Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler and Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest are both regarded as their best work getting praise and recognition for their contribution to the literary world. Due to Ibsen’s extensively complex main character Hedda Tesman, she is regarded to be one of the “most difficult roles in theatre” (T.Ross). The Importance of Being Earnest is Oscar Wilde’s most recognized piece which would also be his last play before being sent to jail convicted of homosexual acts. Props can be used in such a way that can account for the characters qualities, create deeper meaning for the time and the character, and also can accent the type of character whether flat or round. But which play is better at creating character development based on the criteria above.
Ibsen and Wilde are known to use props that the characters use to endow attributes upon their characters. The two main characters Hedda Gabler and Jack Worthing have the most apparent props that represent them. Hedda Gabler has one main prop that helps define her as a character, her pistols. Hedda’s pistols present her qualities of being violent, controlling, and seeking power over people “I want for once in my life to have power to mould a human destiny” (Citation), the quote and the qualities helps paint the picture that Hedda is a ticking time bomb ready to go off at any moment. Wilde’s main character Jack Worthing has a main prop as well, his cigarette box. The Cigarette box is one of the most important props in the play, because it symbols a double life that Jack is leading, one in the city with Gwendolen, and the life he leads in the country with his ward Cecily. Ibsen and Wilde use this technique effectively to show the props and characters have a connection...
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...t the character lives in and also to advance the reader’s understanding of the character as a whole. While Ibsen did have a deeper meaning for his play Wilde’s deeper meaning is more complex and says more about the society they lived in; with the use of things that homosexual people would recognize as homosexual paraphernalia is a of defiance against the times social views and morals. The final aspect is the use of flat versus round characters, both Ibsen and Wilde use this method effectively but Ibsen’s use of a round character, Hedda Gabler, is superior to Ibsen’s flat characters because the reader will not be able to predict what she will do next and to what degree she will do it making for better character development. Overall with the criteria set forth in this essay the better play is Hedda Gabler because of Hedda Gabler’s more extensive character development.
Henrik Ibsen’s controversial and influential play, entitled HeddaGabler, is divided into four acts, and, as any good piece of literature ought to be, much of what would later on become crucial to the plot is introduced, hinted at, and foreshadowed in the first act. In this case, the character interactions are most significant, especially that of the titular protagonist, Hedda, whose ultimate destiny in the play is to be trapped in her own crafty machinations and manipulations. A close look on the actions and motivations of the characters in Act I reveal much about their innermost wishes, and considering the complications these desires face, the eventful and explosive conclusion could almost be seen from the first scenes of the play.
I’ve chosen this statement for several reasons. Ibsen’s character, Hedda Gabler, represents the women of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Hedda stands the issues of self-worth and the deflated value that each woman places upon her own importance as a result of male dominance.
Tufts, C. (1986). Recasting A doll house: narcissism as character motivation in Ibsen's play. Comparative Drama, 20140-159.
When reading a play, the purpose is to use words and written stage directions to allow both the performer and the reader to visualize the movements of the characters and the setting. In his play, A Doll House, Henrik Ibsen uses tones to set the mood of the characters, the single room in the residence for setting, and minimal symbols to interpret alternate agendas. Most importantly, Ibsen uses chaos to end it all.
In both plays, Hedda Gabler and A Streetcar Named Desire, the authors create very complex characters whose obsession creates conflict regarding their private lives. Tennessee Williams creates Blanche, whose the heroine and the antagonist Stanley, whose the antagonist. On the other hand, in the play Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen creates Hedda, the heroine and the antagonist, Judge Brack, the antagonist. Both authors establish antagonists, such as Stanley and Judge Brack, containing some sympathetic elements to help the reader understand their motivations towards the heroines, Blanche and Hedda. The characters of Stanley and Judge Brack obtain motivations analyzed by the reader to be known as vengeance and scornful but sympathetic acts to oppress the protagonists of the story.
In Henrik Ibsen’s plays, A Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler he develops marital relationships between characters along with the plays plot. Having unique characteristics the different actors respond differently to the situations given to them. I will be analyzing these marital relationships between characters while comparing and contrasting these results between the three plays. The areas that I will be examining include gender roles, social influences and expectations, interpersonal dynamics and the context of motherhood.
Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler portrays the societal roles of gender and sex through Hedda as a character trying to break the status quo of gender relations within the Victorian era. The social conditions and principles that Ibsen presents in Hedda Gabler are of crucial importance as they “constitute the molding and tempering forces which dictate the behavior of all the play's characters” with each character part of a “tightly woven social fabric” (Kildahl). Hedda is an example of perverted femininity in a depraved society intent on sacrificing to its own self-interest and the freedom and individual expression of its members. It portrays Nineteenth Century unequal relationship problems between the sexes, with men being the independent factor and women being the dependent factor. Many of the other female characters are represented as “proper ladies” while also demonstrating their own more surreptitious holdings of power through manipulation. Hedda Gabler is all about control and individualism through language and manipulation and through this play Ibsen shows how each gender acquires that or is denied.
Everyone has faults, some people are greedy, some don’t know how to use manners, and others neglect a person’s feeling all together. Most of the time people just have one “fault” that they try to get better at. In Hedda’s case, she has all three problems but she encourages them instead of trying to learn to control them. In the play Hedda Gabler the author Henrik Ibsen shows that Hedda’s ill-behaved manners, greed for power and lack of emotional understanding of others will come back and bite her in the butt.
Society’s expectation of how a person should act, specifically, is commonly present in A Doll’s House. Unbalanced relationships in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House are shown through the symbolism of a doll. A doll is a representation of an ideal human being, often used as a toy for children. A doll represents what a human being should want to be and what little girls should grow up to be, this human is considered as the “ideal person.” For example the saying “I got all dolled up for a party,” it is an informal interpretation of one dressing smartly or attractively. Characters in A Doll’s House live according to the assurance and pressure of society in the Victorian era. These characters are all very different and divided as a result of their background, beliefs, and intelligence. These unbalanced relationships shown through the symbolism of a doll are commonly displayed among the main characters, and minor characters, and can also be shown through social class. When first opening this play we meet the main characters, Nora Helmer and Torvald Helmer, these two are husband and wife and are very important in developing theme and character development.
In the play, A Doll’s House portrays the fixation to keep up with appearances through the main characters’ actions and words. A Doll’s House creates a statement about the gender roles and social norms in the nineteenth century. Ibsen argues that individual tend to get sidetracked due to appearances, especially in an effort to please society. Individuals tend to focus on the opinions of others, therefore they believe that keeping up with appearance is important. Appearances can be used to masks or deflect various hardships and issues of reality. A Doll’s House depicts that not everything is how it appears. Appearance are not necessary, if fact they only hold people back from doing what is important and distorts reality.
Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen is a play about Hedda, a woman living in Christiana, Norway in the 1860’s who manipulates others, but her efforts produce negative results. During this era, there were Victorian values and ethics which were followed by almost all. The main values comprised of women always marrying and, their husbands taking care of them. Women were always accompanied by chaperone and were not allowed to be left alone with an unfamiliar male. It was Bertrand Russell who said “It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly”. This quote brings light to how Hedda acts on a daily basis where she is driven by possessions. In Hedda Gabler the theme of internal pressure is portrayed throughout the play. This can be seen through Hedda’s greed and materialism, her uncaring attitude and her manipulative personality.
One of the social issues dealt with in Ibsen's problem plays is the oppression of women by conventions limiting them to a domestic life. In Hedda Gabler the heroine struggles to satisfy her ambitious and independent intellect within the narrow role society allows her. Unable to be creative in the way she desires, Hedda's passions become destructive both to others and herself.
Henrik Ibsen catches the world off guard with his play A Doll House. The world is in what is known as the Victorian era and women and men have specific roles. The way the story unravels takes the reader by surprise. Ibsen wanted to write a play that would challenge the social norms and that would show the world that no matter how hard they press, they would not always win. Ibsen uses society’s customs, deception, and symbolism to keep the reader on their feet and bring them a play that they would never forget.
While Shakespeare depicted women as ignorant shrews, Ibsen gave them the credit that they deserved as being human beings. In the time period that A Doll’s House was written, women’s roles were still limited to those of the “house-wife.'; Ibsen ignored these stereotypes and gave women the credit they so deserved.
Ibsen was described as a modernist for many reasons, his opinions on feminism, his play structure and his understanding of his modern context. He was well known for his feministic opinions shown through his leading female character’s views, attitudes and beliefs, displaying their unhappiness and discomfort with their stereotypes of being submissive and reliant on their significant others being forced on them to put them in their social ‘place’. Ibsen was also well known for his solid and well displayed use of the Well Made Play structure, following explicitly through the six steps: Exposition, Inciting Incident, Rising Action, Climax, Denouncement and Resolution. One example of not only his use of the Well Made Play structure, but also his comprehension of his modern context, is one of his most famous plays, ‘A Doll House’ written in 1879 (Gwynn, pg 264). After the introduction of the main character/s the inciting incident is quick to follow. It follows the exposition in the form of a confrontation of sorts between Nora, a house wife, and a banker, Krogstad. The scene encompasses the title of “Inciting Incident” as it display a view of Nora being approached directly by Krogstad with accusations of forgery in which he questions if Nora sent a letter for a loan of four-thousand-eight-hundred crowns to her father to guarantee the loan (Gwynn, pgs 221-222, lines 776-829). The moment Nora confesses the Inciting Incident is revealed and left in the open, bare and shocking to the audience. This confession to leave audiences stunned, not only because Nora was hiding the fact that she was in debt to Krogstad from her husband, but because she committed forgery, a criminal act, such an act was unheard of from a woman without her