Analysis Of Sure Thing By David Ives

In “Sure Thing” we see this lucid construction and deconstruction of reality take place on the stage. Short plays in general have less freedom to form a reality and sustain it long enough for full immersion and suspension of disbelief to occur. This work, however, is completely about how that full universe is created. Normally we would see just one road of the many, a snippet of the real possibility. Everything can only happen one way, because that is how the story is. The scene would happen once rather than doubling over on itself. But here we get a glimpse of all possible realities. This is done by way of language. David Ives uses the bells in “Sure Thing” as a representation of linguistic determinism. We are given a taste of nearly every possible reality this scene could have and what the corresponding language of those realities might be. The bell is a reversal of the previously established reality. An undo button. This is how Ives ' shows us how words can bring us new outcomes until we arrive at the desired …show more content…
This interaction between the characters we see take place is elongated by the bell 's illustration of all possible linguistically determined story lines. If we cut out the bell completely, along with all of the language resulting in the multiple realities and kept only the desired and ultimately last outcome, the interaction we are left with is a very short and sweet one. The bell seems to have a consciousness of where we need to end up to have this play resolve. It also exhibits a consciousness over the character 's use of words beyond the character 's own awareness. Linguistic determinism isn 't something than can be wielded for one 's own personal gain because it differs so much based on who and what we interact with. Rather, it is something that happens to us. The bell works beyond the control of the