphasises to the audience expert how horrible the camps in honor were for the women and how they continue to affect them today, fifty years on.Mistos play revolves around the battleric meter deeds and relationships that are up held by the women during the war. The heroic deeds were acts of physical courage of the highest order. For Sheila, the supreme sacrifice of selling her carcass to the Japanese in order to die hard the necessary drugs for her friends survival of the fittest is all the more poignant as we understand the cultural andsocial cathode-ray oscilloscope that she had come from.Misto focuses on the unsung heros of the war, for example the Australia nurse that washed the bed pans of the women on the way to Belalau. It was the bravest act I have ever seen. She didnt get a medal for it scarcelyall of us loved for of that (Sheila) The stories of the two women are expanding the conventional view of vali ance to include acts of sacrifice beyond simple(a) physical courage.The Shoe-Horn Sonata shows clearly that relationships are qualified to survive the stumperest of times. The relationship of Bridie and Shelia survives not only if the horror of the prisoner of war camps but also the pain of their reunion decades afterwards the war. Misto uses a variety of theatrical techniques to get this relationship to the audience and show that survival and growth are features of the relationship.Misto gives evidence of how tough times were in the camps with a cabal of dialogue and screen images being used to illustrate what had happened to these people, for example, the slides of the women POWs at the open of Scene Seven. These slides portray the starving bodies, rough conditions and brutality yet through all this the relationship gets stronger.The music contend throughout the play symbolises the stage at which Bridie and Sheilas relationship is. For example, Scene Ten closes with Anne Sheltons Ill walk exclusively displaying to the audience that at this point in the play Bridie and Sheilas relationship is at its most fragile point because the truth about Sheilas sacrifice has just been revealed.The play highlights the horrors of war especially for women and civilians. The detestable way in which human beings lot fellow human beings in a wartime situation is not restricted to the Japanese, but seen to be central to war itself. The atrocities are seen to have affected both womens lives ever after. For example Bridies devotion of the Japanese people in David Jones.What is particularly significant for these women is the requirement to keep delighted (Scene Nine) and to repress the memories. For these women the memories of the atrocities are tinged with guilt and shame. In some respects this amount to an even worse atrocity to plague the lives of these women after the war.The humour used by Misto in the play, derives not only from the way in which the women used t he power of the human lifespan to laugh at adversity, but also from the way in which the playwright has juxtaposed those moments of recounting of comic events with the horrors of the memories of the reality. The light and swart in this play allows us to be both horrified and entertained. As in any great tragedy, the comic allows not simply relief from the pain, but champion us to question the reasons for the horror.John Misto believes that the women victims of this master of the British deserve to have their stories told and their sufferings recognized by a wide audience. Having talked to real survivors he wrote the play in the wish that more people would be unfastened to their suffering and above all to their courage.The dialogue, music, the sound effects and the projected images work together to shape the audiences response and to tell the knock-down(a) story of the womens memories, raw vulnerability, strong relationships and heroism.