Page 161 - Student: dazed And Confused

true that themes can be read into this descriptive writing. Our theme was originally going to
be SIN and give our own interpretation of an original sin to give the story. But problems

arose from that and after much debate the theme evolved into LOVE. I think it is more

about the trappings of human nature. There were always reasons characters were unable
to help even when they wanted to so I believe the play ended up as being about an

expectant couple on a housing estate but, though it did not outrightly say so, it presented

the thought that human kindness just has too many rules to shine. As I said before, themes

are open to interpretation and are probably different for every member of my group as we

all put our individual spins on things.

'You may ... think you're writing a play about South Africa, but

in fact it's your sense of injustice towards your boss which is
really motivating you.'

(S Gooch, 1988, p6)

Motivation and theme are eternally intertwined because we start writing and discover the

real reason that we are doing so. The play may then become driven by ones own feelings
but understanding our own motivations help with knowing what we are writing about. My

motivation was that I had grown up on both the estates mentioned and knew the total lack

of hope there.
We assumed that pinning down the theme of the project and understanding what

was driving us to write a specific story would give us the dramatic question needed. It

didn't. We toyed with the ideas of our own interpretations of sin to begin with. There were

notions of ethereal personifications encouraging and justifying the sin. We even followed
this lead to the point where it burnt out. Each member of the group had slightly different

idea of the nature of the sin they were writing about and it was brought to our attention

that the script had become a series of people talking about themselves and their views.

That one rejected several other possible questions were thrown around. In trying to keep as
close to the original characterisations as possible, the task - which was probably quite late

in the day - was quite difficult. I suggested turning our holy characters into people at a

hospital bedside debate the fate of a patient and his soul. There were so many dramatic

questions that no-one could agree unanimously on that we sent all our ideas to our tutor,