Introduction to Paper 2 Prompt

Prompt: Masks can be used literally or metaphorically in drama. Discuss to what extent, and for what purpose, masks have been used in A Streetcar Named Desire and Hedda Gabler.

Introduction/Thesis:

The female protagonists in Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire and Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler use metaphorical masks in order to convey the theme prevalent in both dramatic productions, the protagonists’ manipulation of others in order to isolate themselves from society. Williams uses tentative diction, the motif of the Varsouviana Polka, and dramatic devices such as visual imagery on stage in order to convey that Blanche’s metaphorical mask is being uncovered. Ibsen’s use of uniform setting, the motif of General Gabler’s pistols, and visual imagery such as Hedda’s black hair color to ostracize Hedda as an aristocratic individual, illustrate her metaphorical mask.

Topic Sentences:

Williams uses visual and auditory imagery such as pronounced lighting and the tune of the Varsouviana Polka in order to convey both Blanche’s disoriented mental condition and her swelling desire to find another partner.

Ibsen indicates that Hedda does not have true emotions for Tesman by illustrating Hedda’s suspicious diction and delayed syntax.

Ibsen establishes the theme of manipulating others to isolate oneself through auditory imagery, such as Hedda firing shots outside the window with her personal set of pistols presented to her by General Gabler.

Successes & Difficulties in the Production of Oleanna

The production of Oleanna is a difficult task, as the entire play itself consists of only two characters. Moreover, all three acts take place in the same location, John’s office. Any film production needs to be engaging in order for it to be worthwhile for the audience, however this is difficult to achieve when the play primarily consists of dialogue.

I strongly believe that the ending of the production was a failure. John says “oh my God” after physically beating Carol, however these lines are never mentioned in Mamet’s actual play. They add a completely different context to the scene, and virtually change the entire ending of the play. For example, I interpreted the “oh my God” and Carol’s ensuing “Yes. Yes, that’s right” as a signal that John realizes his inconveniently placed brash behavior has given Carol evidence of rape and abuse to bring to the tenure committee. At the end of the production, I found that Carol was satisfied; however at the end of the play, I felt that she was frightened. If a production of the same play suggests an alternative ending, then overall it has been a failure.

However, there are significant difficulties that the production overcame. For example, while reading the play it was difficult to fully understand Carol’s transition from a meek girl to an unperturbed college student. Yet in the production, the director’s usage of clothing truly shows Carol’s transformation. Additionally, I grew relatively frustrated with Mamet’s choice of syntax, such as placing ellipses in almost every sentence to convey the power struggle between John and Carol. However in the production, the auditory imagery made it far easier to understand the struggle in conversation between student and teacher. Overall, the production succeeded in uncovering the irony of the play; despite the entire play being a dialogue between two characters, they are unable to communicate.

How Does Mamet Convey Theme in Oleanna?

David Mamet’s Oleanna is a two-character play involving a university professor, John, and one of his female students, Carol. The setting remains constant over the course of the three acts, with John’s office being the location where all of the action and conflict takes place. The rigid setting is significant, as it help conveys the idea of transformation. For example, Carol progresses significantly over the course of the first act to the second, returning to John’s office with an increased confidence and expanded vocabulary. These shifts in the characters’ characteristics combined with the constant setting emphasize how Carol has grown as an individual following the alleged “sexual harassment”. Evidently, setting and characterization play a large role in conveying Oleanna’s theme: feminism’s power struggle.

Another literary device used to convey theme in addition to setting and characterization is tone. Carol’s tone is weak-willed and shy in the first act, something I took notice of both while reading the play but even more so while watching the film adaptation. Moreover, her knowledge for legal proceedings is significant as well, as it foreshadows the impending conflict between her and John. Additionally, she criticizes John’s use of scholarly words such as “paradigm” and “transpire”, yet she begins to sound a lot like John in the second and third act when she reveals that she is collaborating with a group, one which she does not reveal the identity of. Therefore, diction and tone also play a large role in conveying theme.

Lastly, Mamet’s use of motifs demonstrates John’s character. When Carol and John engage in an interruptive conversation, we can see that their inability to converse stems from their lack of concern for the role of the other in conversation. John thinks he is of a higher stature than Carol due to his profession, and Carol believes that she is fighting for a righteous cause and needs her views to be accepted by the “elite”. Mamet motifs of John’s continuous phone interruptions and Carol’s aggressive verbal interruptions emphasize the communication barriers between the characters, the distinction between student and teacher, but most importantly, the disparity between man and woman.

Is Carol Who You Think She Is?

The prologue quotations originating from “The Way of All Flesh” by Samuel Butler and a folk song highlight the true character of Carol as they provide insight into her background. The initial purpose of Butler’s semi-autobiographical novel “The Way of All Flesh” is to attack Victorian-era hypocrisy according to Project Gutenberg, which draws parallels with Carol’s criticism of the education system and elitism.

The “absence of a genial mental atmosphere” suggests that Carol came from a tough upbringing yet has successfully managed to fight her way to college. As Butler states, “Young people have a marvelous faculty of either dying or adapting themselves to circumstances”. These remarks suggest that Carol’s realization of her ignorance as a child has caused her to turn into a cunning, tumultuous individual.

Although the audience would never see these quotations, they give an indication of David Mamet’s tone and the setting he had in mind for Oleanna. “Even if they [children] are unhappy….how easily they can be prevented from finding it out, or at any rate from attributing it to any other cause than their own sinfulness”. This serves as another example of irony within the prologue, as it suggests that children will not become sinful once they realize the “fresh air” and “genial…environment” they lacked during their childhood. Once we begin reading Mamet’s work, we witness Carol’s sheer destructive nature and determination to destroy John’s profession as a college professor. After completing the entire play and reflecting upon the prologue quotations, I have been able to reach certain conclusions about who are the protagonist and antagonist in this dramatic production.

Moreover, the quotations contradict each other. The prologue quotation from an anonymous folk song states that “Oh, to be in Oleanna, / That’s where I would rather be,” is a direct reference to a 19^th century utopia. This contrast is ironic as it suggests that Oleanna is a fabricated paradise, while in reality the play is more of painful tragedy.

Samuel Butler challenges the characterization of Mamet’s female character, and the folk song raises questions regarding the overall purpose of Oleanna. I believe Mamet intended for these quotations to challenge each other, just as he intended for Oleanna to spark conflicting reactions within the audience, angering women in the first act and men in the second with the simple question: who is right, Carol or John?

JStor Critical Essay – Hedda Gabler

A Note on Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler”

Weller Embler

College English , Vol. 7, No. 8 (May, 1946), pp. 456-458

Published by: National Council of Teachers of English

Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/370462

Weller Embler argues that Hedda Gabler is Henrik Ibsen’s purest tragedy. He states that Hedda “has been suffering from incipient boredom for a long time; and Tesman is only the final cause of its breaking out.” I agree that Hedda’s husband Tesman is a bore, and that she is discontent with her relationship. Hedda has been almost imprisoned in a class struggle since her aristocratic childhood, and subject to the “bars of Victorian propriety, her emotional life has grown turbulent and explosive”. However, I question the validity of Hedda Gabler being a tragedy.

I am aware that Ibsen wrote the play Hedda Gabler when he was lovesick and frustrated. Society frowned upon his love affair with 27-year-old Emilie Bardach from Vienna. However, the tone of the play is relatively pointed and has a wry sense of humor, atypical of the traditional tragedy. Moreover, Embler contends that Hedda seeks desperate power and control. True, I believe that she is in a fight against society’s rigid values and is determined to reach its pinnacle. However, he states that “the fulfillment of power in the caprice of destruction—this is what Ibsen foreshadowed in the frustrated protagonist of his “purest” tragedy”. How can Hedda be considered a tragic hero, when all she seeks is destruction? Furthermore, Hedda is not in a new environment; after all, she has been fighting this class struggle since childhood.

Embler views Hedda’s progression over the play as a “study of decay”, yet I disagree with the idea that Hedda is decaying. Rather, she is continuing her struggle against the aristocratic values that have constricted her from passions, ranging from “…very much to dance” to “threaten[ing] to pull [her] hair up”. Hedda Gabler does end on a tragic note, with the suicide of the main character. However, throughout the play we do not experience any tragic events other than this suicide. Instead, we see a Hedda who facetiously toys around with her pistols, flirts with men who enter Tesman’s home, and lies to her husband about her true emotions. Based on my interpretation of the play, I found Hedda to be more of an antagonist due to these characteristics and hardly a tragedy.

 

Streetcar/Heidi/Hedda – Comparison and Contrast of Specific Literary Elements, Themes, and Motifs

Playwright/Stage Direction:

Streetcar has extremely specific stage directions, leaving little room for the director of the play to expand and interpret Tennessee William’s vision for the play. In comparison, Heidi and Hedda both have far less stage direction and italicized descriptions of the character’s physical features and mental state. Instead, Wendy Wasserstein and Henrik Ibsen rely on indirect characterization in their plays to convey the overall purpose and theme.

Themes:

Streetcar – A prevalent theme in a Streetcar is defining yourself, which is similar to the theme of Heidi. Blanche is trying to artificially portray herself as an aristocratic high-class individual, something that she’s not. Likewise, Heidi is trying to find out who she is and her experiences in High School and College, specifically though her interaction with Scoop, help her define herself. However, the themes differ as Blanche is fabricating who she is while Heidi is genuinely trying to define herself.

Motif (Music):

Music is a motif in both Streetcar and Hedda. In Streetcar, it helps convey the mood of the scene, thereby impacting setting to a great extent. It is also used in combination with other literary elements to achieve a particular outcome; for example, its use with tone helps in foreshadowing events in the book. To a brief degree, we see a similar impact in Hedda when she plays the piano, as this also impacts tone and can be used to foreshadow events.

Protagonists:

The protagonists in Heidi, Streetcar, and Hedda are all females. This is important because an important trait of the plays is women’s’ role, which is portrayed by the protagonists’ struggles in society to gain a greater, more dominant role in society.

Motif (Conveying Power/Masculinity):

In Streetcar, Stanley is the man of the house, and we as the audience experience this display of masculinity the most when he plays poker with his friends at home. During these evenings, he tells Blanche and Stella where to sit and how soft they should whisper, essentially controlling them. Similarly, Hedda uses pistols to display her masculinity as most women would not possess pistols, let alone amuse herself and practice firing them as Hedda does throughout the play. Motifs are used in Heidi as well to convey this concept of masculinity and power, such as the burning of lingerie as it is a female article of clothing and it’s being destroyed. Although in Heidi this is not necessarily a motif as it is not a recurring element, it should still be taken into account that Wasserstein attempts to convey the idea of women attempting to be more masculine.

Setting:

Hedda and Streetcar take place in virtually the same location throughout the entire play. On the other hand, the setting in Heidi changes almost each scene. This is important, as the purpose of Heidi is to convey how she is trying to find herself and her change in persona over the course of her late teens till her career as an art history professor at Columbia. Therefore, the transitory setting is critical to understanding the purpose of Heidi, while it is not a significant literary element in Hedda or Streetcar.

Blog Portfolio Quarter 3

Below are a number of posts representing my personal thoughts on certain topics. Some of these topics have been initiated through the HL English class, while others have been posted based on my own personal interests. I encourage you to read them, and post whatever comes to mind. Whatever your opinion, feel free to share it.

The majority of the posts in this portfolio involve various interpretations of poems from World War One. We’ve read Hemmingway’s The Sun Also Rises and a number of poems from Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves, and Siegfried Sassoon this quarter, both independently and during class. After reading through my classmates’ poetry interpretations, it has been interesting to see how varied they are and the detail in which one looks into a single poem. In particular, I remember analyzing each allusion in Escape by Robert Graves and connecting them to the poem’s central purpose.

“People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself.  But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.” Thomas Szasz

Coverage: These are the required blog entries for Blog Portfolio #3.

Words and Gender

Browning Sonnet

Group Blog

SND in Italics

Set Design

The Heidi Chronicles

Adaptation

Hedda as “Modern Woman”

Heidi Group Blog [Missed Class due to MESAC, instructed to comment on classmates’ posts]

-(Setting) Ellen & Tom

– (Hedda) Sam

– (Music) Saumya + Tim + Georgia

– (Light) Elizabeth

-(Scoop) James + Komali

-(Sound) Rohit + Adrienne

Depth: These are the blog posts where I felt I went far and beyond. I thought about these topics and conducted outside research while talking about the issues at hand with my peers. (Some of the posts contain their reactions). I used a Clemson University article on the significance of italics in plays and an APA website detailing how italics help the readers distinguish main ideas, which helped me formulate my ideas.

SND in Italics

[Original Outside Research: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/italics.htm & http://www.clemson.edu/administration/public-affairs/toolbox/standards/editguide/italics.html]

Interaction: This post was created based on a discussion between Tim and I about the role and significance of Hedda in Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. I decided to post not only a rebuttal on my blog, but also an analysis of the situation.

Tim: Debate regarding Hedda Gabler

Discussions: As expected, some of my posts incited a number of varied responses on certain issues. Debate ensued in some cases, and conclusions were made. It was rewarding to see comments on my blog; I felt that people were clear when presenting their opinions and ready to share and discuss their ideas.

The Heidi Chronicles

Xenoblogging:I feel that one of my strengths as a blogger is my ability to post detailed responses and questions to peoples’ blog posts. I made sure to follow up on their responses, and contribute to the entire online class community.

-Comment Primo

[Ellen: http://ebrowderlong.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/importance-of-the-setting-in-the-heidi-chronicles/]

[James: http://iyagovos.blogspot.in/2012/02/scoop-on-scoop.html]

[Saumya: http://saumya22.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/after-silence/]

[Rohit: http://rohit617.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/sounds-in-a-streetcar-named-desire-by-adrienne-earhart-and-rohit-ayyagari/]

Wild Card: The wildcard was a highlight for me. I wrote about how my grandfather and I have recently connected due to our mutual interest in the Kashmir Dispute. I conveyed my personal feelings on the entire situation and provided insight about how I feel the situation could potentially be resolved.

A Connection Between My Grandfather And Me.

A Connection Between My Grandfather And Me.

I have recently been looking through my family history because I will be leaving India to study abroad in the next few months. A few weekends ago, I came across pictures of my grandfather’s tenure in Kashmir as an army doctor. My grandfather is by no means conservative, but as most individuals who have served in the army are, he is quite nationalistic. I am proud of my grandfather’s trait, but I began to ask him if he was frustrated that the war he fought as a doctor has still yet to be resolved today.

My grandfather is now retired, but as I glanced through his photos in Kashmir I began to empathize with the hopes and aspirations he held as a doctor in the army. The ongoing tension between India and Pakistan over possession of Kashmir remains an issue that quickens my pulse because the continuing friction and cross-border violence makes the outbreak of another India-Pakistan war feasible. This long-standing dispute has the potential to destroy the progress in South Asia, as both India and Pakistan have openly tested and declared that they possess weapons of mass destruction. I have noticed that nations in the East are becoming more politically unstable and uprisings are occurring. The idea of India becoming a nation of frequent riots, political instability, and a conflict-ridden environment frightens me. Nevertheless, I am confident that the Kashmir issue can be solved if all sides take appropriate measures.

There was nothing more enjoyable than telling my grandfather that I had actually played a role in attempting to resolve the injustice in Kashmir. In Model United Nations, in order to raise awareness of this issue, I chose the question of Indian military occupation in Kashmir as one of our debate topics. In Amnesty International, I wrote Urgent Actions addressed to the Chief Minister of Kashmir, asking for these military acts to be repealed. I expressed my feelings about how, collectively, the acts have resulted in the military taking on the role of overseeing law and order situations; serving both as the local police and armed forces in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K).

Nevertheless,  my grandfather and I both pick up the newspaper each day  and continue to see how these acts have weakened the legitimacy of common law and crippled civic society. My grandfather informed me that the number of patients diagnosed with mental illness in the only psychiatric hospital in J&K has increased from a few thousand before 1989, to over 100,000 in 2010. As a strong believer in India’s meditative, peaceful culture, I am disappointed to see the Indian military in such a negative light. Reconciliation simply cannot be achieved under the shadow of a gun.

The current status quo is futile; too many innocent lives are being lost. I have confidence in my belief that demilitarization will create a humanitarian, political, and secure space for all three parties involved in the dispute. By reducing India’s military presence in Jammu and Kashmir, the deadlock between Pakistan and India can be unchained and the flame that could ignite a global nuclear war will be doused.

Interaction: Hedda as “Modern Woman”

Tim comments in his blog post regarding Hedda as “Modern Woman” that Hedda “is one of the most interesting characters we have studied this semester” because of her hyperesthesia and independent character. He goes on to draw a comparison between Hedda from Hedda Gabler and Stella from The Heidi Chronicles, stating that Hedda “wants to break the environment in which they are in” in order to “unchain herself from typical Norwegian role of a housewife”. However, I feel that the internal struggle Hedda faces is far more than merely determining her role in her house. I believe that Hedda has trapped herself on the bottom rung of the hierarchical class structure. She has married a man with different traditions, interests, and habits that she is determined to not familiarize herself with. Moreover, she is locked between her aristocratic background and her bourgeois marriage, making her struggle far more significant than breaking from a “domestic household role”.

Tim compared Hedda to a housecat, stating, “She does not need the assistance of others, nor does she want it”. I disagree with this statement because Ibsen provides evidence of Hedda’s flirtatious behavior towards Ejlert and her desire to spend time with Judge Brack. She enjoys the company of others that are willing to listen to her and is therefore very manipulative. Therefore, Tim’s argument that “she is a truly independent character” is not necessarily valid. Hedda at one point even states that she would desire nothing more than “the ability to control one’s destiny”, which I feel is a strong example of how Hedda, in fact, requires the company of others and enjoys their subjugation because she feeds on this attention and appreciation.

Tim argues that, “The way she seems to secretly manipulate other characters in order to put herself into a position of power is fascinating”. This is a justifiable statement and I too find Hedda’s domineering and calculating traits to be captivating. However, this statement itself goes against the thesis of Tim’s blog post. The fact that she consistently attempts to “put herself into a position of power” contradicts the idea that she “is a truly independent character” because she requires consideration and heed from others, the exact opposite from being an independent individual.

“Hedda As A Modern Woman” – I’m Not Convinced.

“Hedda as Modern Woman” describes Hedda Gabler as one of the Ibsen’s most detached and objective works, but also that Hedda is one of the more complex and real characters in literature. She is described as having “a little of all women in her”. I agree with the concept that Hedda is a complex character; the nature of the play revolves so strongly around Hedda’s relationships with the other characters, providing insight into her manipulative and determined character.

“Hedda as Modern Woman” argues that Ibsen’s works had no heroines. Although Hedda certainly lacks the conventional heroine qualities of courage and nobility, I feel that Ibsen portrayed Hedda in a negative light intentionally in an attempt to emphasize the theme of the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and aristocracy. This understanding makes William Archer’s statement about Hedda’s “life has no such charm for her that she cares to purchase it” all the more relevant. I find that Hedda is an antagonist because she treats Tesman and his family with such contempt merely because they are of a different social class.

Therefore, I feel it is unfair to classify “Hedda Gabler as an ordinary woman” as that is a dangerous term to apply to such a capricious character. I saw Hedda more as an image of evil than a “modern woman”, similar to many critics of Alla Nazimova’s portrayal of Gabler for over thirty years in American theatre. I strongly believe that the capriciousness of Hedda Gabler’s character is what makes it such a compelling production. I interpret Hedda as a manipulative antagonist while Alla Nazimova views her as a complex female hero representing “a little of all women in her”.