• Research Paper on:
    Portraying the Victim in Harvey Fierstein's On Tidy Endings

    Number of Pages: 5

     

    Summary of the research paper:

    In five pages this paper assesses the weaknesses and strength's of the drama's two major characters in a discussion of what constitutes a victim.

    Name of Research Paper File: JL5_JLtidy.rtf

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    Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
    Endings is that, in a sense, the main character never appears. Even though the drama takes the form of an interchange between Marion and Arthur, they are brought together by,  and still involved with, Colin, who has died just before the period which the play covers. The way in which the characters discuss Colin, and bring out his personality and  details of his life in the course of conversation, allows the audience to visualise him as a character who is still present, but off-stage, in the same way that he  is evidently very much present in the hearts and minds of Arthur and Marion.  The complexities of the relationship between the three of them become clear as the drama unfolds. Colin was Marions husband, but he had left her three  years earlier for Arthur and now, after his death from AIDS, his two former partners have met to tidy the practical endings of his life. However, the main theme of  the play is the way in which they manage to tidy the loose endings of their own lives, and to come to terms with the ending of Colins life and  of their relationships with him. They meet in  Colins apartment, in which everything is packed up and ready to be moved: this emphasises right from the start that the only endings which are left will be emotional ones,  since the practicalities following a death have been taken care of. From this point of view, it could be said that Colin is the true victim, since he is the 

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