good morning everyone uh today we're going to do a very brief video about uh a doll's house by henrik ibsen which was your play to be read for our realism unit and we're just going to go over some key points some key factors to help focus your thinking about a doll's house especially since your writing assignment is going to be talking about this piece all right so again a doll's house is an example of realism or naturalism in our theatrical genres uh that was a period really starting with henrik ibsen the playwright for a doll's house uh in the 1870s and really goes through anton chekhov in the russian era um 19 early 1900s remembering that we still use realism especially stanislavski's acting techniques today but in terms of plays being written specifically in this style this is a great example doll's house so i hope you enjoyed reading it um some things to think about let's look at aristotle's six elements when we're talking about a doll's house so what are the themes or what is the less intermoral of a doll's house this notion of nora needing to escape from this prison of domestic life this cage like a canary or a songbird her husband treats her like an infant or a child frequently referring to her as a child and and this notion of women's liberation uh the end of the show was very controversial when it aired uh when it first premiered because uh a woman a wife was not supposed to leave her family and nora sets out for adventures that we don't know about um that was a very difficult in 1879 that was a very difficult pill to swallow but um clearly today i think that resonates a little differently and certainly paved the way for a lot of similar female characters in drama the actual characters we have nora uh the heroine of the of the play who is dealing with what happened in the backstory right when she uh tried to save her husband's life when he was sick and she falsely signed her father's name as the signature on a loan we have her husband uh torvald who works at the bank and who is not very understanding of his wife and of nora's problems expects her to just be a lovely housewife and and leave all the business to him um we have krogstad who is uh has fallen on hard times he's the villain of the story although pretty understandable and he's trying to get a job at the bank and he blackmails nora with knowledge of her um false signature from before uh threatens to write the letter to to her husband torvald we have christine the friend who is also a woman of business she is a independent single woman and sort of struggling through the world and that is an interesting foil to nora um and they're very good friends and i think christine is also an interesting character at the time period for um theater uh and of course we have the doctor who is infatuated with with nora and sort of has a crush on her uh plot it pretty much is about the unfolding of this blackmail plot this this very um dastardly way that krogstad hopes to get a job at the at the bank um everything happens within nora's house nora and torhold's house and yet um and so this is a very domestic drama this is all about their marriage falling apart and yet it feels very dramatic we we are very worried for what's going to happen to nora and that i think is the this realism was the first time that we could take all of that drama and and um emotion and craziness from these adventure tales these romantic huge epic sweeping sagas and and or even the tragedies where you know a king or a queen is is dying or or trying to lead an army and we're going to take all of that and jam pack it into a house and a family and the domestic drama that happens and the realistic psychological issues that go on there um obviously at the end we said at the end of the play nora decides to she tells tor you know torvald finds out what happened and he chastises her and she leaves and she leaves him with the children and says i'm going to become my own woman the language of the play the diction we have lots of dialogue nora has a few monologues but a lot of scenes between two people um often nora and someone else and um it's it's not very poetic i mean it's not written in verse it's written in prose obviously translated from norwegian but uh we do sense in the way that torvald talks to the terms he uses for his wife again these chickadee or my little dove or calling her these little child names and little bird names um are very it's very infantilizing very patronizing of him and so we can see a lot of sexism in the language being used um music there is the tarantella the big the dance that she does uh and the sound effects perhaps of uh sleigh bells outside this is christmas time and she's getting all the presents etc spectacle we have the interior of their house but it is decorated for christmas so we get the beautiful christmas tree we have very realistic looking costumes for the time period this is the height of victorian era fashion again caging in the human female body with with lace and collars and um wrist cuffs that come out to the full full length to the wrists rugs on the floor light fixtures this is a very good example of a realistic play and we have the presents themselves that's that's a big part of the spectacle as well not to mention the prop the letter just like in othello where we have the prop of the handkerchief so i want to ask you if we took these themes characters and situations that were written in 1879 and seemed quite shocking at the time what if we transposed those to today what would change or what would stay the same i think we can agree that it might be a little less shocking for nora to leave um her husband and um you know ask for a divorce or or just take a divorce um and stuff out into the real world because today that is a much more acceptable practice uh much more common practice uh it doesn't mean it's any less difficult but it's certainly the society supports this if it's necessary also i think we can probably identify that today the whole notion of a woman's right to sign a paper or the the handling of the money the business aspects being a man's world and not a woman's i while there's probably still work to be done in that field um it's come a long way since 1879 the location matter if we change the location to florida versus um oslo norway or versus norway uh where what customs what cultural relevance is there um certainly in climate also as well you know uh there's a lot about christmas in norway and how they're dressed and um we can sense that when we watch the play and maybe if we were set in florida or in um a more tropical climb uh that would be different and it changes the way the costumes look and it changes the feeling of the play um when people are wearing linens and short sleeves rather than or even shorts rather than huge outfit huge skirts huge dresses scarves and jackets for the men and lastly i want you to really think about the setting specifically the setting of the house because this is where you're going to be writing your papers what is the role of the setting the physical location in this play which is a little different from you know oh yes we're in norway how does it affect the other theatrical elements what is it about her house about the set around nora and around twerval that affects the action of this play um the the title of the play hinting is a doll's house so what are we comparing what illusion is being made from that title about the characters and about the way they're going to interact with one another um how does nora interact with her setting and how does the setting interact with nora think about the christmas trees uh the christmas tree the decorations the rooms of the house even the mailbox where that letter is placed there's a lot of very specific set elements elements of the setting that affect the characters and action and plot of this play and that my friends is what we're going to be writing our papers about all right thank you i hope you enjoyed