A Doll's House context

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  • Created by: __Jess
  • Created on: 24-01-23 17:16
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  • A Doll's House context - 1879
    • Theatre
      • Melodrama dominated
        • An over-exaggerated play with stock characters
        • Still often radical and political
        • Usually finish with cleared stages and resolutions
        • Nora acts as a melodramatic heroine - putting love before legality
      • Acting was highly gestural
        • Melodrama dominated
          • An over-exaggerated play with stock characters
          • Still often radical and political
          • Usually finish with cleared stages and resolutions
          • Nora acts as a melodramatic heroine - putting love before legality
      • Often had large audiences of about 3000
      • Well-made play
        • Minimal emphasis on characterisation
        • Features a compelling narrative and a standardised structure
        • Intense action - the character should go through numerous ups and downs, and the audience should see the character at their highest and lowest
      • Matinees
        • Afternoon performances frequented more commonly by women
    • Women
      • New Woman
        • Coined after the release of A Doll's House - but still relevant
        • Typically middle class, intellectual, rebellious, political and independent
        • Highly criticised as abnormal and unhealthy
      • Victorian society was becoming more aware of sexual double standards
      • Considered inferior to men
      • Suffrage movement
    • Literature
      • Naturalism
        • Detached, objective perspective
        • 1865 - 1914
        • Observes how environmental, social and hereditary factors impact human nature
        • Determinist
        • Often take a pessimistic tone
        • Linked to the creation of sociology
      • Psychological realism
        • Popular in Russia
        • Emphasises interior characterisation and motivations
        • Explores the spiritual, emotional and mental lives of the characters
      • Modernism
        • Breaks classical forms and conventions
        • Employs detailed characters and plot twists
      • Ibsen used colloquial Norwegian language
    • Class
      • Bourgeois respectability
        • Requires women to perform a specific duty within marriage
        • Financial success without debt
        • Secure patriarchal marriage
        • Good moral judgement
    • Marriage
      • The Napoleonic Code
        • 1804
        • Gave men more power in their marriage, deprived women and illegitimate children of rights
        • Stated that it provided equality
        • Prevented women from engaging in any financial transaction
          • Women
            • New Woman
              • Coined after the release of A Doll's House - but still relevant
              • Typically middle class, intellectual, rebellious, political and independent
              • Highly criticised as abnormal and unhealthy
            • Victorian society was becoming more aware of sexual double standards
            • Considered inferior to men
            • Suffrage movement
        • Used by many governments in Europe
    • Industrialisation
      • Rise of industry created a new middle class
        • More socially mobile
        • New middle class were often concerned with the fragility of their prosperity
          • Exhibited by Torvald's anxieties
      • More career opportunities for women
      • The Great Boom 1843-1875
        • Mechanised industry introduced in the 1840s
      • Stagnation 1875-1914
        • Very high levels of emigration out of the country
    • Core Norwegian history
      • Constitution written up in 1814
        • Monarchy retained but powers were restricted
        • Separation of powers inspired by USA
        • Church under control of the elected body
        • Ensures democracy
        • King must profess evangelical-lutheran religion
    • Science
      • Darwinism
        • Evolution and natural selection
          • (Linked to Nora's evolution)
    • Community
      • Assosiationsaanden
        • "The eagerness to form associations"
        • Groups created for people of certain interests
          • Political organisations
            • Thrane movement
              • Utopian socialist
              • Sought to better the conditions of urban and rural labourers
          • Organisations based on profession
          • Economic organisations
          • Cultural and educational organisations
          • Missionary associations
          • Philanthropic associations
          • Social associations
        • 1850 - 10 national associations 1900 - 154 national assocations
        • Sought to further interests of specific groups, contribute to society, and bring people together
        • Led by both state officials, and middle class and farmers
    • Ibsen
      • Family was originally wealthy until his father's business collapsed
      • Fathered a child out of wedlock. He gave finances to them, but did not visit
      • Father turned to alcoholism
    • Philosophy
      • Comte
        • Positivism
          • Natural over supernatural
          • The use of scientific methods to uncover the laws by which both physical and human events occur
        • Sociology
      • Marx
        • Alienation
          • The estrangement of people from aspects of their human nature
    • Madness
      • Linked to women, even though initially there were more men in mental asylums
        • Because of the lack of evidence needed, asylums became full of women instead of men
          • Evidence could be: not bending to a husband's will, and not conforming to standards of modesty or behaviour
      • Women were often sent to private asylums on basically non-existent evidence
        • Evidence could be: not bending to a husband's will, and not conforming to standards of modesty or behaviour
      • Hysteria was referred to as a "daughter's disease"
        • Irrational behaviour and attention-seeking displays
    • Masculinity
      • Masculine Christianity

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