Comparing Medieval Drama Literature Review Sample

The Noah’s Flood is a play adopted from the biblical story of the manner with which God rescued a few of his followers from a terrible flood that wiped out the entire human race. In the beginning, God told Noah that he would have to put an end to all the people on the universe because their deeds were evil and violent. Noah was the only man of good faith in whom God had placed his trust because God believed that his ways were chaste. God asked him to build an ark and put his entire family in it. Besides that, he was to take only a male and a female member of each species of all kinds of animals in the ark. This discourse is aimed at depicting the differences between two different plays bordering along the story of Noah and the ark by two different playwrights; Chester’s ‘Noah’s Flood’ and the Corish Ordinalia’s ‘Noah and the Ark.’ .
There are differences in conflicts that arise when he tries to put his wife in the boat, according to the play. In the play ‘Noah’s Flood’, Noah has a difficult time trying to convince his wife to get into the ark. This is because she is skeptical about leaving all her friends behind. After a lot of persuasion, she agrees to join her husband in the ark for safety. In ‘’Noah and the Ark’, God is disappointed in man because the result of him listening to a woman is his unwilling forfeit of the place fashioned for him by the right hand of God.
It is evident that in both plays God noticed the sinful ways of the individuals in the society and was angered by their society’s contribution in destroying the society. In both eras, the rain fell on the earth for forty days and nights to create a flood that swept away all life on planet earth. This is one of the similarities in both narratives because God achieved his mission of punishing those individuals in the society who were of evil and sinful ways. The flood brought destruction to all those species except those that had found refuge in the ark. When the play ends, there is a dove that flies across carrying an olive leaf. This is an indication that the flooding has subsided and that the vegetation has started growing again. This is the same occurrence that takes place in the ‘Noah and the Ark’. Noah sends out one of the birds to go and find out whether the flooding has subsided. When the dive returns bearing a leaf, he is assures that the flooding has subsided and he is ready to let the animals out into the open again.
Avid symbolism is present in both narratives in that there are numerous symbols that are common. There are signs that God provided Noah and his family after the rain had subsided. He sent a rainbow across the skies as a promise of the manner with which he would not kill the human folk by use of flooding and other water means. In both narratives, the rainbow is a symbol of the covenant that God made with all living things on earth. Whenever the human folk spotted a rainbow in the sky, they were assured of the fact that they were not eligible to punishment through death by flooding. Whenever humans saw the rainbow in the sky, they were to be reminded of this promise by God. There are several occurrences of number seven in both plays. According to the ‘Noah’s Flood’, this is a meaningful number in that it suggests the completion of a cycle and a perfect order.
Taking into account the storyline of both plays, the most significant similarity is the character played by Noah’s wife. She is a controlling woman who has taken over Noah’s wife and dictates the manner with which he should live his life. She plays a monumental aspect of Noah’s life. She enhances the play by ensuring that it is more entertaining and enjoyable. There is extensive description of Noah’s wife in both plays as an iron lady who dictates the life that Noah should live. This is a situation that has saddened God in ‘Noah and the Ark’ because he created Noah to be the leader of the family and the voice of reason.
The wife is ready to sacrifice her life rather than stick to her family and look after them. She has demonstrated her desire to stay with her friends and gossip rather than tending to her family’s needs. She is of the opinion that her friends love her more than her family does, and her grandeur syndrome shows her that she is the only one with the power to save them from their retched ways. One of the drastic measures that Noah had to take to ensure that his wife was a member of the ark is enlisting the help of his sons. He asked his sons to drag her into the ark in an effort to ensure that she was not left behind. Even after ensuring that she is in the ark, Noah’s wife is ungrateful and slaps him across the face.
There are different disparities and similarities in the case. For the most part, the play is a recount of the events that take place in the literary works of art. The playwright has succeeded in ensuring that the originality of the story is preserved and that the characters are all created in the image in which they are portrayed in the plays. There are occurrences in both plays that differ from each other, but that is purely for entertainment purposes. Noah’s wife in both plays is used to bring comic relief to the story and ensure that the audience remains glued to their seats throughout the entire performance. Also of similarity is the fact that both plays is the fact that the number seven is used to depict the end or a cycle. In as much as the story in the bible was sparked by consequences of going against God’s words, the actions of the play are aimed at bringing entertainment to the audience.