The drama is a very ancient form of art, and reached a high pitch of excellence in ancient Greece, which produced such great dramatists as Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and the satirist Aristophanes. The Greeks were passionately fond of the theatre, and crowded to see and hear the plays of these great poets.
In England, the drama came into full flower in the age of Queen Elizabeth, and the number of able Elizabethan dramatists, of whom Shakespeare was the greatest, shows what an intense interest the English people took in the theatre.
The actual theaters in those days were very primitive, and scarcely any scenery was used; but the dramas produced are the greatest in English literature.
Theatres today are places of amusement, resorted to, as a rule, in the evening after the work of the day. The buildings are large and comfortable, and the scenery is magnificent and realistic.
The scenic arrangements delight the eye, the music charms the soul, and the situations created by the plot are such as to arouse the interest, and make us lose the sense of our own troubles and worries in sympathy with the joys and sorrows of those who are impersonated upon the stage.
Theatres being looked upon, in modern times, largely as places of recreation, the public demands amusement, “and those representations which are of a cheerful and joyous nature, those plots which involve the characters in trouble and leave them in possession of unalloyed happiness, are the most popular, even though in many cases they are untrue to life. There is, however, another side to the question. The English stage was most flourishing in the time of Queen Elizabeth. The dramatists of that day looked upon amusement as only a part of their duties. Many men of lofty and penetrating intellect used the theatre as a medium for the expression of their thoughts and ideas.
Their aim was to ennoble and elevate the audience, and imbue it with their own philosophy, by presenting noble characters working out their destiny amid trials and temptations, and their pictures, being essentially true to nature, acted as powerful incentives to the cultivation of morality.
Shakespeare stands preeminent among them all, because by his wealth of inspiring thought he gives food for reflection to the wisest, and yet charms all by his wit and humour and exhibits for ridicule follies and absurdities of men.
It is a great testimony to the universality of his genius that, even in translations, he appeals to many thousands of those who frequent Indian theatres, and who differ so much in thought, customs and religion from the audiences for which he wrote.
1. Toaster and the other old appliances set out to town to get Rob because they felt abandoned.
2. The old appliances frighten a Pirate because he captured them.
3. The appliances find a new mistress through a radio advertisement because their old master wanted to sell them.
Explanation:
Cause and effect draws a relationship between two events. It simply tells us the results that arise because of another action or event. "The Brave Little Toaster", tells the story of some appliances who were abandoned by their master because he found a new companion who was allergic to the dust and pollen that were accumulated by the old appliances. Cause and effect examples in this story include;
1. When the appliances felt abandoned by their owner, (cause); they set out to find him in town(effect).
2. When the Pirate captured the appliances and takes the radio with him, (cause); the other appliances frightened him(effect).
3. The appliances made an announcement through the radio for a new buyer or master(effect) because their master abandoned them(cause).
