In Misto’s play contrast is a powerful dramatic device. Describe its use in the Shoe Horn Sonata.
“Shoe Horn Sonata is an impressive story of courage, hope, horror and friendship. This play is a tribute to commemorate the bravery of the women and to make their story of survival widely known. The historical context that the story has enables us to learn about the past events and to understand the true meaning of war and its consequences. The play draws on real events, the Massacre of the 21 Australian Nurses on Banka Island with only one Survivor.
Conflict is the essence of drama. It can contrasts both inner e.g. when Sheila is deciding on whether to sell herself to the Jap’s. It can also be physical, an example of this is within the mal-treatment of the women when the guards beat the women e.g. Lipstick Larry “if they were seen wearing lipstick”. The characters portrayed within the novel are seen as realistic and authentic, this is because Misto uses certain language techniques such as humour, when Bridie stitched a rusty pin into Lipstick Larry’s Loin Cloth. Also when the Australian Nurses were pretending to have tuberculoses, Bridie mentions with humour “that night turned me off blind dates forever”.
Tension creates drama. There is also the contrasts of the TV studio and the motel room, where In the motel room we see the build up of tension between Bridie and Sheila is on edge and picky. Bridie says “we shouldn’t be wasting our time together fighting we never did in camp”. Unlike the studio where the women are both forced to open up about their horrific experiences the motel room provides a deeper insight into the emotional impact that the separation has impacted upon them through the years. The action of the play moves between the television studio where recollections of the past are fairly formally presented by the women as Rick interviews them, and the hotel, where the tensions between them appear in their outwardly casual