Tuesday, March 6, 2012

What proof of Catherin's illness can be seen in " Proof" by Auburn.Thank you.

1.  Catherine is sleeping so late because she's up all
night doing mathematical research and constructing a proof.  She doesn't even tell her
dad that she's doing this.


2.  She is AWAKENED by Hal.  The
scene with her father is a dream.  Sane people often work out anxieties and negative
feelings in dreams.


3.  Catherine knows that what her
father left behind is his legacy.  She also knows that there is a notebook upstairs that
contains a very valuable proof.  She is not paranoid to express a protectiveness towards
something she values.


4.  Alone=grief? inability to get
along with her sister?  Being 25 and never having lived by herself?  Wishing to be alone
is not necessarily insane in a house where you've been living 24/7 with a
lunatic.


5.  The call to the police is passive agressive
behavior to be sure, but isn't necessarily insanity.


6. 
Sleeping for an entire week may be crazy.



There
are many assumptions the author wishes you to make that are turned topsy turvy.  He
wants you to believe that Catherine's lazy so that you are surprised to find out she's
working on math.  He wants you to believe that Hal is dishonest so that you can be
surprised when he reaches out to Catherine in a vulnerable way.  He wants you to believe
that Robert is alive in the first scene so that you can be astounded that it's a
"vision" and he's dead.  He wants you to assume that Dad had a period of lucidity that
produced that proof so that you'll suspect that Catherine is lying about having written
the proof.  He wants you to see Claire as a manipulative brat so that when you find out
that she actually paid for all of Catherine's expenses at school, paid off the home and
SUPPORTED her for the last 5 years so that she is now unskilled, unemployed, and at a
loss as to how to live her own life, you feel a bit of compassion towards
her.


Claire wants others to accept her on faith.  To just
assume her value.  The author brings this out by letting the audience make several
assumptions that turn out to be wrong.  Namely...that Claire might be
insane...



Respectfully
proposed,


tam

No comments:

Post a Comment

In Act III, scene 2, why may the establishment of Claudius's guilt be considered the crisis of the revenge plot?

The crisis of a drama usually proceeds and leads to the climax.  In Shakespeare's Hamlet , the proof that Claudius is guilty...