"David and Bathsheba"
Nationality: Hebrew
Genre: biblical short story
Characters
1) David: King, strays away from God but later returns, lusts after Bathsheba,
responsible for Uriah's death
2) Bathsheba: beautiful, object of David's love, married to Uriah, later is married to David,
loses her child
3) Uriah: loyal to family & country, respected King David, honorable, soldier, killed because of
King David's orders
4) Nathan: sent by God to confront David
Literary Terms
Setting: King's palace, battlefront
Themes: a) lust is sometimes mistaken for love
b) no one can hide from the truth
Internal Conflict: a) David & his feelings of lust
b) David & his relationship with God
(struggling between right & wrong, honesty & dishonesty)
Dynamic Conflict: David at first is right with God then becomes corrupted but later becomes
right with God again
Foreshadowing: David's uncontrollable feelings of lust foreshadow that he will stray from God
and enter further into sinful acts.
Dramatic irony: a)we know of David & Bathsheba's affair; Uriah does not
b) we know of David's plan to kill Uriah; he thinks no one else knows & that he will get
away with it