Samantha's Blog: March 2012

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Hedda, Heidi, and A Street Car Named Desire

All of these plays focus on a woman experiencing changes in her environment. In both A Street Car Named Desire and Hedda the woman obviously does not fit into the mold of the woman at the time. Hedda extremely independent character contrast vehemently with the traditional woman of the time; while Blanche is has the opposite view of herself as she is stuck in the past and cannot break away from it. Similarly Heidi does not fit into the same ideal that the rest of the women in Heidi do, though she does support the cause and women's rights she adopts a child at the end going against the values of many strong feminists.

Children are also very important to all of these plays. There are many similarities between Heidi and Hedda in some respects towards children. In Hedda her child and other references to children are connected with death. To Hedda her unborn child is what will take away her current freedom; and in her death and her babies death her gets some of that freedom and power back. In Heidi her child is Heidi using her freedom to be a mother as well as having a career. To others her child also could represent her death in the protests for women's rights as she has given in to the stereotypes.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Hedda

Archers discussion of Hedda is quiet interesting as he reduces the play to a simple character study. Archers statement about the time period of the play I thought was interesting because of Archers claim that Ibsen was scared of the public reaction if he were to place it in current times. Because Ibsen seemed to feel fine showing his audience that many people including themselves are somewhat I find it hard to believe that he feared commenting on the lack of change in women's role. It would have been not only a commentary on people being the product of their environments but also a commentary on the lack of change in societies. I wonder how different the reaction to the play would have been if it had been placed in a time period closer to his own?

The comparison of Shakespeare's women and Ibsen's was entertaining. I tried to put some of Shakespeare's women into Hedda position and vice verse. It was strange to say the least. I think that in "As You like It" there may have been a war; and one of the couples may have gone "Romeo and Juliet" style while the other married her. But other than that I think that both types of characters are simple to understand at a basic level. Hedda is the product of her life while Shakespeare's are romanticized versions of people.