Explain the context of the statement/extract here and thereafter provide a commentary where you situate the extract in the larger context of the essay where it is taken from. Each response must be about 150-200 words EACH.
In HAROLD PINTER’s ESSAY: ART, TRUTH & POLITICS
- “Political theater presents an entirely different set of problems. Sermonizing has to be avoided at all costs. Objectivity is essential. The characters must be allowed to breathe their own air. The author cannot confine and constrict them to satisfy his own taste or disposition…And political satire, of course, adheres to none of these precepts, in fact does precisely the opposite, which is its proper function.”
- “A writer’s life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We don’t have to weep about that. The writer makes his choice and is stuck with it. But it is true to say that you are open to all the winds, some of them icy indeed. You are out on your own, out on a limb.”
In Al WEIWEI: TRUTH TO POWER 1. “There is no continuity of experience through the generations. We talk about ‘crimes against humanity’: is this not a crime against humanity? It’s not necessarily a question of killing people, but of torturing or mutating basic human emotions.” (page 4)
- “So for me this is not responsibility: it is part of life. If you live in self-punishment or self-imposed ignorance or a lack of self-awareness it genuinely diminishes your existence. Self-censorship is insulting to the self. Timidity is a hopeless way forward.” (page 9)
