The creation of long-lived characters(The study of sacrifice concept and it’s conformity with contemporary drama in the works of play writers)

A brief review on works available strongly shows that unfortunately some writers failed to identify and verify a special aspect named “intuition”?. This paper is mainly concerned on verifying the reasons a writer isn’t able to do so. Hasn’t there been any dramatic work on such area in the history of play writing in Iran and the world around to be considered as a model? Fortunately, there are some cases but rare in this area. In Hamlet play, the most famous work written by William Shakespeare, intuition is best reflected with the appearance of “ghost of a dead king “by Hamlet. William Shakespeare is the famous dramatist of dramatic literature history.

News ID: ۲۲۴۴۰۲

دوشنبه - ۰۶ دی ۲۰۰۹ / 2009 06 October

The study of sacrifice concept and it’s conformity with contemporary drama in the works of play writers.

One of the references a writer can refer to obtain information about holly defense is war memories and documents. There are two aspects in such documents:
1- sacrifice
2- intuition

Sacrifice is a word with concepts on making an offering to God, person or something that is offered to God and working for the sake of God. Sacrifice and martyrdom is the top of such action. A character with sacrifice feature can experience moments of intuition though such experience can only be extracted from the depth of memories and that objective documents such as pictures and movies remained from war times are free of such case “ recording intuition moment “. In fact, it can be claimed that the field of imposed war is not only an opportunity for people in war to sacrifice but also as a chance for them to experience intuition. So, we, Iranian people, call eight years war as holly defense and strongly believe it. How such event can happen in holly defense plays?
A brief review on such works show that the writer failed to verify the aspect of intuition. This paper is mainly focused on verifying the main reasons existed behind such case. Hasn’t there been any dramatic work on such area in the history of play writing in Iran and the world around to be considered as a model?
Shakespeare: a work on real aspect
Fortunately, there are some cases but rare in this area. In Hamlet play, the most famous work written by William Shakespeare, intuition is best reflected with the appearance of “ghost of a dead king “by Hamlet. William Shakespeare is the famous dramatist of dramatic literature history.
A deep analysis of this work shows that the first leading factor in “David BAL”? perspective is to experience such intuition which Hamlet did. Then uncertainty starts to appear but Shakespeare who writes on reality field, identify such experience as real and touchable that makes the spectators thoroughly certain. Such case isn’t considered the only factor leading to success but it reflects the most potential dramatic sight on characters. The experience of intuition is so matched with Hamlet’s behavior that no doubt can be seen in spectator’s belief in intuition. Many critics call Hamlet as a product of passing or temporary period since he is of a character relying on experience. In such case there would be an interaction between intuition and logics. Apparently, his uncle is considered as antagonist or blocking character. Finally it results in a physical fight in between and he is killed by Hamlet. In Makbes play, another famous work written by Shakespeare, there is also a sort of intuition. In this play, the spellbinder of jungle informs Macbeth about his future. Such event happened again after he murdered the king. Here, the prediction power made his ability inside drive to attempt on a betrayal. The presence of his wife, Clidi Macbeth, and the temptations she offered to Macbeth made his mind ready to attempt on a betrayal. Shakespeare says: the point of betrayal is hidden in the most internal part of an entity, waiting to be driven as soon.
Timid person and a person looking for truth
Another case is the presence of predictor in a play named “Odib king”?. His potential power to predict drives another inner power or anger mingled with pride in Odib’s mind to attempt to escape and murder. Some critics consider such feature as a dark sight of Odib which results in a tragedy rather than his tendency to know a fact. Then he can be regarded as a timid person rather than a person looking for truth but the fear mixed with pride inside made him as superman. What is Harmita? It can be defined the inner power which makes the character challenge with other inner and outside forces. According to dramatists, the tragic failure of a character may result in appearing a new dramatic work. A brief review n famous works throughout the world including Odib, Electra, Medeh A and ancient Greek works such as Macbeth, Hamlet, Sashir and Attelloo written by Shakespeare as well as sealer’s death, doll’s house, shaggy gorilla and people’s enemy strongly show that the Harmita or character’s weak point results in a drama or tragedy. Although six aspects of significance named human against destiny, human against nature, human against human, human against self , human against society and society against society are often applied to divide such challenges, such classification seems to be surface layer of challenge and challenge occurs in it’s deepest form between inhibitive and progressive forces. So, if we are trying to remove the weakness and faults seen in holly defense works, we may have to rely on one of the common ways to write drama, that is, creation of logical drama based on myth structure since this practice is well-defined with multiple objective cases through which success can be secured.
Leili is with me
It is one of the successful movies directed by Kamal Tabrizi which managed to approach intuition. It starts with Sadegh’s wife drama, informing sadegh about being injured in front. Sadegh, who is escaping from destiny defined to him, has to finally challenge with that. In a play named three eternal days written by Dr Ebrahimian, such intuition cab be obviously seen. Half of it is going through correctly based on myth structure. Such structure began to collapse from the second half. Finally, it makes the spectators not strongly experience the intuition. As mentioned, intuition as temporary event should be based on a correct character-defining procedure in order to deeply penetrate into the spectator’s mind and belief. So, it is highly required to know intuition characters in holly defense area. People in war are those whose death is predicted by time, Place and quality as if inspired when dreaming or between dream and weakness. Then they will openly welcome martyrdom and behave death in a quite different way, neither with a fear coming from being highly dependent on world nor in natural death described by Ousho as follow: as a ripe fruit that is close to fall down from tree . a person in war thinks of martyrdom as beyond natural freedom. He has been informed about his death in advance and is looking forward to seeing it. The death may be inspired him some minutes before being martyred or even many days, weeks, month or years ago. Such intuition power is mainly due to being so honest, frank and modest not being highly knowledgeable or being in a high social class.
War as an emergency situation
The author may be essentially required to experience such intuition to perceive it as best. As mentioned, intuition is as a rare and even inaccessible situation. To approach it, we are essentially required to kick the habit, avoid putting mind in encountered situation and decentralizing mind from quality as well as focusing just on quality. Another way to approach intuition power is to make mind conditioned though repeated concentrated and qualitative situations. These ways can be considered being as required or early conditions we need to experience intuition but strong belief and sacrifice are to main conditions required to achieve mentioned purpose. If we consider battle field as a situation, Mahita puts human in early position to approach intuition since war is an emergency situation, being influential in eradicating the factors including instability and concentration on trivia. A person in war is usually dealing with mountain, plain and war guns and not different styles of clothing , cars, apartment, wife and etc. so, his knowledge and concentration power will be fulfilled without any reliance on body. But two potential factors named sacrifice and belief or faith aren’t considered as common among all people in war, especially in classifying two parties in war, one as a group looking for truth and right things and the other one as a group seeking wrong things. So, two mentioned features can be seen in the first group. The war between Iraq and Iran, as happened in an ideological revolution, has another aspect added, known as ideological belief which is far from country and people. Therefore, belief is a quite different aspect of view, coming through Imam Hussein’s school of thought that is known as Ashoura. By Ashoura, it is meant to sacrifice and martyr for the sake of God and do the duties required by our faith and consequently stand against dishonesty and cruelty. The latter is common in all countries round the world.

That is to mention, most of these wars were mainly concerned on social developments to manifest justice like the war of dark-skinned against racism. But in Iran, “Andisheh Hosseini”? is quite obvious not only in Islamic revolution but also in eight years holly defense. So, personality is considered as one of the main elements of drama and one of the main and dynamic elements of personality is inner power which makes a person stand against other inner or out powers. This feature leading to creation of materials and atmosphere of play is clearly reflected in holly defense works provided that the writer is quite familiar with drama’s structure and technique. Otherwise, there will be two works in the area of holly defense works:
1- Works quite weak in quality which most mitigates the spectator’s interest in topics including sacrifice, war, intuition and martyrdom.
2- Strong and good works which are mainly focused on war and describe it in view of social problems. Such works are helpful in making publics deeply perceive the consequences of imposed war. If such features aren’t followed, there will be no integrity in holly defense and its main feature known as sacrifice, martyrdom and intuition will be consequently lost. It will lead to a very serious social problem named working for own benefits against sacrifice which may have long lasted and inevitable consequences. We hereby hope our writers attempt to create plays on holly defense with minds fully focused on it, in which the atmosphere of play is magnificent in sacrifice and belief as best. In such a way, the people in trouble will gradually tend to experience intuition in life.
The study of sacrificed women’s position in holly defense drama literature
Though the writer first attempts to create a character and introduce it to all worlds, he/she has to experience a very hard life to do so. If it is done in a very careful way, the resulting character will be incomplete. So, the writer is essentially required to acquire personality-making techniques and partially access to the position of sacrificed women in holly defense plays. Is the main character the one free to choose or the one who just reacts? In former case, the character has four basic elements named imagination (creativity), self-knowledge, consciousness and independent will. In latter case, the character is subjected to one of force-directed attitudes. He/she is either subjected to genetic force-directed attitude or mental one even not being informed by himself/herself. On the other hand, he/she sees the childhood problems and family’s behavior as a main factor led to such awful situation. He/she may be subjected to environmental force-directed attitude who sees working, educational, social and environmental situations as causes led to misery. Therefore, the character created based on such force-directed attitude will be finally sacrificed and isn’t considered as a hero, as the ones we see in contemporary theatre, especially in works written by Youjil Ounil, Artour Miller, tennsi Williamz, Samouel Beket, Jan Pol Sarter,…. In which the character’s weak point is hidden in his/her belief. So, the basis of such tragic character is mainly based on force-directed attitude in which the character is either subjected to death like the character in “ shaggy gorilla “ play or is subjected to a static situation like two loafers in“ waiting for Godo”? play written by Samouel Beket in which the lack of independent will makes them as passive characters who are just waiting for Godo. But when the character in a play is the one seeking to react, he/she will constitute the main element of play. He/she will approach this power relying on the latest freedoms or the smallest possible actions. In such a case, the main character is basically a hero although subjected to tragic situations. Other characters like these can be found in different periods of drama writing including classic plays of ancient Greece in which characters like Electra, Odib and Medeh A were highly magnificent. In neoclassic period, characters including Hamlet, Jolius Sezar can be found in plays with the same name written by Shakespeare. Hero is now replaced by some characters in the minds of spectators. Basically, reacting character is independent and doesn’t accept to be treated as passive. If he/she approaches a complete independence, he/she will be considered as a hero and attracts the spectators as best like Hamlet character otherwise he/she will be the one with temporary independence or the one who is cruel as most like Jolius Sezar whose death makes the spectators as calm. Hardly have we seen these perspectives being applied in holly defense characters, especially in applying a female character that is often of a passive character. Woman’s sacrifice in a position of martyr’s wife isn’t reflected as expected because the character is basically family-directed, tradition-directed or wife-directed and her thinking power isn’t dependent on principles. On the other hand, his sacrifice is mainly due to being afraid of losing husband, child and face or being treated as disrespected and invaluable before society. So, there is no work reflecting woman as a sympatric model in holly defense plays. A reactive person is principle-directed and free to choose. He/she is quite knowledgeable and strongly balanced. This is such balanced situation that has potential impacts on spectator’s unconsciousness. So, the main character is considered as a hero in spectators’ mind. I strongly hope this paper be helpful in creating long-lived characters in holly defense works since some secrecies about sacrificed women are hidden inside war events that can be considered as a model in developing the structure of contemporary play writing in Iran and the world around if discovered and recorded by artists as best.

Writer: Atefeh Hosseini, as writer, actress and theatre researcher