FAR AWAY

ANALYSIS
This particular play revolves around a girl named ‘Joan’ and her journey of how just one act of violence

can change one’s personality forever. The audience get to experience this thrilling yet, gripping drive

since the childhood of an innocent Joan, who can’t sleep after witnessing a horrifying incident by her

uncle, near her aunt Harper’s house developing into an adult Joan who becomes immune to feelings

regarding violence.

The scene is set to begin at Harper’s house. It’s night time and Joan initiates the conversation by,” I

can’t sleep.” The audience is not much surprised to hear this as it is a very typical dialogue you would

hear from a child living at a place without her parents. To this, Harper replies,” It’s the strange bed.” But,

Joan lets Harper know that she likes different places. The audience here are a bit curious as to what

other reason could it be that Joan can’t sleep. Harper keeps asking Joan if she feels cold or wants a

drink. It can be noted by the audience that Joan takes quite some time to answer Harper’s questions.

Such as, when Harper asks Joan if she’s cold , at first, Joan says no. This is followed by another question

from Harper if Joan, wants a drink and Joan replies that she feels cold. The audience realize that Joan is

somewhat lost in her thoughts. Those thoughts that were continuously bothering her from inside.

Harper tries to make Joan feel comfortable and ‘at home’ by asking Joan about her cats. When Harper

almost leaves for bed after their talks, Joan reveals the reason she’s been acting strange, she had went

outside the house earlier that night.

night. Joan responded this question of the audience and Harper by stating that she heard a shriek which

sounded like a person’s scream. This act shows a side of Joan’s daring and courageous personality. In

spite of her young age, she was brave enough to face her fears. For some reason, the way Harper

responded to the Joan’s consecutive questions made it seem like everything Joan saw was pretty usual

and expected for Harper. Joan says that she saw her uncle but never actually went up to him and kept

hiding under the tree. Joan narrates the whole occurrence about Joan watching her uncle hiding

someone in a shed and Harper keeps making up new stories every time Joan brings up a new character .

The audiences are quite concerned with the way Harper is acting and they feel like she’s trying to cover

up whatever Joan witnessed with lies. Joan who is still not fully satisfied, keeps asking Harper the

reasons for this dreadful event she saw.

Harper's words can’t be trusted as the audience isn’t sure if she’s lying or not. Harper now declares

that Joan has witnessed something she shouldn’t have and that it’s quite dangerous to tell anyone about

it. Somehow, Harper convinces Joan that her uncle was giving shelter and helping the people. It comes

to a point where Joan herself offers to help her uncle and the scene ends.

Audience can analyze that Joan being a young girl has a very mixed up personality. In the beginning,

she’s quite scared with what she saw and she keeps interrogating her aunt to justify those actions. Joan

sounds confident about her assumptions but, Harper being a cunning woman, turns the story in such a

way that Joan feels assured about her answers. The audience is quite scared for Joan as to what danger

she might fall in now that she's part of this dark incident. Also, what are Harper’s intentions towards

Joan now and will Joan maintain her personality of finding the truth or will she end up being immune to

feelings regarding violence just like her aunt?

up. She’s making hats along with a coworker named Todd. They have a small talk where Todd educates

Joan about how the company controls payment. It becomes quite evident that Todd isn’t very pleased

by the company when he says,” you’ll find there’s a lot wrong with this place.” Joan tries to get an

explanation to his statement but spontaneously Todd changes the topic. It’s the next day and Todd and

Joan are sharing some of the decorations. With each share they carry on their conversationeither by

giving a compliment to each other or by having a short discussion on something. The audience can sense

a bonding between these two characters. Todd thinks that there’s something wrong with how they get

contracts. Another proof to the fact that Todd isn’t happy with his 'job'. Also, the audiences still have no

clue as to why and what are they making these hats for.

With each passing day Joan and Todd’s friendship keeps growing stronger. Joan learns from Todd that

the company they’re working for is corrupt and that Todd has been wondering how to expose them for

a long time now. The very next day, Todd says that he’ll be speaking to ‘him’ about all the corruption

and low payment. Throughout the days, Todd and Joan’s hat decorations have been increasing day by

day looking enormous and amazing. As he leaves to talk to this anonymous ‘him’ Todd explains to Joan

that he might end up losing his job and so he confesses that he’d miss Joan. Joan doesn’t know how to

handle such situations so she’s quite awkward about it. But what one can sight form that whole

conversation is Joan and Todd both share mutual interest for each other.

The act continues as its Joan’s 5th day. Audiences finally get their answers that these hats are actually

made for prisoners held for execution. They all walk in a parade where the best hat is kept safe in a

museum. One week later, it’s revealed that Joan actually won the best hat. It is here that Todd and Joan

have a very meaningful conversation. Joan wishes that not all of the hats should be burnt. Here, it’squite

clear that Joan is comparatively more upset about her hat getting burnt rather than feel pity for the

prisoners being executed, which is a switch in her personality from how she was in the beginning of the
play when she was a child.Todd comes in support for Joan as he makes a point that if all the hats are

reused, their jobs would be useless. This partially answers audience's main question about Joan’s

personality of accepting violence, even though, she’s quite interested in knowing the truth and seeking

the answers as to why Todd thinks the company is corrupt. The conversation proceeds further as they

discuss about how to expose the company and also gives the audience a taste of their love for each

other so much so that they are even ready to sacrifice their job for each other. The scene ends with

Todd and Joan sharing beads while working on their new hats. The audience is confused as to what they

just watched and how is it related to the first act. They try to figure out a link but eventually fail. Though

if there is something that is connecting both the scenes together is the character “Joan” and her

personality and thoughts.

Act 3 begins with the same location as act 1, Aunt Harper’s house. Harper is having a conversation with

Todd. The audience realizes that Todd and Joan’s relationship is probably going well since he’s at her

aunt’s house. Todd and Harper are having a conversation where they tell each other their encounters

with animals and how they escaped from them. Kind of weird for the audience to understand what’s

happening. Then the topic shifts to how ‘safe’ the house if for Joan. To which Todd say,”…Everyone

thinks its just a house.” Audience are quite puzzled with this statement but then they realize that they

probably have animals in Harper’s house to protect themselves from the ‘other’ animals. Then comes an

exchange of dialogues where they each tell who they think are worse and who they think are against.

They discuss about crocodiles and while Todd thinks they might be of help for them Harper on the other

hand think crocodiles are ‘evil’. They then discuss deers and this time Harper is in favor of them while

Todd thinks they’re vicious . Joan walks in and Harper starts to lecture her about who saw her coming

here and that Joan put her life at risk coming here . Joan tired of her speaks with full emotions that

people did see her and that she also killed a few cats and children to escape. She explains how

heartbreaking it was for her to see bodies of people and animals killed on her way to home. And the
scene ends. The audience are in a state of confusion as they can’t get what really happened. But by

overviewing in their minds they understand that the play is mainly revolving around violence. They

understand that the conditions are so bad that in order to survive they have to kill everyone including

children under 5 and animals. They don’t blame Harper for lying in the beginning of the play because she

was trying to save Joan from this mess but somehow Joan got tangled anways.