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Lesson 1 (from Act I: Pages 1-8)

Objective

Students will consider the differences between a novel and a play, as well as dissect the ways in which a playwright can get across the text's message using methods a novel cannot.

Since The Ghost Sonata is a play, the only pieces of text students have at their disposal are dialogue and stage directions. As in the study of poetry, the minimal text available to students forces them to ground their analysis in the little text they have in front of them. Every line of dialogue, for example, is crucial to defining the characters, the plot, the relationship they have with each other, and the presentation of the play's themes and messages. By investigating the methods playwrights have at their disposal and how these methods show up in The Ghost Sonata, students will learn how the form and genre assumed by a text help to shape...

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