“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven” (Milton, Paradise Lost). What I believe Milton meant by this is that people project what they believe to be right; therefore, the mind can make heaven into hell if that is what the mind believes. In “Hedda Gabler” by Henrik Ibsen, Hedda is consistently making things worse for herself because she believes she is not getting enough attention; therefore, she must distract them with her petty games just like Algernon fells he must do in “The Importance of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde. Ibsen and Wilde use props such as a cigarette case, pistols, and a manuscript to help the viewer or reader better understand the characters, their thinking, and their motivation.
The cigarette case is introduced early into the play starting the first trivial conflict between the two main characters, Jack and Algernon. The conflict begins when Algernon refuses to hand the case over to Jack. Algernon, being the annoyance he is to Jack, reads what is prescribed on the inside of the case: “From little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack” (Wilde, 384-85). This is a crucial part in the play because it unmasks both Jack and Algernon as having a double life outside of the city. In the country Jack exhibits traditional Victorian values such as duty, honour, and respectability. Jack’s alter-ego Earnest; however, is used to keep his honourable image as “dear Uncle Jack” (Wilde, 385) intact. Jack’s motivation to leave the county and become the character he created is given to the viewer in his first line: “Oh, pleasure, pleasure! What else should bring one anywhere?” (Wilde, 382). The cigarette case also helps the reader understand Jack and Algernon better by cr...
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...is centered on a man called Earnest, but throughout most of the play the name Earnest is hypocritical of Jack’s character. In Ibsen’s play, however, the name Hedda fits the main character well. The name Hedda is adapted from the German meaning of “warfare” (Ross, 2014). Although Hedda and Jack are polar opposites they have something in common: they use props to help the viewer understand the characters they portray, their actions, and their motivation.
Works Cited
Milton, John, and Merritt Y. Hughes. Paradise Lost. New York: Odyssey, 1935. Print.
“The Importance of Being Earnest.” Introduction to Literature. Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2013. 381-432. Print.
Ross, Trevor, Prof. "Lecture 29. Hedda Gabler as Ironic Tragedy." Halifax. 17 Jan. 2014. Lecture.
“Hedda Gabler.” Introduction to Literature. Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2013. 227-92. Print.
On theme of August Wilson’s play “King Hedley II” is the coming of age in the life of a black man who wants to start a new life and stay away from violence. Wilson wrote about the black experience, and the struggle that many black people faced and that is seen “King Hedley II” because there are two different generations portrayed in King Hedley II and Elmore. Reporting the African American encounter in the twentieth century, Wilson's cycle of plays, including a play for every decade. The African-American group's relationship to its own particular history is a critical component in the play.
From an early age Jane is aware she is at a disadvantage, yet she learns how to break free from her entrapment by following her heart. Jane appears as not only the main character in the text, but also a female narrator. Being a female narrator suggests a strong independent woman, but Jane does not seem quite that.
Though circumstantially different from his friend, Algernon, Jack still struggles under a heavy burden responsibility, but his duty is to his young and beautiful ward Cecily. Presented with these conditions, jack develops the alias of a troublesome younger brother named Ernest, who lives for the pursuit of pleasure. Under this alias, Jack enjoy the shallow pleasures in life, without taking responsibility for he actions of his “brother Ernest” (28), and easier than taking a train back to the country, Jack can return to the role of responsible guardian. In the words of Algernon to Jack, “you have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like” (6). Jack 's reason 's for Bunburying are quite in alignment with Algy 's. When Algy asks him what brings him to town, Jack cavalierly replies, “Oh, pleasure, pleasure! What else should bring anyone anywhere?” followed by, “When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring” (2). Thought they share the same reasons, Jack 's Bunbury is not “a dreadful invalid” (9), it is an Ernest. Assuming the Alias of a younger brother named
Wilde’s strategically uses each of the characters to represent the manner in which those, who were in the upper class, would behave. As the play begins we are instantly battered with the satirically condemning wit that is Oscar Wilde. Algernon requests his servant, Lane, to produce the cucumber sandwiches for the arrival of Lady Bracknell. Lane and Algernon have idle chatter and end up on the subject of marriage. After Lane exits the room and Jack insists, “Lane’s views on marriage seem somewhat lax. Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility”. This is Wilde’s analysis on the absurdity of the upper class and also gives us an improved view of the character Algernon. Algernon is a constituent of the affluent. He assumes less responsibility than his counterpart Jack,...
Through attention to detail, repeated comparison, shifting tone, and dialogue that gives the characters an opportunity to voice their feelings, Elizabeth Gaskell creates a divide between the poor working class and the rich higher class in Mary Barton. Gaskell places emphasis on the differences that separate both classes by describing the lavish, comfortable, and extravagant life that the wealthy enjoy and compares it to the impoverished and miserable life that the poor have to survive through. Though Gaskell displays the inequality that is present between both social classes, she also shows that there are similarities between them. The tone and diction change halfway through the novel to highlight the factors that unify the poor and rich. In the beginning of the story John Barton exclaims that, “The rich know nothing of the trials of the poor…” (11), showing that besides the amount of material possessions that one owns, what divides the two social classes is ability to feel and experience hardship. John Barton views those of the upper class as cold individuals incapable of experiencing pain and sorrow. Gaskell, however proves Barton wrong and demonstrates that though there are various differences that divide the two social classes, they are unified through their ability to feel emotions and to go through times of hardship. Gaskell’s novel reveals the problematic tension between the two social classes, but also offers a solution to this problem in the form of communication, which would allow both sides to speak of their concerns and worries as well as eliminate misunderstandings.
Ibsen created an environment for women to question the society they lived in. Nora and Hedda, two feminists living in a masculine household bereft of happiness, desired to evade their unhappy life at home under the guidance of a man. Eventually, both women escaped from their husband’s grasp, but Hedda resorted to suicide in order to leave. Nora agreed with Lois Wyse by showing her strengths with pride to everybody, while Hedda hid her strengths like a coward by killing herself. Ibsen used numerous literary elements and techniques to enhance his writing and to help characterize the two protagonists.
Weintraub, Stanley. ""Doll's House" Metaphor Foreshadowed in Victorian Fiction." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 13: 67-69. Web. 6 Jan. 2011.
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.
The role of a woman remains the same throughout human history. Many women prepare for the role of wife and mother from an early age. If one is not married at a certain age then they are labeled as a spinster, a prude. Hedda Gabler and Emma Bovary fearful of being dubbed as a spinster, marry men whom they both despised. During the mid 1800’s, Emma Bovary’s period: women considered inferior to their male counterparts, they could not divorce their husbands, and their husbands essentially own them. Alas during Hedda Gabler’s setting, nothing changes. Because of their society, they are alienated individuals thwarted due to their social status, gender, and misguided intentions.
This passage from the denouement Henrik Ibsen’s play, Hedda Gabler, before Hedda’s suicide, is an illustration of the vulnerability and defeat of the impetuous and manipulative titular character. Ibsen develops Hedda’s character by uncovering details about the conflicts between Hedda and the other characters, Judge Brack, Mrs Elvsted, and George Tesman which highlight Hedda’s transformation from an individualistic to despairing individual, conveying the theme of freedom and repression in society.
When attending a masquerade, a person is expected to wear a mask. In fact, it’s looked down upon if a mask isn’t worn. But, what if for some people that mask never came off? In A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, each character has constructed their own metaphorical mask that they set firmly in place every morning when exiting their bed. Each character: Nora, Torvald, Kristine and Krogstad all have masks that they put in place when speaking to each other. Throughout most of the play, it is clear that all of the aforementioned characters have multiple facades that they use when speaking to one another; often switching quickly as they begin speaking to someone else. Henrik Ibsen’s use of the masquerade serves as an extended metaphor to show the masks that the characters use in their everyday lives.
In using the name Hedda Gabler, despite her marriage to George Tesman, Ibsen has conveyed to the reader the importance of social class. Hedda prefers to identify herself as the daughter of General Gabler, not the wife of George Tesman. Throughout the play she rejects Tesman and his middle class lifestyles, clinging to the honorable past with which her father provided her. This identity as the daughter of the noble General Gabler is strongly implied in the title, Hedda Gabler. In considering the many implications of the social issues as explained above, it can not be denied that the very theme of Hedda Gabler centers on social issues. "
The characters in the play are consistent with the stereotypical ones of the Victorian era. Women were expected to get married and stay at home, being seen as unintelligent and fragile. Hedda Gabler is neither of things, thus emphasizing Henrik Ibsen’s point of female oppression in the Victorian era. Hedda’s character does not present the typical affectionate trait a woman would have towards her husband; The idea that women were supposed to get marriage and have children early during the Victorian era. The male role was expected to be extreme dominance over the woman, and to be the bread winner. Henrik Ibsen’s reflection of the Victorian era in the story, Hedda Gabler emphasizes on the social standards imposed upon women and men. The play questions the power dynamics distributed between the two genders, the concept that a woman’s proper role in her marriage is to tend her husband, while the man’s role is to provide for the family and uphold its reputation. Henrik Ibsen presents two characters who are victims of this drastic social code and the measures of both characters have to take in order to structure their ideals around a strict society. When both characters ideals conflict with the social mores of society, the result is often unsatisfying or tragic. For example, Hedda’s lust for power in the story is a trait not often found in women during the Victorian period. The role of power is reserved for only the men in Victorian society. In order to behold power, Hedda sacrifices her stereotypical image as a woman. Hedda does not display the typical loving wife role, but rather adopts a vicious and manipulating female character trait. George Tesman breaks this stereotype as well, by depending on Hedda to get his professorsh...
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.
The way Oscar Wilde depicts the word earnest is given in two different yet comedic shades of light that audiences appreciate. Earnest which is a synonym for the word serious contradicts the lead character’s behaviour in which Jack leads a double life. For instance, when Jack warns Algernon the dangers of leading a double life he replies “I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never serious.”(pg.316) This amusing phrase by the playwright showcases the reversal technique which gives off a satirical bite, also the word serious is a substitute word for earnest which is homonymy with Ernest, Jack’s imaginary twin brother. Another incidence is where Algernon bickers with Jack about how he should not be flirting with Gwendolen at the dinner table and be thoughtful about the situation. As Jack defends his ways with Gwendolen, Algernon replies “I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.”(pg.303) Wilde cleverly ridicules this statement by using the satirical te...