Unit 9 (The Proposal)
Faces and the farce
Identify facial expressions and discuss the play's message.
Faces speak. Our faces show feelings without words: this is non-verbal communication. The book's six faces show happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear and disgust.
Reading the clues. Look at the eyes, eyebrows and mouth:
- happiness: a smile, soft eyes;
- sadness: the corners of the mouth drop;
- anger: knitted brows, clenched teeth;
- surprise: raised brows, wide eyes, mouth a little open and relaxed;
- fear: wide eyes too, but the face is tense and the mouth strained;
- disgust: a wrinkled nose, upper lip raised.
The Proposal: a farce. A farce is a comedy built on silly, exaggerated situations. The whole play happens in one room, Chubukov's drawing room. Lomov comes to propose to Natalya, but they fight first over the Oxen Meadows, then over whose dog is better, and the proposal is forgotten. They even insult each other's families.
What the play laughs at. Marriages made for property: land and pride come before love. Nobody listens; everybody contradicts. Would such quarrels promise a happy life together? No. A good couple understand and support each other.
A rule for real life. In any quarrel, never drag the other person's family into it, and never use abusive words. The play shows, by its bad example, why anger needs managing, which is the subject of the next reading.
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