Summary Of Pais's Essay What Happened In Copenhagen

In Abraham Pais’s article, “What Happened in Copenhagen?: A Physicist's View and the Playwright's Response,” Pais argues the historical accuracy of Michael Frayn’s 1998 play, Copenhagen. Frayn’s play depicts a meeting that took place in 1941 between prominent physicist Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. The play takes place is the Nazi occupied Denmark, and sheds light on the political issues both men are facing. Following Pais’s dispute regarding small details of the play, Frayn then gives his response to Pais’s argument. In the following, I will look into the context of the production and reception of the source, the audience intended, and the function of the text, while also commenting on the style and diction of Pais’s essay. To begin, the play Copenhagen was written in 1998, and depicts undecided events that took place in 1941. The only thing agreed upon at this point, is that a meeting between the two physicists took place. The article written by Pais’s is written due to many …show more content…
While some may agree that Pais’s critiques don’t necessarily change the argument and substance of Frayn’s play, it may inspire others to hold people accountable when depicting historical events. Throughout the analysis of Pais’s essay, we have noted important details regarding the context of production and the reception, by answering the question as to why Pais wrote this article. We have also looked into the intended audience and the main function of the text, as I believe it was to argue the historical accuracy of Copenhagen. We then ended the essay with Pais’s style and diction, in which we concluded that Pais was trying to persuade his readers into believing that his evidence disproves particular circumstances that take place in Frayn’s play. In the end, Pais does provide much more evidence to back his arguments, which in return provides the reader with a more accurate depiction of what truly happened on