Anna in the Tropics Literary Elements

Drama; Play

English

Ybor City, Tampa, Florida, 1929; Set chiefly in a cigar factory

In line with conventional norms of contemporary drama, there is no narrator, and the point of view is the third-person view of all of the characters that we get as an audience.

The tone is tragic and foreboding, argumentative and filled with conflict, but it is also at times intimate and even romantic.

Each of the characters in the play occupies an important role, but Conchita and Marela might be said to be the most central protagonist figures; the clearest antagonist is Cheché, but we also see some negative impulses in Palomo (though he reforms himself).

Though there a great deal of interpersonal, minor conflicts in the play (between Ofelia and Santiago, between Santiago and Cheché, and between Palomo and Juan Julian, for example), the primary conflict in the play is between the traditional, Cuban way of life, and the more modern, "American" way of life. This primary conflict then finds embodiments in the play's gender dynamics, economic concerns, and opinions regarding Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina," but in each case, one can see this primary conflict behind the scenes as a driving force.

The play's climax is the shooting of Juan Julian, which occurs fairly late in the game but represents the culmination of each of the play's bubbling tensions.

In general, Cruz deploys foreshadowing to great success in the play, most notably in the fact that the readings of "Anna Karenina" seems to mirror tragedies and events within the lives of the play's characters.

When asked what he thinks of Tampa, Juan Julian is understated in his response so as to be polite, saying that "It seems like a city in the making" (22).

The play's most clear allusions are to "Anna Karenina," the novel that starts discussion among the play's characters and that changes their lives. At the same time, however, references to other classic novels like "Don Quixote" and "Wuthering Heights" are also made.

Cruz deploys simple yet lush imagery throughout the play, most of which repurpose small elements of local life such as the local flora, landscape features, and cigar features. At the same time, however, his treatment of the winter scenes from "Anna Karenina" is also poetic, and he brings these elements into sharp contrast.

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There are parallels throughout the play between the lives of the characters in the play and the lives of the characters in "Anna Karenina," particularly when it comes to the tragic events that unfold in both as a result of a love triangle.

When Ofelia fans herself in Act 1, Scene 4, she remarks that the Tampa breeze is "always a punctual visitor" in the nighttime (40).

Monologue is a device that is used in an ingenious way in the play. When Juan Julian reads aloud, sometimes isolated from the other actions in the scene, it is as if he is really waxing poetic about both the lives of the Alcalars and life itself. This is a clever device in this context because it underscores the mirroring between the family in the novel and the family in the play.