Table of ContentsAnalysis of the elements of the playThe plotTitleThemesCharactersSettingConclusionAnalysis of the elements of the playTerrence Mcnally's career began in the New York boom off-Broadway of the late 1960s. Most of his pieces from the 60s are not really relevant although some are funny. However, in the 1970s, his pieces began to be recognized. Today his plays are performed in off-Broadway theaters and he is known as the author of tragicomic plays full of breadth and depth. He still lives in New York and is one of America's finest playwrights. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get an original essay He is the author of numerous plays, including Master Class and Love! Value! Compassion! (both winners of the Tony Award for Best Play), The Ritz and Frankie and Johnny in Claire de Lune, which became a film starring Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer, and the books for the musicals The Rink and Kiss of the Spider Woman, which won the Tony Award for Best Musical Book. Other hits include Lips Together, Teeth Apart and The Lisbon Traviata. Terrence McNally's other plays are: Andre's Mother; Corpus Christi: a play; It's just a play; !Cuba yes! Bringing it all home, last breaths; and Where Did Tommy Flowers Gone. McNally has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is also vice president of the Dramatists Guild, the American organization of playwrights, composers and lyricists. His plays have been adapted into many languages ​​and performed in different countries. The plot The play tells of a two-week trip to India by two wealthy middle-aged women, who seem empty and frivolous. They both have indifferent and painful memories of the death of their sons. Although they have been friends for many years, it is only on this trip that they get to know each other (and themselves) by experiencing the humanity of India . Katharine Brynne, one of them, is a mother who lost a gay son to a homophobe and is haunted by the fact that she rejected him. Katharine is also a woman who must confront her racism, fueled by the fact that the men who killed her son were black. She is also an exuberant and open-minded woman, ready to take risks and accept the reality she sees for herself. Unlike Katharine, there is Margaret Civil, who is more reserved, conventional and maternal. Margaret is not only dealing with a lump on her chest, which doesn't seem to go away, but also with the secret - not shared with her best friend Katharine, nor with her children of the death of her four-year-old son. years, more than twenty years ago, but even more so, her husband's betrayal. They embark on this inner journey, guided by Ganesha, the smiling Indian god. Ganesha is the narrator, the commentator and a God who works enigmatically for the best possible for all. He is also other characters, witness and stage magician, but above all their spiritual guide. Apart from these three characters, we have minor roles of Margaret's husband, tourists, ghost of Gabriel (son of Margaret), ghost of Walter (son of Katharine). and other characters who are all played by the same actor, called the man in the play. The story begins in a slightly comical way. These two women, stereotyped to this extent, inserted in a totally foreign setting, make the play funny with their ignorance and their Americanism. However, asAs each of their dark secrets is revealed, the plot becomes very emotional, with an intense tone. TitleGanesh, or Ganesha, is part of Hindu mythology and is a very important God in India. As the play also explains, he was the son of Shiva and Parvarti. Ganesha stopped his father Shiva from entering the bathroom where his mother was taking a bath. Shiva, furious, cut off Ganesha's head and Parvarti, devastated, begged Shiva to help Ganesha. Then Shiva cut off the elephant's head and put it as the boy's head. The image of Ganesha has an elephant's head and four arms. In one of his hands he holds a conch, in another a disc, in a third a club and in the fourth a lotus flower. He is the destroyer of obstacles, god of knowledge, wisdom, literature, fine arts and luck. Inserted in the room, Ganesh is also the image of Ganesha found in every house, large or small, and sold as a souvenir. Katharine searches for a perfect one, buys a dozen, and never finds it, but is always sure that such a perfect Ganesh exists. The objects that the image of Ganesha holds in his hands symbolize, in the piece, motherhood such as protection (seen through the shell), repression (through the club), fun (through the disc) and love (through the lotus flower). As Ganesha primarily represents the love between mother and son, it can be said that Katharine was looking for a perfect son, one whom she could accept, or a perfect relationship between the two of them. Margaret does not need to find a perfect one, since her dead boy would have grown up to be a prince among men with magnificent blond curls (McNally; 1993, p. 197). Her son was already perfect for her. And it is through the memories of the women's sons that they are led to resolve their obstacles and acquire wisdom and knowledge. Themes The main theme of the play is Margaret and Katharine's spiritual journey and the healing of their souls, seen through their process of revealing secrets and slaying the demons within them. Traveling to India is for them a way of being alone, far from responsibilities. However, it is alone in a completely foreign setting that they will find themselves, know each other and face their ghosts. Katharine has already begun her recovery, through unreliable methods like self-help audiobooks in which she must repeat what she has chosen. to be happy, healthy and good. Additionally, it is known that she attended conferences on Nurturing Your Inner Child, but only through dialogue with her deceased son, shouting his taboo words (faggot, faggot, nigger), being forced to remembering her son even more than she already can't forget and asking for forgiveness is that the process of erasing her son's death is yielding results. It is always with the help of Ganesha - whether he is a puppeteer or an Indian child - or of the man singing his son's favorite song, that his healing process exists in the form of psychoanalysis. She must return to her past, interact with the past, tell the past and hear herself tell the past to resolve this inner problem. While Katharine already knows what her problems are and that what is needed now is the solution for them, Margaret's pains seem much more internal and solid than Katharine's, probably because of the time difference or because of his own personality which does not allow him to expose his problems. Her way of coping with her son's death is to forget about it, not to talk about it, nor with her husband. And as the play progresses, the only person she talks about is Ganesha, dressed as a Japanese woman. However, Margaret manages to overcome certain obstacles, she could tell Katharine about thelump in her chest and also her husband's love story. She no longer becomes a reserved woman, which is part of the process of getting to know her. Another theme that appears in the play is ugly Americanism, which fits the play's goal of comedy, as it is very exaggerated. This is, however, a minor theme. As we see throughout the play, Margaret and Katherine refer to other people, those who are not American, as lepers, Japanese, or Negroes, even asking foreigners to improve their English. Their American guide tells them not to drink water or ice, and even eating Indian fruits is dangerous. Katharine thanks foreigners with a gracias, because everyone who is not American is Caribbean to her. Another theme that emerges is India itself. The play is a window into this mystical world, and even in some theaters where it was performed, the production of the play filled the theater lobby with information about the elephant-headed god, statues of Ganesha and even Indian music was played before, after and during the intermission of the show. We are not only guided through the Indian landscapes, but we also discover the Gateway of India, the Towers of Silence, the Ganges and the Taj Mahal, sometimes narrated by Ganesha, sometimes by man.CharactersAs it was said previously, the personalities of Margaret and Katharine as well as their developments belong to the main theme of the play. Both are well-rounded characters with a lot of depth and integrity that makes them believable and likeable. Both are the same age, both have the same background, their husbands earn the same living and both are indifferent, both have lost a son. and both have prejudices. However, they are very different from each other. Katherine is an extravagant, loud-mouthed and prejudiced woman. However, she is concerned about her reality, she knows where her fears are and what her goals are. She says she went to India to be healed, found and also to satisfy a childhood ready to hug and kiss a leper. She is much more spontaneous than Margaret and she makes no mistakes. She knows she has prejudices against African Americans and she wants to overcome them. Her prejudices come from her son's killers, who were (for her) all black. But in this journey she manages to heal, when she pronounces the taboo words across a river, it brings her some relief from her hatred for Walter's murderers. Margaret is more reserved, and she thinks that everyone thinks she is bossy. bitch, but behind that mask she is a woman with fears and sadness. She goes to India because she no longer wants to vacation in the Caribbean islands. She doesn't hate Katharine and she doesn't feel guilty either. She also can't forget her son, but that doesn't bring her as much remorse, since she saw pain in her son's killer, a black woman whose car hit her son, Gabriel. It seems that the pain of the killer comforted her. However, she did not compensate for this loss, and she and her husband thought that not bringing up this episode again would make her forget it. What she didn't know is that people need to work through their suffering. However, her pain could not be healed since the end of the play and it has not been revealed. She could share the discovery of a lump in her breast but we cannot assume that this honesty will cure her, because in Hindu cosmology where opposites mate eternally, it is less the sick or heartbroken body who counts only the restless soul. It seems that Margaret's story is more difficult and hurtful than that of..