unit 8, A Doll’s House and hedda gabler
meeting 1: ibsen and the well-made play
The theory of the well-made play:
(1) The plot revolves around a secret held by the protagonist; the secret is known to the audience but withheld from key characters.
(2) The plot is driven by scenes of increasing intensity and suspense. The play is usually a slow, slow, deliberate burn.
(3) The plot contains (too) perfect, almost contrived—even twee—entrances and exits and requires handy devices like letters or telegrams to move it forward.
(4) The secret stems from a conflict with one or more of the play’s other characters.
(5) The plot contains peripeteia in a dramatic scene at the end that exposes the secret.
Ibsen’s drama:
(1) Makes taboo acceptable
(2) Discards soliloquies and asides
(3) Contains motivated exposition
(4) Environment influences the personalities of the characters
(5) Takes nothing for granted
(6) Usually has a thesis in a way Shakespeare does not
Today we’re going to look predominantly at the actions of the first part of Act 1, thinking about how they provide us with all we need to know about Nora.
HOMEWORK FOR OUR NEXT CLASS:
Read Pages 23-44, stopping just after Dr. Rank closes the door behind him.
meeting 2: krogstad turns the screws
Before moving into the new reading, let’s think about the first iteration of one of the play’s central questions that Nora raises a number of times: “Is it rash to save your husband’s life?” (14). Is Nora right? Does she have the moral high ground? What are the assumptions in this question? Let’s watch the 2012 production’s version of this scene [16:00-29:00].
I’d like to focus most of our time today on the first scene between Nora and Krogstad. In what ways are Nora and Krogstad alike? different?
KROGSTAD. The law takes no account of motives.
NORA. Then they must be very bad laws.
KROGSTAD. Bad or not, if I produce this document in court, you’ll be condemned according to them.
NORA. I don’t believe it. Isn’t a daughter entitled to try and save her father from worry and anxiety on his deathbed? Isn’t a wife entitled to save her husband’s life? I might not know very much about the law, but I feel sure of one thing: it must say somewhere that things like this are allowed. You mean to say you don’t know that—you, when it’s your job? You must be a rotten lawyer, Mr. Krogstad.
They’re both right, and they’re both wrong, no? [33:45-43:41]
Nora and Helmer: “A fog of lies like that in a household, and it spreads disease and infection to every part of it. Every breath the children take in that kind of house is reeking with evil germs” (33). What does Torvald inadvertently do to Nora? [43:41-52:00]
HOMEWORK FOR OUR NEXT CLASS:
Read pages 44-67, stopping just before “He leads her…”.
MEETING 3: nora’s doll house
“It does seem a pity all these delicious things should attack the spine.” - Nora to Dr. Rank, page 46
We should review some of the takeaways from our last class: A Doll’s House is not King Lear, but is it the stuff of tragedy? Why? Nora and Krogstad find themselves in similar circumstances early on in the play, but we sympathize with Nora. Why?
The 2012 production of A Doll’s House literally revolves around Nora, emphasizing how stationary she remains while everyone else comes and goes. Let’s think about the play like that: Each secondary character has their turn to play with Nora—Helmer, Anne Marie, Rank, Mrs. Linde, and Krogstad. Why is the architecture of the play designed like this? Does each character play with Nora to cope with their own insecurities? Why? Does it matter that they’re all professionals of some sort?
Today we’ll try to work through four scenes:
Nora and Anne Marie: What is the dramatic function of this scene? [51:32]
Nora and Mrs. Linde: What do we learn about Dr. Rank?
Nora and Helmer: “I forgive you.” [1:03:25]
Nora and Rank: What does Dr. Rank understand about Nora’s intentions in this scene?
HOMEWORK FOR OUR NEXT CLASS:
Finish the play!
MEETING 4: “as though your life depended on it”
Today I want to begin with two quotes from Act 2:
“It does seem a pity all these delicious things should attack the spine.”
“Well, you see, there are those people you love and those people you’d almost rather be with.”
What’s the context of each? How might we use them to think more broadly about what’s happening in this play?
Nora and Krogstad, Part 2: Nora and Krogstad throw the word courage back and forth between each other. How does the meaning of the word change each time it’s uttered? What makes an action courageous or uncourageous, does the play suggest? Choose only one character to develop your thinking.
What is Ibsen’s intent in having Nora dance the tarantella at the end of Act 2?
MEETING 5: a divided duty
On page 83, Nora argues that her duty to herself as an individual is just as sacred as the duty she has to her family and to her community. Do you agree? Why or why not? Are you put off by Nora’s decision at the end of the play? Does Ibsen do enough to convince you that Nora makes the correct decision?
Gregory Doran, the former Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, says that some playwrights will “stare with a very steady eye at some of the elements in our make-up which are ugliest.” Does Ibsen? What ugly elements of our make-up does he see, and what does the play suggest about the extent we can change them?
Quiz? Maybe.
Bring your 5 texts with you to school over the next week.
WORK WHILE I AM OUT ON KAIROS:
Please complete the two assignments below by the time we reconvene next week. Sections 1, 4, 5, and 6: You do not need to report for the first class but do need to report for the second class. Section 2, you do not need to report to the one class you have scheduled but must still complete the two assignments.
(1) When we come back next week, before embarking on our second Ibsen play, Hedda Gabler, we’re going to spend 2 more classes discussing Moby-Dick as a whole. To prepare for those discussions, please complete the reading and précis assignment. Post your précis to turnitin.com before our first class next week.
(2) Assemble a document akin to the handout I gave before the practice exam that lists the five texts you plan to use for FRQ3. Build a study guide for each of those texts for you to study the weekend before the AP exam. Post your “My 5” document with study guide to turnitin.com before our first class next week.
due DATES
key questions for a doll’s house
[A] In his review of the 2012 Young Vic production, New York Times critic Ben Brantley writes, “Nora is forced into devastating awareness of just how devious she’s become and how warped she has been by the subterfuge.” Write an essay that explores the extent to which Nora is forced into this awareness. Who forces her? Or is it an undoing she must own? What is the play’s greater idea about deceit?
[B] Choose one of the characters in the play. Trace that character’s understanding of and write an essay about what makes a fulfilled life in the eye of that character.
[C] Gregory Doran, the Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, says that some playwrights will “stare with a very steady eye at some of the elements in our make-up which are ugliest.” Does Ibsen? What ugly elements of our make-up does he see, and what does the play suggest about the extent we can change them?
[D] One of the play’s great mysteries to me is why Torvald is so quick to forgive Nora after Krogstad returns the IOU. How do you explain his sudden reversal? You should use this prompt to discover some of Torvald’s more unattractive traits.
[E] Ibsen is famous for his artistic use of props. Write an essay that analyzes props and their artistic use in A Doll’s House. How are those props more than mere objects?
[F] The word “courage” repeats in the play, becoming associated with Mrs. Linde, Helmer, and Nora. What makes an action courageous or uncourageous, does the play suggest? Choose only one character to develop your thinking.
syllabus
cyclical vocabulary and sentence composition assignment
CURRENT TEXTs TO HAVE DAILY
Moby-dick central
Click for full reading schedule and assignments
You’re undertaking the reading of the greatest work of American fiction and one of the world’s greatest works of art. It’s a project that’ll span the entirety of the year, completing the reading outside of class and in addition to your other regular assignments. It’s an undertaking to read this novel, to be sure, but it need not be arduous if you’re disciplined.
An undertaking, yes, but that does not mean you should simply set it down and walk away when you hit a tough or a boring chapter. It’s a rewarding book to those who work the hardest and put in the time it requires. This section of the course page provides you the tools you’ll need to work the novel through to its completion.
Here is a handy document you might consider printing and having with you while you read: Allusions in Moby-Dick
You may find it useful to use the audio recordings from The Big Read; each chapter has a special guest reading it. Listening along will help, especially at the beginning. The readers are (mostly) excellent at capturing the tone of each chapter. As you read, seek out and consider the following concepts:
Water meditations and man's attraction to water, Ishmael's curiosity about and tolerance for human motivation, The quest, The nature of God and man, Finding and losing the self (Narcissus), Parallels between land and sea, Civilization and "savagery", cannibalism, Biblical echoes and references: Jonah, Job, Ahab, Elijah, Ishmael, etc., Monomania and madness, the value of religion, the value of community
“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own.”