Word: symbolisme
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Like its hero, The Honourable Schoolboy is all too obviously imperfect. In his effort to detail the slow, agonizing life of the aging spy, le Carre has gone overboard, producing a novel of epic proportions that conveys a theme of only moderate importance. What begins as a portrait of tired...
He does offer, however, some sketchy ideas about the direction in which modern societies should move. The point he stresses most strongly in response to new ethnicity sociologists like Michael Novac, who see a retreat into ethnic culture as a valid response to the dehumanizing aspects of modern industrial society...
Stop the World remains offensive to this day, in its use of sexual and national stereotypes and in its heavy-handed symbolism. (The "Figure of Death," dressed in a long black robe, drops in every now and then to disrupt the circus-like goings on.) It is a hard show...
It is, nonetheless, important to understand this most recent use of symbolism for what it was: a cosmetic means of finessing the absence of a comprehensive urban policy. Carter is simply not ready to transmit his compassion into concrete initiatives; he is not fully committed to helping rebuild the cities...
You will have to see the play to hear the ending, but suffice it to say that by the finale you'll see vaudeville as having taken on a symbolism of its own. The vaudeville format becomes a free and easy amoral metaphor depicting life as nothing but a flesh...