Comparing A Midnight In Pairs And Prague

People use history, and their knowledge of past events, to create a nostalgia that allows them to deal with present issues in their lives. Woody Allen’s A Midnight in Pairs and Arthur Phillips’s novel Prague both use elements of history to suggest a relationship between the characters’ past and their relationship to the present. While both utilize history to create a nostalgia tone through the pieces, they come to different conclusions about the present: in a Midnight in Paris, Gil uses history and the past to break into the present life while Prague’s uses history to anchor the present to the past. The history of the 1920s Paris is what allows for avoiding responsibilities in the present. By having Gil meet with famous writers of the past
This theory is implemented when Gil finally achieves satisfaction in his glory era the 1920s. Everything in the movie has lead audience members to want this moment as much as Gil has. It is not until Adrianna desires to go even further back to the Moulin Rouge heyday when Gil begins to discover the backlash of nostalgic views (A Midnight in Paris). Allen’s use of the theory suggest that all the characters involved in the past—Gil and Adrianna primarily—are using the past to escape their presents, but it is a never-ending journey for each person have a different golden age. This realization is what allows Gil to break from his nostalgic view and confront the present. By having Gil confront the present in the midst of the confrontation with Adrianna Allen is able to show how Gil is now ready to be part of the present. Historical fact and knowledge is what give Gils the knowledge he needs to connect that there is no end in the past—it is a
Mark’s character throughout the novel is always involved in nostalgia history. By having Mark, the most affected my nostalgia of history, Phillips suggests that no one is inescapable from the past and yet it is what allows the present to unfold the way it does. “I love everything about this little street. He lives that used to be lived here,” is how Mark connects himself to the past. He does in several other instances, which suggest that he himself is preoccupied by the past and is trying hard to link it to the present. The notion that Mark is too busy with the past and its link to the present I broken when “[he] decided he was living in the present and he was overexcitedly proud of it” develops how both the story and the character understand how the past infiltrates the present and the roles characters plays. This becomes an underlying tone for the nostalgic theme of the