Tender Mercies

A detailed Summary of Tender Mercies

"Tender Mercies," written by Horton Foote, is a screenplay, which presents to the reader ordinary people, who are trying to live decently in an unpredictable and violent world. The reader comes to be aware of many dramatic scenes where the central characters have come to experience many complex but yet fascinating situations in their lives. Reading this screenplay the reader will come to acknowledge one of the centralized themes in "Tender Mercies," which is the theme of redemption. For those who are unaware of the word, redemption as it applies to the screenplay "Tender Mercies" is the literary word meaning to be saved or saving someone from an experience or a situation. The reader can observe this redemption at various times through many characters, such as: Mac, Rosa Lee, Sunny, and Dixie. Each one of these characters has been redeemed by other characters or has been the redeemer of other characters. Thus, in the paragraphs to proceed, the reader will be introduced to these exact characters and to the situations from which these characters were redeemed from or whom they had redeemed. Alongside, the reader will also come to recognize how this theme provides the clearest reason why "Tender Mercies" is neither a Tragedy nor

As the reader has been familiarized with just a few of the situations, in which redemption is one of the centralized themes, the reader also comes to conceive why this theme provides the clearest reason why "Tender Mercies" is neither Tragedy nor Pathos. The reader speculates this because the reader sees nothing related to a fall of pride. Actually, the reader comes to see many catastrophes that have been made reversible. Basically, in this screenplay whenever there was a fall, the characters were able to get back up and continue their lives. for example, the screenplay did nothing to trivialize Mac's daughter's death. Her death had little effect on the course of her father and other's lives. Her death just made everyone that knew her very emotional. As a matter of fact, as Mac's daughter died, Mac and Sunny got even closer with one another.

As mentioned above, one of the centralized themes in "Tender Mercies" is the theme of redemption and that it can be seen through many characters, of whom is Mac. In the beginning of this screenplay, Mac is viewed as a person with a drinking disorder. In other words, he was an alcoholic. He would drink continuously, being unaware of the hurt he caused to his loved ones. He drank more and more as he tried to run away from his problems; he believed that drinking was the only factor that solved his problems. As he continued to drink on a regular basis, he lost everything from his wife and daughter to his career as a singer. Fortunately, Rosa Lee, who is another character through which the reader sees the theme of redemption, redeemed him. Rosa Lee gave him a job, a place to stay, and most importantly a family.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1156
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English