We are all epic heroes of the mundane.
Yawn
I am really really rather tired, because I've spent all night working on my History Oral and just remembered that History is the only subject I don't have tomorrow. You may start calling me Mr. productive. Proddsy for short.
The problem with the cold war is that it's so damn long. You look at World War 2, you got 6 years. WW1, 4. Then you've got big cold stupid United States are greedy twats war which had to go on for 36 bloody years. That's a LOT of dates to remember.
I'm doing an Ibsen monologue for my performance exam this term. stupid midyears. I'll show them who can be in the 5th week of term as if that's midyear I MEAN HONESTLY.
So it's this really great patronising sexist one, just before Torvald gets his rightful come-uppence in A Doll House. He acts like an absolute dick, and then claims property of his wife after he just said it wouldn't matter if she died. Plus he thinks he's in the right the whole time.
The best thing about Henrik Ibsen is that his plays give you the best of both worlds. They show you a really educated writer. Up until about 1875 all his works were epic religious symbolic progressive poetic pieces of theatre. Then he went back to Norway for a year and never wrote another line of poetry in his entire remaining life. Just like that.
Ibsen suddenly switched over to realism, but really amazingly good realism, with lots of metaphors and underlying energy. That's why he's called the father of modern realism. But it's so weird. It would be like voting Republican until the age of 55 and then stopping and joining the anarchist movement. Or yodelling non stop for 6 years before never speaking again.
But A Doll House is a great play. Allow me to elaborate.
Torvald and Nora Helmer are married with children and the play begins on Christmas eve in their household. Over the course of the next two and a half acts, it is revealed that Nora has borrowed money from a man named Krogstadd (i think it's spelt like that) and had to forge some signatures to do so. He then threatens to besmirch their family's honour by blackmailing them becuase of this. Nora convinces him not to, and to send back the IOU, but not before Torvald finds out and blows his goat at Nora for destroying their life. Then he finds out that it's all ok, and that he's not going to be besmirched (that sounds dirty) so he acts nice again to Nora. What he doesn't realize is that he's been an absolute asscock the whole time and Nora is about to leave him to go off and find herself.
So what we can gather from that is that the whole play is about honour, and about duty, especially about one's duty to one's self, above all else. Interestingly enough in the character of Torvald this overpowering sense of duty to himself is protrayed as a negative trait, yeat in Nora, her best one. Such is the magic of Ibsen's writing.
It is easy to mistake every character in this play however as two dimensional. Nora can be seen as the opressed woman hero, Toravald as the dickhead, Korgstadd as the angry guy who's actually sweet inside... etcetera. BUT, it is ever so much deeper than that. Nora is imperfect and impetuous. She did break the law, she did lie a lot, and she ignored her children's welfare so that she could fit the 'tragic' structure of the ending. Nora must "go away" in the most fatal sense of the word for the implications and symbolism to gain full meaning. It is in fact her tragic flaw that she is so self assured and liberated.
Torvald on the other hand I like a lot. He is quite obviously not a very good husband, but he is only doing what is prescribed exactly by society around him and by the expectations of his success. He is also tragically flawed, but with self doubt, and with self conciousness. His character is intelligent and emotional, but sticking to every single law and regulation imposed by his context. It is in doing this that he seems uncaring and quite the tosser. But he's only partway there, patronising, but justifiably so.
Read the play. It's damn diddly good. I think there's a downloadable PDF file here: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/dollhouse/
Also, if anyone would like to bitch extensively about Andrew OKeefe, leave a comment and i'll quote form it and elaborate heartily. He is sooooo my least favorite TV personality right now. I wan't to give him the opposite of a gold logie... like a Rust Logie or something.
I also went and saw the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy last Friday night, as all fans of the book, and all else anyway should. I'm not gonna talk about it too much here, except to say that it was better than I expected. Whoever directed it knew his text well, and Douglas Adams' personally pre-posthumously written screenplay helped too.
There was interesting imagery, and brilliant small subtle jokes, but for anyone who didn't know the book I could see it might be hard to follow. Luckily I did, so read, then watch people.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
I am really really rather tired, because I've spent all night working on my History Oral and just remembered that History is the only subject I don't have tomorrow. You may start calling me Mr. productive. Proddsy for short.
The problem with the cold war is that it's so damn long. You look at World War 2, you got 6 years. WW1, 4. Then you've got big cold stupid United States are greedy twats war which had to go on for 36 bloody years. That's a LOT of dates to remember.
I'm doing an Ibsen monologue for my performance exam this term. stupid midyears. I'll show them who can be in the 5th week of term as if that's midyear I MEAN HONESTLY.
So it's this really great patronising sexist one, just before Torvald gets his rightful come-uppence in A Doll House. He acts like an absolute dick, and then claims property of his wife after he just said it wouldn't matter if she died. Plus he thinks he's in the right the whole time.
The best thing about Henrik Ibsen is that his plays give you the best of both worlds. They show you a really educated writer. Up until about 1875 all his works were epic religious symbolic progressive poetic pieces of theatre. Then he went back to Norway for a year and never wrote another line of poetry in his entire remaining life. Just like that.
Ibsen suddenly switched over to realism, but really amazingly good realism, with lots of metaphors and underlying energy. That's why he's called the father of modern realism. But it's so weird. It would be like voting Republican until the age of 55 and then stopping and joining the anarchist movement. Or yodelling non stop for 6 years before never speaking again.
But A Doll House is a great play. Allow me to elaborate.
Torvald and Nora Helmer are married with children and the play begins on Christmas eve in their household. Over the course of the next two and a half acts, it is revealed that Nora has borrowed money from a man named Krogstadd (i think it's spelt like that) and had to forge some signatures to do so. He then threatens to besmirch their family's honour by blackmailing them becuase of this. Nora convinces him not to, and to send back the IOU, but not before Torvald finds out and blows his goat at Nora for destroying their life. Then he finds out that it's all ok, and that he's not going to be besmirched (that sounds dirty) so he acts nice again to Nora. What he doesn't realize is that he's been an absolute asscock the whole time and Nora is about to leave him to go off and find herself.
So what we can gather from that is that the whole play is about honour, and about duty, especially about one's duty to one's self, above all else. Interestingly enough in the character of Torvald this overpowering sense of duty to himself is protrayed as a negative trait, yeat in Nora, her best one. Such is the magic of Ibsen's writing.
It is easy to mistake every character in this play however as two dimensional. Nora can be seen as the opressed woman hero, Toravald as the dickhead, Korgstadd as the angry guy who's actually sweet inside... etcetera. BUT, it is ever so much deeper than that. Nora is imperfect and impetuous. She did break the law, she did lie a lot, and she ignored her children's welfare so that she could fit the 'tragic' structure of the ending. Nora must "go away" in the most fatal sense of the word for the implications and symbolism to gain full meaning. It is in fact her tragic flaw that she is so self assured and liberated.
Torvald on the other hand I like a lot. He is quite obviously not a very good husband, but he is only doing what is prescribed exactly by society around him and by the expectations of his success. He is also tragically flawed, but with self doubt, and with self conciousness. His character is intelligent and emotional, but sticking to every single law and regulation imposed by his context. It is in doing this that he seems uncaring and quite the tosser. But he's only partway there, patronising, but justifiably so.
Read the play. It's damn diddly good. I think there's a downloadable PDF file here: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/dollhouse/
Also, if anyone would like to bitch extensively about Andrew OKeefe, leave a comment and i'll quote form it and elaborate heartily. He is sooooo my least favorite TV personality right now. I wan't to give him the opposite of a gold logie... like a Rust Logie or something.
I also went and saw the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy last Friday night, as all fans of the book, and all else anyway should. I'm not gonna talk about it too much here, except to say that it was better than I expected. Whoever directed it knew his text well, and Douglas Adams' personally pre-posthumously written screenplay helped too.
There was interesting imagery, and brilliant small subtle jokes, but for anyone who didn't know the book I could see it might be hard to follow. Luckily I did, so read, then watch people.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
posted by Cal Samson at 8:42 PM
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