A DOOL'S HOUSE

A Doll’s House
Author: Henrik Ibsen
MAJOR CHARACTER:
*Norma Helmer - Wife of Torvald *Torvald Helmer - husband of Nora *Dr. Rank - Rich family friend, who is secretly in love with Nora *Kristine Linde - Nora's old school friend *Nils Krogstad - Employee at Torvald's bank
SUBJECT MATTER: LIES and DECEIT
THEME:
MARRIAGE – The main message of a Doll’s House seems to be that a true marriage is a joining of equals. The play centers of the dissolution of a marriage that doesn’t meet these standards. At first the Helmers seem happy, but, over the course of the play, the imbalance between them becomes more and more apparent. By the end, the marriage breaks apart due to a complete lack of understanding between them. Together in wedlock, the two are incapable of realizing who they are as individuals. They'll don't know how to act as equals.
WOMEN AND FEMINITY – Nora of Doll’s house has often been painted as one of the modern drama’s first feminist heroines. Over the course of the play, she breaks away from the domination of her overbearing husband, Torvald. The playwright, Henrik Ibsen, denied that he had intentionally written a feminist play, preferring to think of it as humanist. Still, though, throughout this drama there is constant talk of women, their traditional roles, and price for them of breaking with tradition.
MEN AND MASCULINITY - The men of A Doll's House are in many ways just as trapped by traditional gender roles as the women (Torvald Helmer being the chief example). The men must be providers. They must bear the burden of supporting the entire household. They must be the infallible kings of their respective castles. By the end of the play these traditional ideas are truly put to the test.
RESPECT AND REPUTATION - The men of A Doll's House are obsessed with their reputation. Some have good standing in their communities and will do anything to keep it, others have lost their good name and will do anything to get it back. Though the play is set in the living room of a private residence, the public eye is constantly peeking through the curtains.
LEIT MOTIFS:
Love of the wife to her husband
The Importance of Marriage
A Selfish desire SETTING: The home of the Helmer family in an unspecified Norwegian town or city, circa 1879.
SUMMARY:
Nora Helmer once secretly borrowed a large sum of money so that her husband could recuperate from a serious illness. She never told him of this loan and has been secretly paying it back in small installments by saving from her household allowance. Her husband, Torvald, thinks her careless and childlike, and often calls her his doll. When he is appointed bank director, his first act is to relieve a man who was once disgraced for having forged his signature on a document. This man, Nils Krogstad, is the person from whom Nora has borrowed her money. It is then revealed that she forged her father's signature in order to get the money. Krogstad threatens to reveal Nora's crime and thus disgrace her and her husband unless Nora can convince her husband not to fire him. Nora tries to influence her husband, but he thinks of Nora as a simple child who cannot understand the value of money or business. Thus, when Torvald discovers that Nora has forged her father's name, he is ready to disclaim his wife even though she had done it for him. Later when all is solved, Nora sees that her husband is not worth her love and she leaves him.
Oedipus Rex
Author: Sophocles
MAJOR CHARACTERS: * Oedipus - king of Thebes, married to Jocasta * Jocasta - wife and mother of Oedipus and queen of Thebes * Teiresias - the blind prophet * Creon - Jocasta's brother
SUBJECT MATTER: Plague and Health
THEME:
Light and darkness - Darkness and light are tightly wound up with the theme of sight and blindness in Sophocles' play. Oedipus - and all the other characters, save for Teiresias - is 'in the dark' about his own origins and the murder of Laius. Teiresias, of course, is literally 'in the dark' with his own blindness - and yet manages to have sight over everything that is to follow. After Oedipus finds out what has happened, he bemoans the way everything has indeed "come to light".
Sight and blindness - Teiresias holds the key to the link between sight and blindness - for even though he is blind, he can still see and predict the future (if not the present). At the end of the play, moreover, Oedipus blinds himself, because what he has metaphorically seen (i.e. realized) leaves him unable to face his family or his parents in the afterlife). As with the previous theme, sight/blindness operate both literally and metaphorically within the play. Indeed, literal sight is juxtaposed with 'insight' or 'foresight'.
Origins and children - Oedipus embarks upon a search for his own origins, and - though he does not realize it - for his real parents. As the child of his own wife, and thus father and brother to his children, Sophocles explores various interrelationships between where things began and who fathered who. Similarly, the play itself works backwards towards a revelatory start: the story has, in effect, already happened - and Oedipus is forced to discover his own history.
Plague and health - Thebes at the start of the play is suffering from terrible blight which renders the fields and the women barren. The oracle tells Oedipus at the start of the play that the source of this plague is Laius' murderer (Oedipus himself). Health then, only comes with the end of the play and Oedipus' blindness. Again, 'plague' is both literal and metaphorical. There is a genuine plague, but also, to quote Hamlet, there might be "something rotten" in the moral state of Thebes.
SETTING: The entire action of this classical tragedy by Sophocles is set in the ancient city of Thebes. This setting does not change because unity of place was one of the most important characteristics of Greek tragedies. Thebes is presented as a city in the grip of a crisis. A deadly plague has transformed this city into a barren land. It is against the backdrop of this sterile and desolate land that the tragedy unfolds itself.
LEIT MOTIFS:
The Willingness to Ignore the Truth
Limits of Free Will
SUMMARY:
The 'Prologue' of Oedipus Rex, extends from the opening of the play to the opening Choral ode or Parodos (Line 151). In the 'Prologue,' Oedipus comes out of his palace to find a crowd gathered. An old priest gives Oedipus an account of the sufferings of the Thebans and puts forward the request that Oedipus, who had saved them once from the deadly Sphinx, should again rescue Thebes from the clutches of a disastrous plague. Oedipus reassures the Priest, saying that he has already sent his brother-in- law Creon to Delphi to inquire of the oracle what the cause and remedy of this catastrophe is.
At this moment, Creon returns with the news that the gods are angry with Thebes as the murderer of Laius, the previous king of Thebes, is still at large and has not been punished for his crime. When Oedipus questions the Thebans about the details of the murder, they tell him that the former ruler, Laius was murdered on a journey by a band of robbers. Oedipus swears to find the murderer in his kingdom and prosecute him since doing this may also save himself from danger. Therefore, "serving Laius, I serve myself." In this manner, he hopes to save his land.
The opening Choral ode, the Parodos, follows the Prologue. The Parodos is a prayer to the Olympian gods to save Thebes and is chanted by the elders. Not only does it ask the gods to release Thebes from the pestilence but it also expresses a fear that Oedipus' investigation may bring to light information which will be even more destructive.
The Cherry Orchard
AUTHOR: Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
MAJOR CHARACTERS:
*Mrs. Lyuba Ranevsky - Mrs. Ranevksy is a middle-aged Russian woman
* Yermolay Lopakhin - A businessman, and the son of peasants on Ranevsky's
Estate
* Leonid Gayev - Gayev is Ranevsky's brother
* Varya - Varya is Ranevksy's adopted daughter
* Anya - Ranevksy’s biological daughter
SUBJECT MATTER: The Struggle over Memory
THEME:
Society and Class Theme - Class instability is the driving circumstance in The Cherry Orchard. Chekhov portrays Russia after in the freeing of the serfs, in a moment of flux. While the society used to be well-stratified, now everything's all mixed up. There are servants who want to stay servants, like 87-year-old Fiers. There are servants who pretend to be ladies and gentlemen, like Dunyasha and Yasha. There are former peasants who are rich and getting richer, like Lopakhin. And the aristocrats on their way nowhere but down.
Memory and the Past Theme - Because The Cherry Orchard depicts a changing society, the characters spend a lot of time thinking about how now compares to then. How characters relate to the past determines their investment in the play's major question: will the cherry orchard be saved? As a symbol of the past of the Russian empire, the orchard evokes longing, regret, or disgust – sometimes a combination of all three. Despite the painful resistance of most characters, in the end, a cord to the past is snipped. The cherry orchard is sold, the house is shuttered, and the old servant is left to die.
Love - For a play about social change, The Cherry Orchard abounds in love. There are love triangles. There is unrequited love. There's physical love. There's spiritual love. Maternal love. Platonic love. Love between master and servant. There's even requited love! Chekhov just couldn't write a play about human beings without showing them in love of all kinds and making decisions, good and bad, inspired by love.
Mortality - There's a good amount of death in The Cherry Orchard. It is mentioned over and over. The memory of a dead son and husband haunt the main character, Lubov. The clown threatens to kill himself. Departing family describe the house as "at the end of its life." And though Chekhov isn't explicit about it, we're pretty sure we witness the death of Fiers, the loyal old servant. Just like the shifting social landscape, death is an inevitable part of life.
SETTING: At the country estate of Lyuba Ranevsky.
LEIT MOTIFS:
The union of naturalism and symbolism; miscommunication; self-consciousness
SUMMARY:
The Cherry Orchard describes the lives of a group of Russians, in the wake of the Liberation of the serfs. The action takes place over the course of five or six months, but the histories of the characters are so complex that in many ways, the play begins years earlier. The play opens in May, inside the cherry orchard estate; friends, neighbors, and servants are preparing for the long-awaited return of Madame Ranevsky, the mistress of the house, and her daughter Anya. Madame Ranevsky has two daughters. She had fled the cherry orchard five years before, after the deaths of her husband and young son. She is now returning from France, where her abusive lover had robbed and abandoned her. She has accrued great debts during her absence.
Lopakhin begins by telling the story of his own success: born a serf, he has managed to make himself a fortune. Another former serf, Firs, readies the house during Lopakhin's speeches. Firs has maintained the same post he always has, despite the Liberation. Dunyasha confesses a potential romance between she and Ephikhodof, but no one is interested.
Finally, Madame Ranevsky returns. Her friends and family are overjoyed to see her. Act I introduces many subplots: a romance between the tutor Trophimof and Anya, another hopeful romance between her sister Barbara and wealthy Lopakhin, a love triangle between the servants Dunyasha, Yasha, and Ephikhodof, the debt of the neighbor Pishtchik, the class struggles of Lopakhin and Firs, the isolation of Charlotte, etc. The main intrigue of the play, however, hinges on Madame Ranevsky's debt. Neither she nor her brother Gayef have money to pay the mortgage on the cherry orchard estate, and unless they find a solution, the state will be auctioned off in August.
Lopakhin suggests that Madame Ranevsky build villas on the estate. She can lease them and use the money to pay the mortgage. Madame Ranevsky and Gayef object to the idea, and prefer to work something out on their own. However, as spring passes into summer, Madame Ranevsky only finds herself more in debt, with no solution in sight. Strange romances between Anya and Trophimof and Dunyasha and Yasha continue, while nothing develops between Lopakhin and Barbara and Dunyasha and Ephikhodof. Firs' health is declining. Madame Ranevsky is receiving letters from her lover, and Gayef begins to consider a job at a bank. Pishtchik takes out loans from Madame Ranevsky, whose own funds are dwindling away to nothing.
On the night of the auction, no solution has arrived. Madame Ranevsky holds a ball. Charlotte performs, and guests and servants alike dance. Madame Ranevsky and Trophimof have a serious conversation about Madame Ranevsky's extravagance; not only does she continue to run up debts, but she is now considering returning to her abusive lover in France. Madame Ranevsky is nervous about the outcome of the auction; she is still hoping for a miracle.
Finally Gayef and Lopakhin return: Lopakhin has bought the cherry orchard. Barbara is furious, and Madame Ranevsky is devastated. Lopakhin, however, cannot hide his happiness: he has bought the estate where his family lived as serfs. Ironically, he encourages the party to continue, even though the hosts are no longer in the mood to celebrate.
Act IV shows Madame Ranevsky leaving the cherry orchard for the last time. Lopakhin has bought champagne, but no one except the uppity servant Yasha will drink it. Lopakhin and Trophimof share a tender farewell: Trophimof will return to the university. Charlotte complains that she no longer has a position; Ephikhodof has a new position with Lopakhin. Pishtchik is able to pay off some of his debts. Gayef has a job at a bank, Barbara a position as a housekeeper, and Yasha will stay on with Madame Ranevsky, who is returning to France. Many characters try to confirm that Firs has been sent to the hospital. Lopakhin misses his last chance with Barbara, and Dunyasha cries that Yasha is leaving.
Madame Ranevsky and Gayef share a nostalgic moment alone before leaving on a relatively optimistic note. In the last moment, we hear axes cutting down the orchard, and Firs stumbles on to stage, forgotten, locked in the house. He lies down to rest and presumably dies.