Arcadia | Style

Arcadia Style

Juxtaposition

While Arcadia is set in only a single location, a large room in the Sidley Park manor, the action of the play occurs in two very different time periods: 1809-1812 and the present day. Setting the play in both eras allows Stoppard to use a literary device known as juxtaposition to cleverly compare and contrast characters and ideas. Juxtaposition occurs when two things are placed side by side, or on top of one another, and their dominant qualities are compared.

In Arcadia, pairs of characters are sometimes juxtaposed and compared this way. For example, Ezra Chater is a vain, would-be poet, given to fits of overreaction. In some ways, he finds his counterpart in Bernard Nightingale, the flashy, blustery Sussex don who, though he is vastly more intelligent than Chater, is still easily led astray by his pride and search for glory.

The continuation of ideas through both...
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