Arthur Miler -

An exploraton of the importance of Ann in
Arthur Millers play
'All My Sons'

Ann in the play 'All My Sons' written by Arthur Miller can be seen as one of the most important characters in the play. There are many aspects of Ann's characteristics that back up this argument. It is these aspects that i am going to explore.

Primarily, Ann can be seen as the messenger for the ghost typically seen in a majority of 'tragedies' according to the Greek definition anyway. Throughout the three years that Larry is gone, unknowing to the family, Ann has received a letter from him telling her that he is going tto commit suicide. It is important to the plot of the play that it is Ann that bares this bad news because she is seen at the beginning of the play as being a "Nice girl". It also furthers the plot because we see that Ann, the barer of this bad news now wants to marry Chris, Larry's younger brother.

Secondly, Kate's tree adds massively to the importance of Ann.the tree is place to connote hope for larry in the play,The tree compliments the importance of Ann's arrival because the tree itself was planted soon after larry's dissapearance and yet when the 'Ghosts' messenger arrives, Ann, the tree crashes down. The tree could connote Kates hope of larry's return and when it does fall on Ann's arrival, it could be seen as the hope is now lost as she is going to reveal the fate that larry befell. Its important because the tree falling is the start of the downward spiral that the family takes because of Ann arriving with bad news, the letter.

Another thing that makes Ann important is the plays inability to be as sucessful if it werent Ann that took responsibility for all these things. Its almost as if Ann is there to settle everybody elses fatal floors and end them for good. She ends Kates greiving of Larry. She shows the family that although it was not Joes fault directly that larry died or killed himself it was however indirectly his fault simply because the letter says that Larry could not face his friends after knowing it was him father that caused the death of the other 21 men due to the faulty funnels. The play wouldnt work as well if it was just a family friend that bought the letter, it was because it was Ann, and the deceiption that came with Ann delivering this letter was important because the family thought that Ann had absolutly nothing to hide. Also i think it is important because the family do change their opinion of Ann due to this betrayal, but again Ann also ends her own fatal floor by taking responsibility and accepting this new opinion of her epecially from Kate who previously seemed to absolutly love her and saw no wrong in her.

Anns most important role in the play however is how she is being used by Miller to deliver the 'Ghost' if you like. As we know Larry is dead and Ann's role in the play is to deliver this letter to the family. Ann is being used as a puppet like figure for this ghost to deliver the bad news. In Shakespears 'Hamlet', The ghost himself Hamlets father who had been killed by 'Cludius' appears to Hamlet and delivers the news directly himself whereas in this play the ghost uses another character instead of appearing itself. Ann is very much the character that accompanies the ghost which is important because it is Ann, the ghosts widow.

Follwow up English Language Work ....

In my third and final text is a police report styled paper which tells a complete story on the case of Matthew Shepard and his case. In the text there are a few features that adds to the negitivity of the previous but it does show a slight positive attribute to being gay/lesbian or bisexual.
Firstly the usage of figures beings used along with percentages, such as
"80% of gay, lesbian and bisexual kids report verbal abuse" as well as
66.7% of gay, lesbian and bisexual youth were threatened/injured with a weapon at school in the past year" these have been place here to shock the audience into a reaction, Because of the rate in percentage of gay/lesbian and bisexual youth being abused in many different forms is so high, by showing this with these figures the audience can visibly see that there is a definite problem with children or young adults who feel they are gay/lesbian or bisexual being harassed.
Another feature is in the style that the text is written. It has been written in the style/genre of a police report. This some what authoritative approach that the text has been written in would make the audience take the text seriously because of how serious the text looks. This is a good feature because it has a physiological effect on the audience to alter the way that they perceive a text.
The final feature i am going to write about is the way in which the producer of the text has used the headlines and subtitles in the text. These have been used to separate the text into three main parts.
"The Death Of Matthew Shepherd"
"The Trial" & "The Aftermath"
It clearly makes the text more formal, which indicates that its audience is of a more concerned audience. Also it makes it easier for the audience to skip to a certain part of the text if they want to read up on just one part of the text instead of reading the whole thing.

My three texts generally show that there is a lot of negativity shown by a large quantity of people about being gay/lesbian or bisexual and a lot of this negativity seems to come from people like 'Fred Phelps'. Many of the features have been used just to show the negativity but others for different effects that i feel work very well especially by using the audience's mind to their advantage.

A curious incident ...

Page 158 onwards shows me personally that Christopher although he talks and explains things in a very adult way, they way in which he constructs the setences is very childish. Personally this chapter makes me feel that instead of him actually learning things he might just be copying from the adults in his life and he simply doesn't forget what he is told. Like with the bank number, he was told this and he never forgot.

He is extremly descriptive in a way, but not in the descriptive sense that we know. He doesnt so much describe but more explains things in such detail that it sounds like description. Its highly confusing because he will be talking about something then explain something completley unrelated and then some how link it.

It seems as if Christopher applys his life to theories. Everything in his life has meaning. This chapter shows this when he is comparing his problem to the stars and how some things are simply not worth thinking about.
i think in this chapter Christopher more or less develops himself as a character by sharing some of his major characteristics. His feeling towards things are very specific and he has specific ways of dealing with specific situations whereas somebody not suffering from this illness may not logically work out what they would do had they been placed in a certain situation that hadn't yet occured, whereas Christopher does.

A Curious Incident -

Personally i think my favourite part of the book is when Christopher talks about how normal people are lazy because they do not notice little things that he does. He talks about the cows in the field on pages 174 & 175, On page 174 he gives an example of what a normal person would see looking at this field full of cows and the setting around it, the on page 175 he gives an example of what he would see and what he would descibe. I found this fasinating because he is correct about people without his illness, generally we wouldnt notice the number of cows in the field and we'd normally not pay any attention to the colours of the cow or take into consideration whether it was a church or a spire.
I found this comical aswell, because of the fact that he is so frank in everything he describes.
"After i'd had a wee"
Also another thing that i found highly amjusing is the fact that every now and then an exapmle being on page 175, he leaves small footnotes at the very bottom of the page to sometimes prove his points.
"This is true because i asked Shibhan what people thought about when they looked at things, and this is what she said"
what i found fasinating is the fact that Christopher has to ask another person what they would see if they were to look at the same thing he does and how they would describe it, and he put her exact comment in the book. Then he left a footnote at the bottom saying that it was true because Shibhan said so.
The story telling is in fact interesting because of how it is told in the way an Asbergurs sufferer would see the world, so this book shows its audience that basically this is how a person with asbergurs sees the world and comments on the world. I found it quite hard to follow because the detail in the book is so immense that it tends to completly miss the point for about three pages then tie together in the forth page somehow, Christopher links things so closely that you wouldnt normally link such things together. Christopher tends to go so much into the detail that it leave you asking what on earth he is talking about and why exactly it is that he is talking about such random things in clo0se detail.
The book is clever in the way that it is very interesting but at the same time it is very confusing and difficult to follow, it isnt so much difficult to read but at times youo forget where you are and why you are reading about things that have no matter in the book. Its cleaver because it makes you realise that visually, A person without Asburgurs can appear to be quite lazy in the way of describing what we see.
Its hard to explain what i thought about the book itself, i'd never really read a book on this topic because its hard to understand, it was sort of like dealing with a child with this disablility rather then just reading about it.