Writer: Henrik Ibsen
Publisher: Jiahu Books
Publisher: CreateSpace
Pages:
150 Pages: 124
Year: 2013
Year: 2017
IBSN-13: 978-1909669215
IBSN-13: 9781544099415
Price: 10.4€
Price: 6.26€
Mark: 10/10
SYNOPSIS
The roots of the contemporary
theatre can be found in the work of Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), who not only lay
the foundations of the modern scene, but also expressed a lot of the problems
of the contemporary world. The ongoing theme throughout his works -the woman as
a human being capable of choose freely- reach their peak in the character of
Nora in A doll’s house and in the protagonist of Hedda Gabler.
The first one was the cause of the biggest outrage in the history of the
western theatre, the second offers a portrait of a complex feminine psychology embodied
by her protagonist, a woman capable of giving up everything for the sake of her
own independence.
PERSONAL ASSESSMENT
JUSTIFICATION
When I studied the scenic arts high school I had a
theatre subject where we had to choose among some plays and read it and analyze
it. I chose A doll’s house because they told me that the representation
that Ibsen made of the woman was something incredible and outrageous (in the
mid-19th-century). I was lucky because in the library I bought the book they
had an edition in which the two plays come together.
PLOT
A DOLL’S HOUSE
Nora had been married to Helmer for eight years and
had three children. But Nora held a secret that she reveals to her friend Mrs.
Linde, that secret is that two years ago her husband was about to die, and she
make him believe that her dying father gave her money to take her husband on a
tour through Europe, a tour that saved her husband life. But that is what she
makes him believe… Mrs Linde ask Nora to help her to find a job and Nora ask
that to her husband, who is about to be appointed the director of the bank. For
that, he decides to fire Krogstad, a man that in the past was a counterfeiter
and now wants to restore his honor. He has something to with Nora’s secret so
now he blackmails her. So, she sees how her happiness was not as real as she
thinks and decides to turn her life 180 degrees.
HEDDA GABLER
Hedda is the daughter of a general. She is married to
Jorge Tesman, who hopes to get an important job. When they arrive from the
honeymoon (that wasn’t as good as they have expected) appears an old friend of
Hedda, Mrs Elvsted, and she asked them to help her to find Lovborg, a friend of
Jorge, who Mrs Elvsted had followed because they had an adulterous relationship.
Lovborg appeared in the house and Jorge and Judge Brack invite him to a party,
but he insists that he has to read to Jorge a manuscript that he had wrote.
Henceforth the party, jealousy and envy will result in an outlandish situation
that will have a tragic end.
CHARACTERS
The most important characters of these two plays are
the two protagonists, so I’m going to talk about Nora and Hedda.
- Nora: The most important about this character is her circumstances, her reaction, her life. She is a woman that believes herself to be happy until something made her reconsider what it is happiness and if she is truly happy. The paternalistic way in which she is treated by her husband, Torvald, and the condescension (involuntary) which she answers do not help her to be happy. As she says, she is simply a doll with whom her father played, and now is repeated by her husband, she is a woman that has adjusted to the likes of her father and then of her husband. It is a beautiful action what she decides to do, supported by the final slam, which highlight the dramatism.
- Hedda: In this play the importance is the psychological description of the woman, how Ibsen understands the urge of independence and self-fulfillment of the woman. Hedda plays with the people just because she is bored, because she has nothing more to do with her life because she has born as woman. The only thing that she craves for is liberty, something that finally she will achieve. But for sure it won’t be in the way you are thinking of…
ATMOSPHERE
The plays are set in the middle of the 29th century,
but in the end, you forget about the age, as it can be extrapolated to any age,
because the lack of woman independence happens nowadays in so many countries.
Ibsen get you to identify yourself with Nora or Hedda y to immerse yourself in
the history. The plays are made to be acted, but if you are imaginative enough
(or if you just have the attitude) you can read it and create a different world
in your mind.
WRITING STYLE
Ibsen, as it is said on the synopsis, is one of the
fathers of the contemporary theatre. From Norway (and from the exile) he left
his legacy and his way of thinking, advanced for his age. To live in the Victorian
age and break the moulds (something that had happened always) was to be a
transgressor and was punished with public rejection. He questioned the family
and society models. These two plays are the most representative of his whole
works that questioned the women’s position in the society. Something that cost
him lots of critics and representations (not the play but their endings).
GENERAL COMMENT
I have first read the plays when I was 16 years old
and now, 7 years after, when I reread them, I fell in love more if possible of
Ibsen. Not because his representation of women and of injustices, but because
how he writers, how you can immerse yourself into the history and visualize the
scenography, the characters… And besides that, both plays end with a noise,
something that adds dramatism to the end.
I think that I empathize more with Nora than with
Hedda. How we are raised to show happiness and composure and, nevertheless,
unhappiness can collapse our life in just few seconds. Until we do not stop and
analyze our life we did not realize, as Nora says, that we are not happy, we
are only in good humor.
I also empathize with Hedda, but not as much as with
Nora, because I will never end up doing what Hedda did, but that does not mean
that it is condemnable.
-Saru
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