Speaker
Description
The Children is a work of speculative fiction set on England's shoreline in the aftermath of a nuclear disaster. The disaster is a catastrophic occurrence that has already occurred, leaving the characters to deal with the consequences. The three characters, all retired nuclear physicists, struggle with the personal decisions they must make in the face of a calamity they helped cause. Their issue is very personal: should they give up their remaining years to clean up the mess for the next generation (“the children”), or should they continue to live a “normal” life? It's a confined emotional drama that reflects a bigger moral challenge: "What do we owe to the future?"
In contrast, Beat the Devil is an autobiographical monologue set during a real-life worldwide crisis: the COVID-19 pandemic. The turmoil is not a fictitious situation, but rather the very real experience of a dramatist suffering from the virus while the world around him struggles to cope. The play's structure as a single monologue reflects the loneliness and unique experience of someone facing a highly contagious sickness. David Hare describes his own symptoms—fever, insanity, and aches—as physical manifestations of the world's instability. His personal battle with the virus is interwoven with his frustration with the political response. The paper argues that these literary responses to crises foster resilience in the face of current and future challenges, by encouraging adaptation and change.
| Keywords | COVID-19, pandemic, David Hare, Beat the Devil: A Covid Monologue, Lucy Kirkwood, The Children |
|---|---|
| drdidemmetin@gmail.com |