In the pro­logue, a woman is held cap­tive in a cell for 43 days. Bound and iso­lat­ed, she endures men­tal anguish while fan­ta­siz­ing about revenge to cope with fear. Unex­pect­ed­ly, the sound of foot­steps indi­cates her cap­tor’s arrival, height­en­ing her anx­i­ety as she con­fronts real­i­ty. (Char­ac­ter count: 238)

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

PROLOGUE
This sto­ry ends in blood.
Every sto­ry begins in blood: a squalling baby yanked from the
womb, bathed in mucus and half a quart of their mother’s blood. But
not many sto­ries end in blood these days. Usu­al­ly it’s a return to the
hos­pi­tal and a dry, qui­et death sur­round­ed by machines after a heart
attack in the dri­ve­way, a stroke on the back porch, or a slow fade
from lung can­cer.
This sto­ry begins with five lit­tle girls, each born in a splash of her
mother’s blood, cleaned up, pat­ted dry, then turned into prop­er
young ladies, instruct­ed in the wife­ly arts to become per­fect part­ners
and respon­si­ble par­ents, moth­ers who help with home­work and do
the laun­dry, who belong to church flower soci­eties and bun­co clubs,
who send their chil­dren to cotil­lion and pri­vate schools.
You’ve seen these women. They meet for lunch and laugh loud­ly
enough for every­one in the restau­rant to hear. They get sil­ly after a
sin­gle glass of wine. Their idea of liv­ing on the edge is to buy a pair of
Christ­mas ear­rings that light up. They ago­nize far too long over
whether or not to order dessert.
As respectable indi­vid­u­als, their names will appear in the paper
only three times: when they’re born, when they get mar­ried, and
when they die. They are gra­cious host­esses. They are gen­er­ous to
those less for­tu­nate. They hon­or their hus­bands and nur­ture their
chil­dren. They under­stand the impor­tance of every­day chi­na, the
respon­si­bil­i­ty of inher­it­ing Great-Grandmother’s sil­ver, the val­ue of
good linen.
And by the time this sto­ry is over, they will be cov­ered in blood.
Some of it will be theirs. Some of it will belong to oth­ers. But they
will drip with it. They will swim in it. They will drown in it.

In David Gar­rick­’s pro­logue to “She Stoops to Con­quer,” we are intro­duced to a scene filled with melan­choly and a sense of impend­ing loss with­in the the­atri­cal world, artic­u­lat­ed through the char­ac­ter of Mr. Wood­ward. Dressed in somber black, Mr. Wood­ward embod­ies the mourn­ing and despair preva­lent among actors at the time, sig­ni­fy­ing not just a per­son­al state of sor­row but a com­mu­nal cri­sis with­in the realm of com­e­dy. Mr. Wood­ward’s lamen­ta­tion begins with a poignant rev­e­la­tion that his tears are not for mere show nor sole­ly because of his mourn­ing attire; they stem from a deep­er, irre­me­di­a­ble grief: the decline of the Com­ic Muse. This per­son­i­fi­ca­tion of com­e­dy, on the brink of death, encap­su­lates the exis­ten­tial threat faced by actors spe­cial­ized in the comedic arts, includ­ing Wood­ward him­self and his con­tem­po­raries.

The pro­logue clev­er­ly address­es the audi­ence direct­ly, blur­ring the lines between per­for­mance and real­i­ty, and high­light­ing the per­form­ers’ depen­den­cy on com­e­dy for their liveli­hoods and iden­ti­ty. Wood­ward’s fear is not just of finan­cial ruin but of a loss of pur­pose, under­scor­ing the vital role of the Com­ic Muse in their lives. The intro­duc­tion of sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty and mor­al­iz­ing in the­atri­cal per­for­mances is crit­i­cized as a poor sub­sti­tute for gen­uine com­e­dy, indi­cat­ing a shift in pub­lic taste that threat­ens the tra­di­tion­al craft.

Wood­ward’s attempt to adapt by adopt­ing a mor­al­iz­ing tone is both humor­ous and trag­ic, illus­trat­ing his dis­com­fort and inep­ti­tude with this emerg­ing form of dra­ma. This jux­ta­po­si­tion of com­e­dy and tragedy with­in the pro­logue serves as a meta-com­men­tary on the state of the­atri­cal arts and its audi­ence’s expec­ta­tions.

The clos­ing of the pro­logue intro­duces a glim­mer of hope in the form of a Doc­tor, a metaphor for the play­wright or per­haps the the­atre itself, who offers a rem­e­dy to revive the ail­ing Com­ic Muse. This med­i­cine, a blend of humor and per­for­mance con­tained in “Five Draughts,” rep­re­sents the play “She Stoops to Con­quer” itself. The audi­ence is entreat­ed to open them­selves to this comedic elixir, there­by par­tic­i­pat­ing in the poten­tial revival of the Com­ic Muse. The pro­logue con­cludes on a note of cau­tious opti­mism, sug­gest­ing that the suc­cess of this the­atri­cal endeav­or depends not on the per­form­ers alone but on the audi­ence’s will­ing­ness to embrace the comedic cure being offered, empha­siz­ing the rec­i­p­ro­cal rela­tion­ship between actor and spec­ta­tor in the sur­vival of com­e­dy.