The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail | The Shifting Tone in Lawrence and Lee's Play
In the following essay, Ryan D. Poquette discusses how Lawrence and Lee use changes in dialogue and plot to slowly darken the tone of their play.
When The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail begins, the play is very lighthearted, and many of Henry's lines are designed to elicit laughs in other characters or the audience. By the end of the play, however, when Henry has his gritty nightmare, humor is replaced by a grim sense of purpose. This change is not abrupt. Rather, over the course of the story, Lawrence and Lee use shifts in Henry's dialogue and the events in his life to induce a gradually darker tone into the play.
In the beginning of the play, Henry is very sarcastic, expressing all sorts of witticisms on...
[The entire page is 1839 words long]
Join eNotes
The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:
Summary and Analysis – Themes – Characters – And much more...
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
Tell a friend about The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail at eNotes.
