The Sea by Edward Bond | Questions and Answers

The Sea Questions and Answers

1. What is the purpose of drama?

Drama has served a wide variety of functions at different times and in different places. Roman writer Horace, in one of the most famous statements about the purpose of literature in general and drama in particular, said it was designed to delight and to instruct.” Sometimes the purpose of drama has been considered to be primarily the first of these, sometimes the second, but generally at least some degree of both has been present.

2. What is Epic Drama?

‘Epic Drama’ was founded by Bertolt Brecht. This drama sought through theatrical means to diminish the audience’s emotional involvement and encourage rational responses to the material presented.

3. Write a short note on Edward Bond as dramatist.

Edward Bond was born on July 18, 1934. He is an English playwright, theatre director, theorist and screenwriter. He is the author of the play Saved (1965), the production of which was instrumental in the abolition of theatre censorship in the UK. His highly controversial work has met with extremes of reaction, from vilification to claims that he is the world’s greatest contemporary dramatists. He writes about violence and its impact on humans. He rejects the conventional tragedy and turns the audience into a spectator or observer who rationally, not emotionally analyses the issues presented in his dramas.

4. What are the major plays of Bond?

His major plays include: Saved, The Sea, Pope’s Wedding, Olly’s Prison and Lear.

5. What are Bond’s views about violence?

Bond says, “I write about violence as naturally as Jane Austen wrote about manners, violence shapes and obsesses our society, and if we do not stop being violent we have no future. People who do not want writers to write about violence want to stop them writing about our time and us. It would be immoral not to write about violence.”

Also Read:

• Death of a Salesman as a Modern Tragedy

6. Why was his play Saved was much criticized?

The Saved was much criticized for a scene of violence in which a baby is stoned to death.

7. What are the major reasons for Bond writing about violence?

He writes about violence because he has seen the world in violence. The First and the Second World Wars shattered humanity and spread, not peace, but violence so he thinks that writing about violence is necessary to stop it.

8. What are the major themes of Bond’s plays?

The major themes of Bond’s plays are: Violence, natural landscape, human nature, sex, childhood, war and education.

9. What is the most individual feature of Bond?

One of Bond’s more remarkable qualities is that he assumes that he is like his audience, and that his concerns are the same as its own.

10. What is Bond’s concept of art and society?

Bond says that all imagination is political. In his definition of theatre, and of art tout court, Edward Bond does not contemplate ivory towers. Politics – in its widest sense of a network of social, economic and cultural relationships that determine not only the destinies of the whole community but the way in which individual subjective ideas are formed – cannot remain excluded from the domain of art. Thus he makes art and society one and the same contributory force.

11. What is the surrealistic meaning of the sea in Bond’s The Sea?

In The Sea, we can examine Bond’s use of symbolism, metaphor and surrealism. The Sea’ is simultaneously a glorious confusing and wise affair. Like the sea itself, it has many moods and undercurrents which are unpredictable, beautiful awe-inspiring and terrifying. Edward Bond has used the sea as a metaphor of life.” “Sea is the domain of life.” Edward Bond is a surrealistic. He has used surrealism both as a ‘narrative device and as a device to communicate his themes.

12. Where does Bond see the roots of violence?

Bond sees that violence is hidden within democratic structures because they are not radically democratic because western democracy is merely a domestic convenience of consumerism.

13. What is Bond’s view of the Theater?

Bond says, ‘Art is the close scrutiny of reality and therefore I put on the stage only those things that I know happen in our society. I’m not interested in an imaginary world. I’m interested in the real world. And in fact, of course, all things that I put on the stage are understatements

14. Why does Bond write plays?

Bond says, ‘I write plays not to make money, but to stop myself from going mad. Because it’s my way of making the world rational to me

15. What does sea in The Sea symbolize?

The sea in the play, The Sea has been used as metaphor of life. As life has changing moods and conditions so does the sea.

16. Why Hatch doesn’t help Willy during the sea storm?

Hatch doesn’t help Willy because he thinks that Willy is an alien who has landed in his town midst the sea storm and he also believes that Willy has killed Colin.

17. What kind of a lady is Mrs. Rafi?

Mrs. Rafi is a pragmatic woman who believes in controlling others. She is choosy, domineering and authoritative. She doesn’t understand the feelings of others because she is more concerned with the facts of life.

18. What is the function of Rose in the play?

Rose is a very important character. She functions as a rational girl in the play. Though she herself is shattered by Colin’s death, yet it is through her that Willy gets the strength of life.

19. Who is Evens? Why does he live an isolated life?

Evens is a strange and eccentric type of person who lives an isolated life because his philosophy is not understood by the people in the village. He finds Willy as a rational man and advises him. Even’s personality is a combination of madness and sanity.

20. How does Bond satirize the hollowness of the Church in The Sea?

Bond uses the character of Vicar to satirize the church and its submission to the aristocratic powers like Mrs. Rafi. We see Vicar merely a tool exploited by Mrs. Rafi for her own interests.

21. What is the importance of the play within the play?

The play of Orpheus arranged by Mrs. Rafi is significant as it symbolically reflects Rose, Colin and Willy in the given situation. The play is also an attempt to show supremacy of art over life and it also reveals some of the absurdities of social and religious people.

22. Why does Willy go to meet Evens at the end of the scene?

Willy goes to Evens to say good bye because he is leaving the village. He also goes there to get some practical advice about life because Willy believes that Evens is a sane and wise man who knows much life and its problems.

23. What is the message or advice that Evens gives to Willy?

Evens tells Willy that he must not waste his energy on such fools as Hatch. He informs him that though life is full of destruction and troubles yet must take courage and hope because hope is the only tool which can be used to change the world. Evens believes that Rose and Willy have the strength to change the world and future rests on their shoulders.

24. How does Bond relate madness and violence in The Sea?

Bond shows madness and violence one and the same thing in The Sea. Bond shows this message through the character of Hatch who is mad and is always paranoid by some alien attack and this madness of Hatch makes him violent when he attacks Colin’s dead body and cuts it into pieces. So madness leads to violence and violence to annihilation of the world.

25. What is the main theme of The Sea?

The Sea portrays characters who exhibit various traits and these traits bring forth us various themes of the play. The play doesn’t have a single theme. The play deals with violence, madness, authority, religious hollowness, superfluous approach to art and superstitions, but the most important theme is sanity and change. Bond wants humans beings to be sane and change the world. Everything runs towards its evolution, if we stop the process of evolution and become stagnant, there is violence and death. We must meet the challenges of the new age and change our psychology, surroundings and personalities accordingly so that we may survive as sane human beings.