| Description |
A Masque of Reason and A Masque of Mercy, which are of primary importance in this text, are dramatic works in Frostian blank verse. A Masque of Reason is based on the Book of Job, and even closes with "(Here endeth chapter forty-three of Job)". The Job Dilemma, the dilemma that 'there's no connection man can reason out/Between his just desserts and what he gets,' is not solved by the confrontaion between God, Job and his wife (and the Devil, monetarily), but Job's wife suggests (with Frost), "You'd as well smile as frown" about it. Jonas Dove, in A Masque of Mercy, which is based on the book of Jonah, flees from God to a bookstore just outside of New York City where he was supposed to "prophesy against the city evil." Frost explores the mercy-justice contradiction as Jonah, Paul, Kepper and his wife Jesse Bel philosophize. Together, the two Masques encompass, though certainly do not exhaust, the classic problems of justice and mercy. |
