The Night of the Iguana Literary Elements

Drama

English

The action of the play takes place in Puerto Rico in an unnamed hotel.

Because this is a play, there is no narrator and no point of view. Instead, the action is recalled from the perspective of every character through their dialogue.

The tone and mood in the play is a violent one.

It is hard to determine a protagonist in the play because every character is portrayed in a somewhat negative way. The only truly innocent person is Charlotte while the clear antagonist of the play is Shannon.

The major conflict is an internal one and is the result of Shannon's desire to become a priest once more and his incapability to stop sleeping with young girls.

The play reaches its climax when Hannah rejects Shannon.

The storm described at the end of the first act foreshadows Shannon's mental breakdown which takes place in the second act.

At the beginning of the play, Shannon claims he wants to be a priest because he is a true believer and because he loves God. Later however this is proven to be an understatement as another character talks about how Shannon was thrown out of the church because he was a heretic and because he openly called God a "senile delinquent".

One of the main allusions in the play is the idea that Shannon is a pedophile. He is mentioned as sleeping with underaged girls and a 17-year-old girl is mentioned but other characters mention how Shannon likes younger girls in general. Also, there is a general understanding among the characters that Shannon is unable to stop himself, thus suggesting that this problem is more than just a passing feeling but rather something that Shannon feels constantly,

One important imagery is in the second act when Shannon pleads with Hannah to allow him to accompany her during her travels. At this moment, Shannon is described as a desperate and lost man, someone in great need of guidance. This image is important because it marks the moment when Shannon is no longer just as a sexual predator but is someone whose past turned him into a tragic figure.

One of the paradoxical ideas in the play is the way in which Charlotte, the young girl with whom Shannon slept with tries to convince the latter to marry her. The reason why this is paradoxical is that not only was Charlotte almost raped by Shannon, but she was also physically abused by him after they had sex.

A parallel can be drawn between Faulk and Hannah, two women who caught the attention of Shannon. The two women are extremely different, Hannah being a pure soul who would never hurt anyone while Faulk is an old and bitter woman who would do anything to get her way. At the end of the poem, the woman who gets a happy ending is Hannah, proving thus that when a person is kind and good, they will always succeed in life.

We have a personification in the line "the tables attacked him at once".

The dramatic devices used in the play are the stage directions, aside and the dramatic monologue. Through the stage directions, the author describes where the action takes place as well as the characters. The aside and the monologues are also frequently used in the play and their purpose is to give the reader or the viewer a peek inside the minds of the characters and to reveal their true feelings and emotions.