The Tempest - William Shakespear
The Tempest is widely thought to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote by himself, it is the tale of the former and rightful Duke of Milan, a sorcerer named Prospero, who was exiled to a remote island with his young daughter Miranda, for 12 years. Over these years Prospero has acquired two companions who called the island home, Ariel, an air spirit who was trapped in a tree and an Earthly beast, Caliban, who is basically a slave for Prospero.
The name of the play comes from the storm that is conjured up by prospero and Ariel to trap and separate those who were involved with the exile. They are put on different parts of the island, unknowingly having their every move watched by the very man who they thought to never see again.
Taxi Driver - Martin Scorsese
An honourably discharged U.S. Marine Travis Bickle, lives on his own in New York suffering from depression and all around loneliness. To cope with his chronic insomnia he becomes a taxi driver, transporting people every night around the streets of New York. He also spends an unhealthy amount of time at pornographic theatres and reports most of his thoughts in a diary he owns.
Betsy works voluntarily for a Senator and possible president, helping his campaign program, Travis becomes obsessed with her and attempts to get closer to her by volunteering as a pretext. Things do not go well between the two and Travis does not take this well.
Throughout the story Travis becomes worse and worse, eventually becoming more aggressive and violent. Travis’s begins to go insane and this insanity only grows till he is no longer the same person at the beginning of the film, he an entirely new person with all new thoughts and feelings.
Stan - Eminem
The song tells the story of a person named Stanley, or Stan, Mitchell, a man who believes himself to by the number one fan of artist Eminem. Stan writes a series of letters to Eminem and with each verse of the song Stan becomes gradually more and more obsessed with him, unfortunately their is no reply to any of the letters sent and he eventually, he gets angry. In the end Stan has had enough and creates a voice recording of himself driving his car into a lake along with his girlfriend and unborn child trapped in the boot.
The song is like a timeline, going through the different stages that Stanley finds himself in, gradually getting worse and worse till the point where he can no longer take it, Eminem hears of his story and tells in the lyrics how he was affected by it.
The Martian - Andy Weir
The story of a team of astronauts, tasked with a two month mission on mars which was abruptly cut short due to a monsters storm. Whilst trying to escape the planet and save their lives, one of the members of the crew was taken by the storm and by his friends were forced to leave him behind. Botanist Mark Watney is assumed by all remaining members of the crew as well as NASA, to be dead.
Against all possible odds, Watney survived the storm and discovers himself completely and utterly alone on an entire planet with no way of contacting his home planet. Mark is task with discovering how to survive a lengthy amount of time on a desolate planet and make it safely back to Earth.
Discovery Texts
