Topic 11 - Conversational structure and character (Session A) > Analysing Drama > Task B

Analysing Drama - Preliminary Matters

Task B - The prototypical discourse architecture of drama

Below we reproduce the prototypical discourse architecture of the novel which we outlined on the 'Discourse structure of 1st- and 3rd-person novels' page in Topic 8.

Think of a play with a 'standard' discourse structure that you know well (e.g. William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Hamlet or King Lea, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot, Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party, Caryl Churchill's Top Girls, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman or David Mamet's American Buffalo) and use it to work out what you think is the prototypical discourse structure of drama. Then compare what you think with what we think.

Our answer

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