Drama Mock 1
Performance and dramatic structure.
2 questions • Estimated time: 20-25 minutes
How to Use This Mock
- Read each question carefully
- Attempt your own answer first — spend at least 5 minutes thinking
- Only reveal the model answer after you've tried
- Compare your reasoning to the model answer
What is a soliloquy, and why might Shakespeare use this convention rather than having characters reveal their thoughts through dialogue with others?
Model Answer
A soliloquy is a dramatic convention where a character speaks their thoughts aloud while alone on stage (or unheard by other characters). It creates direct communication between character and audience.
Why soliloquy rather than dialogue?
Interiority: Some thoughts can't be spoken to other characters — they're too dangerous, shameful, or complex. Hamlet can't tell Claudius he suspects murder, but he can tell us. The soliloquy gives us access to a mind that must remain hidden within the play's social world.
Trust and Irony: We assume characters are honest in soliloquy (why lie to yourself?). This creates dramatic irony when characters are deceived. We know Iago's true nature from his soliloquies while Othello does not — our superior knowledge creates tension.
Psychological Complexity: Dialogue is shaped by social performance; soliloquy can show the self in conflict with itself. 'To be or not to be' dramatises a mind in genuine debate, which would be impossible in conversation.
Theatrical Intimacy: The soliloquy creates a special relationship with the audience. We become confidants, complicit in secrets. This is particularly powerful in plays like 'Richard III' where the villain makes us uncomfortably allied with him.
Pace and Structure: Soliloquies can pause the action for reflection, provide exposition, or build toward decision. They're structurally versatile.
A sophisticated answer might note that soliloquy is a convention — it's not 'realistic' but it's theatrically true. Modern drama often avoids it, raising questions about how contemporary plays achieve similar effects.
Is tragedy possible in the modern world? What conditions might a 21st-century tragedy require?
Model Answer
This question invites you to think about what makes tragedy as a genre, and whether its conditions persist.
Classical Requirements:
Aristotle's 'Poetics' suggests tragedy requires a protagonist of high status whose fall evokes pity and fear, leading to catharsis. The fall results from hamartia (often translated as 'fatal flaw' or 'error').
Challenges in Modernity:
- Democratic societies lack the aristocratic hierarchy that made the fall of kings significant
- Psychological understanding tends to explain behaviour rather than allow for tragic inevitability
- Secular worldviews may lack the sense of fate or cosmic order that tragedy often assumes
- Irony and self-consciousness (postmodern sensibilities) can undercut tragic seriousness
Possible Modern Conditions:
- The 'common man' as tragic hero: Arthur Miller argued in 'Tragedy and the Common Man' that ordinary people defending their dignity can be tragic. 'Death of a Salesman' attempts this.
- Systemic tragedy: Where the antagonist is capitalism, bureaucracy, or structural injustice rather than fate or individual flaw. Characters destroyed by forces they can't see or name.
- Tragedy of knowledge: Characters who understand their situation fully but remain trapped — Beckett's figures perhaps.
- Environmental tragedy: A form increasingly relevant — catastrophe on a planetary scale where humanity is collectively the tragic hero.
The best answers would engage specific examples and take a genuine position: is 'Death of a Salesman' truly tragic? Is 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy? What's at stake in calling something a tragedy?