Juxtaposition

One of the unique and clever aspects of Love! Valour! Compassion! is its use of space and time. Although the play is set in a single location, Gregory's country house in upstate New York, the action occurs in every room of the house and all over the grounds, and frequently the audience is presented with multiple scenes happening at the same time. By presenting the action of the play in this fashion, McNally is relying on a literary device known as juxtaposition to cleverly compare and contrast characters, dialogue, and themes. Juxtaposition occurs when two things are placed side by side, or over one another, and their important qualities are compared and contrasted.

In Love! Valour! Compassion! this occurs frequently. In the very first scene of the play, following Gregory's narrated introduction, the men are all asleep in their beds while Bobby and Ramon have a sexual encounter...