Act Without Words

Iago and the whistle both represent manipulation of the circumstances surrounding the main characters. As an individual, I am provided the opportunity of freedom of choice however, those choices can be influenced by outside forces. This is the role of Iago and the whistle in both plays as they are the antagonist characters.

The mime represents man in the external world and he experiences how he has no control over the bad or good things that can happen to him.   The mime is literally flung onto the set of a desert which symbolizes the harsh environment of the external world in which he finds himself in. There is wide expansive space and the sun is scorching. It is unforgiving and there is no way to manipulate the land for comfort or even survival. This represents the external world because once you strip away assets, culture, even language, all one is left with is the primitive instinct to survive. The whistle taunts him with possible routes of escape but he is flung on his face. The mime, Karl Reisz, creates a humored report with the audience as we laugh at his tumbling, bumbling failed attempts to escape the synthetic prison. It is a fair assumption that outside this prison the world is hostile because the motivations of the whistle are unknown, therefore only leaving the assumption that the whistle is antagonistic by nature.
The mime yields to the inescapable situation when the whistle beckons him a third time “whistle from left wing. He reflects, goes towards left wing, hesitates, thinks better of it, halts, turns aside, reflects”. He learns that escape is not an option and he deals with the circumstances presented to him by beginning to ignore the source of his immediate pain…the whistle which forces it to provoke reactions in other ways. The whistle gives him a false sense of security by providing him with the palm tree for shade and the scissors. This is the whistle’s way of gaining the mime’s trust by donating comforts in his deprived existence. The fact...