Conventions of Drama

Through the centuries, the conventions of drama have been altered in many different ways. These conventions are the setting, plot, characters and staging. The main factor which has been a dominant force during the changes of conventions has been the society. The society present during the time in which a play was written had a direct influence on the plot and characters. This is because drama is defined as a representation of life. Four plays …

…desire. Overall drama seeks to represent the truth about life. It does not fully complete this task because it is only able to construct versions of life which are symbolic. Drama is not the same as life because it has developed its own language and conventions for picturing reality. Drama can never be the absolute truth because different values are always being represented by different ideologies and different people may read these in different ways.