Seminar Paper #4

Humanities 150
Seminar Paper #4
Due Tue Feb 8

In 1-2 double-spaced pages, respond to one of the following prompts. Your response should illustrate your understanding of the reading by drawing on quotations or specific examples from the reading and citing those passages or examples with page numbers in parenthesis.

“The Masses are Asses”
by Pedro Pietri

“The Masses are Asses” is a play built on “perception shifts.” Track your expectations of the characters and scenario. At what points does your perception shift? What are the signals in the text that prompt those changes in audience expectations and understanding of the scenario. What is the effect of the perception shifts? How do these subverted expectations and perception shifts reveal the theme of Pietri’s play?

What role does “pretending” play in “The Masses are Asses?” How does the way the characters “pretend” reveal assumptions about class? How are the wealthy portrayed? How are the poor portrayed? What does the idea of “pretending”suggest about the class and the world at large?

How does Pietri use language to indicate class? Analyze several specific lines from the play, and explain what those lines suggest about the perception of class. How is language used by “wealthy” characters, and how is language used by “poor” characters? What is similar and what is different about the way the “two” classes of characters speak in this play? How does this use of language help reveal the theme of “The Masses are Asses?”