Towneley Cycle Story of Noah and Gill Essay Example for Free

Towneley Cycle Story of Noah and Gill Essay The Towneley cycle is a story line created in the seventeenth centaury with playwrights who expressed a significant amount of hatred against. Hatred was the major theme put forwad by the playwrights. Male superiority, is another element of the Towneley cycle as the as this stories portrayed the male as angelic representations of human beings whose only major problem were their wife’s who had to fully depend on their guidance. Settings The play Noah and Gill is depicting the age before Christ set in the period where the male were portrayed as angelic and holy. the duration where secularism was considered unclean and the women were considered to have to be under the control of men Characters Noah who is a man of God married to Gill. Noah constantly complains about his wife and in the play he is portrayed as holy. Second character in the play is Gill who plays Noah wife as nagging woman, who constantly causing stress to her husband and the same time seems shrewish. Plot development The story starts between two married partners Noah and Gill the plot develops from an ancient Christian traditional way of life. Surrounded by both the traditional and bibilical myths, the play holds a strong attraction to the relation with the way of life in the 17th century. To develop the story line the playwright borrows from new fields mostly the the themes expressing hate against women and the mere traditional way of life which are treated dramatically in the age before Christ (B. C) Symbolism There is a lot of use of symbolism in the story cycles as the women are used as that mark of weakness that constantly pulls down the male in the society while the male symbolizes the angelic pillar of the society. The male also symbolize authority that has to be followed by the female in the society so as to keep the balance in the society. Combination of the above styles creates the following When this elements are used in combination with each other we see the development of a storyline which symbolizes a mixture of the period Before Christ and the period during the 17th century marking a blend of two civilizations an ancient and a modern age civilization as the settings of its occurrence and the character presentation which shows perceptions of the 17th century reasoning. Aspects of the 17th century reflected by the story are the illustrations on how women were looked down upon in the 17th century and the hatred that was mated on women by the. The clothing used in the play also shows the marked difference in the belief system which the play is set up as it correlates with the 17th century way of life not the original Before Christ would be setting A classic story done in the settings of the early 17th centaury at the verge of a shift to secular acting from the more conservative Christian story line, illustrated in the Towneley cycle: Noah and Gill in the second shepherds play depicts women as saints which other readers have portrayed to illustrate women negatively but without expression of double standards in your reading it is found that women are not expressed as negatively as men in the story (Dane, 2000). In this play significant attention has not been paid to other women characters that appear in the cycle as they are important in the understanding of women the crucial women’s role in the plays. for example the women who have been virtually ignored in the production of the cycle include Mary Magdalene and even virgin Mary. The play write intentionally presents this women as shrews for example instead of choosing examples in the scriptures the playwright chooses to use fictional characters as in the case of Noah’s wife and Gill where Gill is his own creation (Grafstein, 2002). Hatred of women in the culture in those times is illustrated by the negative interpretation of the women characters. Through a recently carried out research it has been shown that the position of the women was not as bad as the misogyny has lead us to believe . As the women who expressed great hatred for women missed out on be best chances to picture women negatively. Instead of using Sarah in the play Abraham and Isaac to portray mans rebellion against God as originated from the woman scoffing the best picture could have been illustrated by Miriam treating Moses with contemptuous disregard (Kolberg, 2004). It’s also seen that despite the women of those times were oppressed they had a greater control of their lives than the women of the seventeenth century when this plays were written. The play recognizes the scoffing teachings as Noah complains of his wife and the general nature of women. During the first two thirds of the play the theme is centralized on Noah’s wife lack of respect for authority, this depicts her in comparison to the nature of the fallen angles and as materialistic and worldly. In the play Noah is presented angelic family head that has to bear with a stressful wife, who is simply another display of a woman needing the direction of the male. Women are also illustrated comically and more negatively than men. The writer came up with women in these stories to show that women were second class citizens in the eyes of God Reference Dane W. (2000) Collections Of the16th and 17 centurybest Stories Chicago: American Library Association Grafstein, Ann. (2002). Towneley Cycle Story: Noah and Gill. Mcgrawhill: New York. Peter ,Kolberg (2004) Towneley Cycle Story of Noah and Gill : Foundation inn the literary skills Longman publishers (2) 22-27