Sir Tom Stoppard the Early Plays A Separate Peace

Sir Tom Stoppard, the early Plays

2. A Separate Peace

Sir Tom Stoppard's first two Plays, A Separate Peace (TV, 1960) and A Walk on the Water (TV, 1963, adapted for the stage as Enter a Free Man in 1968) are concerned with the problem of the individual as a 'private' being, having to exist in a society which does not agree with him. John Brown of A Separate Peace and George Riley of Enter a Free Man are different from 'ordinary people'; neither wants to participate in the conventional routines of life, and both see themselves as fundamentally opposed to the rest of society. George Riley is the prototype Stoppardian 'hero', and John Brown is an embryonic George Riley.

A Separate Peace, although an extremely simple play, embodies most of Stoppard's major themes in embryonic form. John Brown has his own ideas about life, and is determined to live by his own philosophy in defiance of everyone around him. The tension of the play arises from the conflict of attitudes between the 'hero' and his society. John Brown wants to spend time in a private hospital, The Beechwood Nursing Home, because he wants the privacy and the routine. He wants to escape the chaos of everyday life into the order of hospital.

While in hospital Brown paints a mural on the wall, and this is the first indication of another of Stoppard's preoccupations, the status of the artist in society. A recurring point of view, which Stoppard states and tests, is that which sees the artist as opting out of conventional reality and creating a reality of his own. This raises conflicts within the artist himself, and for the artist in relation to the rest of society. For the artist the opting out brings about feelings of guilt, from which John Brown is trying to escape.

The hospital staff are against him. Brown is attacking a convention, that a hospital is for people who are ill, and the hospital staff need to fight off this challenge to one of their bas ic assumptions. But also, in a wider context, they feel that what Brown is doing has something fundamentally wrong about it.

But although he 'shouldnt', he feels a need to escape, at least temporarily, and feels he has a right, as an autonomous individual, to follow his inclinations. Thus the question is raised as to whether Brown is right to act as a free and independent being, or whether his failure to 'connect' with society is a failing for which one must condemn him. Characteristically of Stoppard the opposition is set up, debated, and left inconclusively. We are left to decide for ourselves whether Brown's argument

'You mean it wouldn't be good for you. How do you know what's good for me?' (p.23.)

is enough to justify his actions.

Read the full version of this essay at: http://www.literature-study-online.com/essays/stoppard.html

Ian Mackean runs the site http://www.literature-study-online.com, which features a substantial collection of English Literature Resources and Essays, and where his sites on Books Made Into Movies, and Short Story Writing can also be found. He is the editor of The Essentials of Literature in English post-1914, published by Hodder Arnold. When not writing about literature or short story writing he is a keen amateur photographer, and has made a site of his photography at http://www.photo-zen.com

Author:: Ian Mackean
Keywords:: Tom Stoppard,Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead,English Literature,Plays,Drama,British,Theatre
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