Battle in morality play

Tt was death that began it all and another death that led us on.’ It is the first line of the book Morality Play written by Barry Unsworth. From these very first words the reader is drawn into a strange, mysterious but at the same time so recognizable world. All the events of the book take place in the 14^th century in England. Actually, everything happens somewhere beyond Time and Space, because the most striking and unbelievable things happen in the people’s minds.

If you ask me what the leitmotif of Morality Play is, I would answer that it is Battle. On every page of the book we come across different types and kinds of it. But the main one is constantly going on in the mind and soul of the characters.

Nicholas Barber, the one who tells the story, is a young priest, who left without permission ‘at the stirring of blood’. However, being a priest doesn’t deprive him of the ability to remain a thinking and thoughtful Human. But that provokes a deep inner conflict; at every new step being made, Nicholas asks himself: what should he believe? Should he believe the things he can actually see, hear and feel? Or should he stick to the old dogmas which have been drummed into his head for such a long time? That’s why Nicholas tries to find the golden mean: ‘As I have said I didn’t argue for priests. <...> On the other hand, they knew I was in Orders, they would register my silence, they would think me craven.’

Becoming a player changes his view of the world. He overstepped the border; he did what was thought to be inappropriate and unacceptable. That makes him reflect on every single thing. Nicholas comes to the crucial questions of life and he leads the reader towards them too. Are we free in our decisions or is there something that limits our will? The view of the people around him arouses different thoughts: ‘I was set apart in a different space, as the spectator is always. And I wondered if these people too, who seemed able to move as they wished about the yard, were in truth constrained to behave as they did and were only pretending to be free,’ - Nicholas asks himself. I am sure, each of us comes to ask this question sooner or later. Aren’t we all just players in the long, complicated and tangled play the end of which we are not to foresee or even imagine?

By asking such questions Nicholas (don’t forget that he still remains a priest) throws the challenge to the doctrine: “You are not to doubt. You are to believe”. Nicholas is not satisfied with it; Faith alone is not enough for him. He is in quest for answers and this is his Battle.

Martin Ball has his own battle to win. The leader of the actors, fanatically devoted to his trade, he is the most enigmatic personage. He is so absorbed in his thoughts that he pays attention to the outer world only as to a source of characters, ideas that can be used in a play. It was only such a person who was able to come to the idea that it is necessary to create new kind of plays; plays which are based on real life.

‘Good people, we must play the murder,’- these Martin’s words are a crucial point in the life of goliards, what’s more - it’s a turning point in the development of the theatre. Before it all plays were bound to religious subjects and even those ones were not always supported and accepted by Church. The actor was locked up in a stuffy room and now one man had the courage to climb to the highest tower and take a look around. But how difficult it is to make others see these endless possibilities. Freedom is a dangerous thing, not everyone can cope with it.

‘They were in some fear, perhaps but it was not fear of offending God, it was fear of the freedom Martin was holding out, the licence to play any thing in the world. Such licence brings power... Yes, he offered us the world, he played’.

Martin has such a powerful personality that others just can’t but follow him. He is not only the leader in a formal sense, but also their spiritual leader. They all fall under his influence and together with him they get over the stereotypes and prejudices of the world they live in.

This overcoming makes them completely different people. At the end of the book we can clearly see that every one of them has changed. The transfiguration has wiped the dust of everyday banality from their souls and revealed their real selves.

Martin has won his battle. And as soon as this battle is completed, he is no more interested in it; he is determined to go further. We can only imagine how far he can go in the effort to create a perfect play and how far he can advance the development of art.

x Daria Romanova 4th year student

Perm State University

The Discourse of Consciousness in Atonement by Ian McEwan

Nowadays people tend to take the consciousness as a model for investigation. It’s a great seduction to analyze and understand the mechanisms of thinking, in other words, to follow the unconscious connections of one’s mind. Here comes a discourse, which is like a “magnifying glass” helps to see the way a character thinks. Contemporary British writers, such as Martin Amis and Ian McEwan lead the reader into the discourse of the character.

It should be evident that discourse is the form of the consciousness, based on the cultural context. Artistic discourse in the way is an oral and written manifestation of characters’ consciousness in the complex of the certain social dialects, idiolects and the spheres of concept. The natural conclusion from these observations and principles is that the usage of certain words, constructions, types of the speech etc. by the author forms the certain modi of the characters and the collision of these modi determines the plot of the novel and its dynamics. We define discourse as the peculiar mental manifestation of