The Woman of the Early Nineteenth Century
The "Frugal Housewife”"Man is daring and confident, woman is diffident and unassuming; man is great in action, woman in suffering; man shines abroad, woman at home; man talks to convince, woman to persuade and please; man has a rugged heart, woman a soft and tender one; man prevents misery, woman relieves it; man has science, woman taste; man has judgment, woman sensibility; man is a being of justice, woman of mercy."
Perceptions of Women in the 19th CenturyDuring the early 1800s, people generally believed that there was a definite difference in character between the sexes -- man was active, dominant, assertive, and materialistic, while woman was religious, modest, passive, submissive, and domestic. As a result, there developed an ideal of womanhood, or a "cult of true womanhood" as denoted by historian Barbara Welter. This cult, evident in women's magazines and religious literature of the day, espoused four basic attributes of female character: piety, purity, submissiveness, domesticity.
1) Religion/Piety was the "core of woman's virtue, the source of her strength" Women were expected to be the "handmaids of the Gospel," serving as a purifying force in the lives of erring men. Women naturally possessed virtues of faith, simplicity, goodness, self-sacrifice, tenderness, affection, sentimentality, and modesty.
2) Purity was an essential characteristic to maintain one's virtue against the continuous "assault" of the more aggressive male. To protect one's self, Mrs. Eliza Farrar recommended in The Young Lady's Friend (1837): Sit not with another in a place that is too narrow; read not out of the same book; let not your eagerness to see anything induce you to place your head close to another person's."
Eliza Farnham stressed the importance of preserving one's innocence and demonstrating female moral superiority, concluding that "the purity of women is the everlasting barrier against which the tides of man's sensual nature surge" (Welter, 24-25).
3) Submissiveness required women to accept their positions in life willingly and obediently, thereby affirming God had appointed them to that special position. Godey's Lady's Book of 1831 emphasized this attribute: The lesson of submission is forced upon woman...To suffer and to be silent under suffering seems the great command she has to obey. (Welter, 30)
Likewise, Samuel Jennings advocated complete submission in The Married Lady's Companion (New York, 1808): [Marriage rests on a] condition of a loving and cheerful submission on the part of the wife. Here again you object and say, "Why not the husband, first show a little condescension as well as the wife?" I answer for these plain reasons. It is not his disposition; it is not the custom but with the henpecked; it is not his duty; it is not implied in the marriage contract; it is not required by law or gospel...when you became a wife, he became your head, and your supposed superiority was buried in that voluntary act.
4) Domesticity, or the cheerful performance of social, household, and family duties, was highly prized by women’s magazines of the day. Women were expected to comfort and cheer, to nurse and support, to manage and oversee. Housework was to be viewed as a morally uplifting mental and physical exercise. Marriage was the proper sphere for women where, according to Rev. Samuel Miller (1808), she could fulfill her divinely ordained mission: “How interesting and important are the duties devolved on females as WIVES....the counselor and friend of the husband; who makes it her daily study to lighten his cares, to soothe his sorrows, and augment his joys; who, like a guardian angel, watches over his interests, warns him against dangers, comforts him under trials; and by her pious, assiduous, and attractive deportment, constantly endeavors to render him more virtuous, more useful, more honorable, and more happy” (Welter, 37-38).
Thus, popular women's literature perpetuated an image of the "perfect woman" -- the loving wife, the caring mother, the responsible housekeeper. While social reform movements, industrialization, migration, and other social forces instilled changes which eventually affected the status of women, the "true" woman was that female at home, "the Valiant Woman of the Bible, in whom the heart of her husband rejoiced and whose price was above rubies" (Welter, 41).
Education of WomenAnti-intellectualism was implicit in the "cult of true womanhood." Women were not expected to use logic or reason, only to exhibit morality and domesticity. Consequently, female education was designed to maintain the dichotomy of spheres -- schools prepared men for careers and trained them to think, whereas women learned to be worthy companions for their husbands, good managers of their households, and virtuous examples for their children. Regarding the place of female education, the Western Patriot of Canton (Ohio) Almanac of 1842 noted: The destiny of women is obviously, to become at some time spouse & mother of a family, & as such her sphere of action is the domestic fire-side. In order therefore to become a good wife & mother of a family & to act usefully & blessingly within the circle of her family -- she must possess all those attributes such as knowledge & habits, which are required of a good housewife & mother of a family. If a woman was displeased and unhappy with her status, it was her fault for failing to strive for her fulfillment which was inherent in her nature and in her domestic environment.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
It's Tough to Be a Man, Baby
From “It's Tough To Be a Man Baby: A History of Manhood”
by Daniel Simer Ó Connell
Before 1800, men were seen as being virtuous and having great reason. The greater reason moderated their passions of ambition, defiance, and envy. Women were seen as not having as much control of those emotions as men did.
In this phase, a man’s identity was based on his social obligations and his social usefulness. His family name and history, his social position in society, his class, were seen as the ultimate determiner of his worth as a man. The amount and type of public service a man had to offer became part of his social worth which in turn defined his identity, which further affected how "manly" other people thought of him.
The second phase begins in the late 18th century. Then it becomes a man’s work role, not his social role that helped to define who he was. The idea of a man’s personal success in business came to be seen as more important to his identity than the notion of whatever public service he might offer. The traditionally male passions were given freer reign. Ambition, rivalry, and aggression were begun to be seen as good things in and of themselves not as vices. These passions then were not to be moderated as before, but channeled appropriately. What was heretofore seen as defiance was now seen as independence.
The third phase started in the late [19th] century. Society became much more positive about the "male" passions. Male sexual desire gained legitimacy as it had not before. Ambition, competitiveness, aggression: these were all seen as uplifting and necessary for the social good. They were exalted at the expense of the female sensibilities, particularly tenderness and mercy. Those qualities, seen in a man were viewed with scorn.
The ideas of what made up the self and the value of the manly passions moved from one of control and denial to what was good in constituting identity and worth. The contrast between men and women, which before this period had been seen as opposites, was now seen as different.
This is of course, the time of the rise of sports. Sports [had been] viewed as exercise. At the end of the 19th century, sports were seen much more as competition and this is when uniforms became standardized for teams.
Of course men’s views of women played a role in how men viewed themselves. As today, men felt they could turn to women for a kind of nurturing understanding that other men were unwilling or unable to provide. The hero of a 19th century novel put it like this: "I would as soon confess to my horse [as to a man]."
These ideas led people then to believe that women must take the initiative as the source of virtue in society, rather than men, as before. Women now had the task of trying to control the male passions by educating men in the art of self-denial. Marriage became based more on love than on social arrangements, although of course, a woman’s identity was still derived mainly from her husband’s.
Men came to marriage at this time with all sorts of conflicting feelings too. No longer merely a social contract with the community, marriage began to define manhood in new ways at this time. Rotundo writes:
Men came to this relationship with desires to dominate and to be nurtured; with views of woman as angel and as devil; with the fear that marriage and domesticity were a trap and the hope that they were a sanctuary; with the expectation that a wife would be a source of morality and the assumption that she would be a source of restriction; with the wish that marriage would offer him intimacy and an end to loneliness, and the fear that marriage would smother him and put an end to his freedom.
by Daniel Simer Ó Connell
Before 1800, men were seen as being virtuous and having great reason. The greater reason moderated their passions of ambition, defiance, and envy. Women were seen as not having as much control of those emotions as men did.
In this phase, a man’s identity was based on his social obligations and his social usefulness. His family name and history, his social position in society, his class, were seen as the ultimate determiner of his worth as a man. The amount and type of public service a man had to offer became part of his social worth which in turn defined his identity, which further affected how "manly" other people thought of him.
The second phase begins in the late 18th century. Then it becomes a man’s work role, not his social role that helped to define who he was. The idea of a man’s personal success in business came to be seen as more important to his identity than the notion of whatever public service he might offer. The traditionally male passions were given freer reign. Ambition, rivalry, and aggression were begun to be seen as good things in and of themselves not as vices. These passions then were not to be moderated as before, but channeled appropriately. What was heretofore seen as defiance was now seen as independence.
The third phase started in the late [19th] century. Society became much more positive about the "male" passions. Male sexual desire gained legitimacy as it had not before. Ambition, competitiveness, aggression: these were all seen as uplifting and necessary for the social good. They were exalted at the expense of the female sensibilities, particularly tenderness and mercy. Those qualities, seen in a man were viewed with scorn.
The ideas of what made up the self and the value of the manly passions moved from one of control and denial to what was good in constituting identity and worth. The contrast between men and women, which before this period had been seen as opposites, was now seen as different.
This is of course, the time of the rise of sports. Sports [had been] viewed as exercise. At the end of the 19th century, sports were seen much more as competition and this is when uniforms became standardized for teams.
Of course men’s views of women played a role in how men viewed themselves. As today, men felt they could turn to women for a kind of nurturing understanding that other men were unwilling or unable to provide. The hero of a 19th century novel put it like this: "I would as soon confess to my horse [as to a man]."
These ideas led people then to believe that women must take the initiative as the source of virtue in society, rather than men, as before. Women now had the task of trying to control the male passions by educating men in the art of self-denial. Marriage became based more on love than on social arrangements, although of course, a woman’s identity was still derived mainly from her husband’s.
Men came to marriage at this time with all sorts of conflicting feelings too. No longer merely a social contract with the community, marriage began to define manhood in new ways at this time. Rotundo writes:
Men came to this relationship with desires to dominate and to be nurtured; with views of woman as angel and as devil; with the fear that marriage and domesticity were a trap and the hope that they were a sanctuary; with the expectation that a wife would be a source of morality and the assumption that she would be a source of restriction; with the wish that marriage would offer him intimacy and an end to loneliness, and the fear that marriage would smother him and put an end to his freedom.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Power Point Presentation Tips
Power Point Presentation Tips
Introduction & Outline
l Make your 1st slide a title page, and your 2nd slide an outline of your presentation
l Follow the order of your outline for the rest of the presentation
l Only place main points on the outline slide
– Ex: Use the titles of each slide as main points
Slide Structure
l Use 1-2 slides per minute of your presentation
l Write in point form, not complete sentences
l Include 4-5 points per slide
l Avoid wordiness: use key words and phrases only
l Show one point at a time:
– Will help audience concentrate on what you are saying
– Will prevent audience from reading ahead
– Will help you keep your presentation focused
l Do not use distracting animation
l Do not go overboard with the animation
l Be consistent with the animation that you use
Fonts
l Use at least an 18-point font
l Use different size fonts for main points and secondary points
– this font is 24-point, the main point font is 28-point, and the title font is 36-point
l Use a standard font like Times New Roman or Arial
l If you use a small font, your audience won’t be able to read what you have written
l Capitalize only when necessary; it is difficult to read
l Don’t use a complicated font
Color
l Use a color of font that contrasts sharply with the background
– Ex: blue font on white background
l Use color to reinforce the logic of your structure
– Ex: light blue title and dark blue text
l Use color to emphasize a point
– But only use this occasionally
l Using a font color that does not contrast with the background color is hard to read
l Using color for decoration is distracting and annoying.
l Using a different color for each point is unnecessary
– Using a different color for secondary points is also unnecessary
l Trying to be creative can also be bad
Backgrounds
l Use backgrounds (such as this one) that are attractive but simple
l Use backgrounds which are light
l Use the same background consistently throughout your presentation
l Avoid backgrounds that are distracting or difficult to read from
l Always be consistent with the background that you use
Illustrations
l Use high-quality graphics including photos
l Use high-quality images available on line
– Never simply stretch a small, photo to make it fit your layout.
Graphs
l Use graphs rather than just charts and words
– Data in graphs is easier to comprehend & retain than is raw data
– Trends are easier to visualize in graph form
l Always title your graphs
Spelling and Grammar
l Proof your slides for:
– speling mistakes
– the the use of of repeated words
– grammatical errors you might have make
l If English is not your first language, please have someone else check your presentation!
Conclusion
l Use an effective and strong closing
– Your audience is likely to remember your last words
l Use a conclusion slide to:
– Summarize the main points of your presentation
– Suggest future avenues of research
l End your presentation with a simple question slide to:
– Invite your audience to ask questions
– Provide a visual aid during question period
– Avoid ending a presentation abruptly
Works Cited Page
l Use MLA citations
l Cite all sources actually used
Introduction & Outline
l Make your 1st slide a title page, and your 2nd slide an outline of your presentation
l Follow the order of your outline for the rest of the presentation
l Only place main points on the outline slide
– Ex: Use the titles of each slide as main points
Slide Structure
l Use 1-2 slides per minute of your presentation
l Write in point form, not complete sentences
l Include 4-5 points per slide
l Avoid wordiness: use key words and phrases only
l Show one point at a time:
– Will help audience concentrate on what you are saying
– Will prevent audience from reading ahead
– Will help you keep your presentation focused
l Do not use distracting animation
l Do not go overboard with the animation
l Be consistent with the animation that you use
Fonts
l Use at least an 18-point font
l Use different size fonts for main points and secondary points
– this font is 24-point, the main point font is 28-point, and the title font is 36-point
l Use a standard font like Times New Roman or Arial
l If you use a small font, your audience won’t be able to read what you have written
l Capitalize only when necessary; it is difficult to read
l Don’t use a complicated font
Color
l Use a color of font that contrasts sharply with the background
– Ex: blue font on white background
l Use color to reinforce the logic of your structure
– Ex: light blue title and dark blue text
l Use color to emphasize a point
– But only use this occasionally
l Using a font color that does not contrast with the background color is hard to read
l Using color for decoration is distracting and annoying.
l Using a different color for each point is unnecessary
– Using a different color for secondary points is also unnecessary
l Trying to be creative can also be bad
Backgrounds
l Use backgrounds (such as this one) that are attractive but simple
l Use backgrounds which are light
l Use the same background consistently throughout your presentation
l Avoid backgrounds that are distracting or difficult to read from
l Always be consistent with the background that you use
Illustrations
l Use high-quality graphics including photos
l Use high-quality images available on line
– Never simply stretch a small, photo to make it fit your layout.
Graphs
l Use graphs rather than just charts and words
– Data in graphs is easier to comprehend & retain than is raw data
– Trends are easier to visualize in graph form
l Always title your graphs
Spelling and Grammar
l Proof your slides for:
– speling mistakes
– the the use of of repeated words
– grammatical errors you might have make
l If English is not your first language, please have someone else check your presentation!
Conclusion
l Use an effective and strong closing
– Your audience is likely to remember your last words
l Use a conclusion slide to:
– Summarize the main points of your presentation
– Suggest future avenues of research
l End your presentation with a simple question slide to:
– Invite your audience to ask questions
– Provide a visual aid during question period
– Avoid ending a presentation abruptly
Works Cited Page
l Use MLA citations
l Cite all sources actually used
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
About the Author: Henrik Ibsen
You are responsible for the following information. If you have not picked up A Dolls House by Ibsen, please do so by 10/29/08.
CG
Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)
Henrik Johan Ibsen was born in 1828 in Skien, Norway, the eldest of five children after the early death of an older brother. His father, a product of a long line of sea captains, had been born in 1797 in Skein and married a German daughter of a merchant, in 1825. Ibsen’s childhood was not particularly happy. Described as an unsociable child, his sense of isolation was increased at the age of sixteen when his father¹s business had to be sold to meet his creditors. On top of this, a rumor began to be circulated that Henrik was the illegitimate son of another man. This fear (never proved), manifested itself in a theme of illegitimate offspring in Ibsen¹s later work. After his father’s business was possessed, all that remained of the family’s former wealth was a dilapidated farmhouse at the outskirts of Skein.
At the farmhouse, Ibsen began to attend a small middle-class school. In 1843, at the age of fifteen, Ibsen was taken from school and apprenticed to an apothecary despite his declared interest in becoming a painter.
Leaving his family, Ibsen traveled to Grimstad, a small, isolated town, to begin his apprenticeship, where he studied with the hopes of gaining admission to the University medical school. (While there he also fathered an illegitimate son by the servant of the apothecary). Grimstad is where Ibsen began to write in earnest. Inspired by the revolution of 1848 that was being felt throughout Europe, Ibsen wrote satire and elegant poetry. (Classic)
Henrik Ibsen became an extremely influential Norwegian playwright who was largely responsible for the rise of modern realistic drama.
His plays were considered scandalous in much of society at the time, when Victorian values of family life and propriety were still very much the norm, and any challenge to them considered immoral and outrageous. Ibsen's work examined the realities that lay behind many a facade, which the society of the time did not want to see.
In a very real way, Ibsen created the modern stage, by introducing a critical eye and free inquiry into the conditions of life and issues of morality. Prior to him, plays were expected to be moral dramas with noble protagonists pitted against darker forces. Every drama was expected to result in a "proper" conclusion, meaning that goodness was to bring happiness, and immorality only pain. Ibsen was to turn that concept on its head, challenging the beliefs of the times and shattering the illusions of his audiences. He was born into a relatively well-to-do family in the small port town of Skien, Norway, which was primarily noted for shipping timber. Shortly after his birth, however, his family's fortunes took a significant turn for the worse. His mother turned to religion for solace, while his father declined into a severe depression. The characters in his plays often mirror his parents, and his themes often deal with issues of financial difficulty.
His first play, Catilina (1848), was published when he was only 20, but was not performed. His first play to see production was The Burial Mound (1850), but it did not receive much attention. Still, Ibsen was determined to be a playwright, although he was not to write again for some years.
He spent the next several years employed at the Norwegian Theater, where he was involved in the production of more than 145 plays as a writer, director, and producer. During this period he did not publish any new plays of his own. Despite Ibsen's failure to achieve success as a playwright, at the Norwegian Theater he gained a great deal of practical experience, experience that was to prove valuable when next he wrote.
He returned to Oslo in 1857, where he lived in very poor financial circumstances. Still, he managed to marry (Suzannah) in 1859. He became very disenchanted with life in Norway, and left for Italy in 1864. He was not to return to his native land for the next 27 years, and when he returned it was to be as a noted playwright, however controversial.
His next play, Brand (1865), was to bring him the critical acclaim he sought, along with a measure of financial success, as was his next play, Peer Gynt (1867).
With success, he became more confident and began to introduce more and more of his own beliefs and judgments into his dramas, exploring what he termed the "drama of ideas". His next series of plays are often considered his Golden Age, when he entered the height of his power and influence, becoming the center of dramatic controversy across Europe.
A Doll's House (1879) was a scathing criticism of the traditional roles of men and women in Victorian marriage. …Some theatre houses refused to stage the play. Ibsen followed A Doll's House with Ghosts (1881), another scathing commentary on Victorian morality. In it, a widow reveals to her pastor that she has hidden the evils of her marriage for its duration. The pastor had advised her to marry her then fiancé despite his philandering, and she did so in the belief that her love would reform him. But she was not to receive the result she was promised. Her husband's philandering continued right up until his death, and the result is that her son is syphilitic. Even the mention of venereal disease was scandalous, but to show that even a person who followed society's ideals of morality had no protection against it, that was beyond scandalous. Hers was not the noble life which Victorians believed would result from fulfilling one's duty rather than following one's desires. Those idealized beliefs were only the “ghosts” of the past, haunting the present.
Society's criticism of Ibsen was raised to a fever pitch at this point, but society itself was losing its control over the mass of people, most of whom didn't live in the rarefied air of the Victorian Gentleman. They wanted to see Ibsen's plays because he showed what so many of them already knew to be the reality. The tide had turned.
In An Enemy of the People (1882), Ibsen went even further. Before, controversial elements were important and even pivotal components of the action, but they were on the small scale of individual households. In An Enemy, controversy became the primary focus, and the antagonist was the entire community. One primary message of the play is that the individual, who stands alone, is more often "right" than the mass of people, who are portrayed as ignorant and sheep-like. The Victorian belief was that the community was a noble institution that could be trusted, a fiction Ibsen challenged.
The protagonist is a doctor, a pillar of the community. The town is a vacation spot whose primary draw is a public bath. The doctor discovers that the water used by the bath is being contaminated when it seeps through the grounds of a local tannery. He expects to be acclaimed for saving the town from the nightmare of infecting visitors with disease, but instead he is declared “an enemy of the people” by the locals, who band against him and even throw stones through his windows. The play ends with his complete ostracism. It is obvious to the reader that disaster is in store for the town as well as for the doctor, due to the community's unwillingness to face reality.
As audiences by now expected of him, his next play again attacked entrenched beliefs and assumptions -- but this time his attack was not against the Victorians but against overeager reformers and their idealism. Always the iconoclast, Ibsen was as willing to tear down the ideologies of any part of the political spectrum, including his own.
The Wild Duck (1884) is considered by many to be Ibsen's finest work, and it is certainly the most complex. It tells the story of Gregers Werle, a young man who returns to his hometown after an extended exile and is reunited with his boyhood friend Hjalmar Ekdal. Over the course of the play the many secrets that lie behind the Ekdals' apparently happy home are revealed to Gregers, who insists on pursuing the absolute truth, or the "Summons of the Ideal". Among these truths: Gregers' father impregnated his servant Gina, then married her off to Hjalmar to legitimize the child. Another man has been disgraced and imprisoned for a crime the elder Werle committed. And while Hjalmar spends his days working on a wholly imaginary "invention", his wife is earning the household income.
Ibsen displays masterful use of irony: despite his dogmatic insistence on truth, Gregers never says what he thinks but only insinuates, and is never understood until the play reaches its climax. Gregers hammers away at Hjalmar through innuendo and coded phrases until he realizes the truth; Gina's daughter, Hedvig, is not his child. Blinded by Gregers' insistence on absolute truth, he disavows the child. Seeing the damage he has wrought, Gregers determines to repair things, and suggests to Hedvig that she sacrifice the wild duck, her wounded pet, to prove her love for Hjalmar. Hedvig, alone among the characters, recognizes that Gregers always speaks in code, and looking for the deeper meaning in the first important statement Gregers makes which does not contain one, kills herself rather than the duck in order to prove her love for him in the ultimate act of self-sacrifice. Only too late do Hjalmar and Gregers realize that the absolute truth of the "ideal" is sometimes too much for the human heart to bear.
Probably Ibsen's most performed play is Hedda Gabler (1890), the leading female role being regarded as one of the most challenging and rewarding for an actress even in the present day. There are many similarities between Hedda and the character of Nora in A Doll's House.
Ibsen had completely rewritten the rules of drama with a realism which was to be adopted by Chekhov and others, and which we see in the theater to this day. From Ibsen forward, challenging assumptions and directly speaking about issues has been considered one of the factors that makes a play Art rather than entertainment.
Finally, Ibsen returned to Norway in 1891, but it was in many ways not the Norway he had left. Indeed, he had played a major role in the changes that had happened across society. The Victorian Age was on its last legs, to be replaced by the rise of Modernism not only in the theater, but across public life.
With a stellar career behind him, the likes of which few authors or playwrights ever see, Ibsen died in Oslo. (Biography Base)
(http://www.biographybase.com)
(Classicnotes.com)
CG
Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)
Henrik Johan Ibsen was born in 1828 in Skien, Norway, the eldest of five children after the early death of an older brother. His father, a product of a long line of sea captains, had been born in 1797 in Skein and married a German daughter of a merchant, in 1825. Ibsen’s childhood was not particularly happy. Described as an unsociable child, his sense of isolation was increased at the age of sixteen when his father¹s business had to be sold to meet his creditors. On top of this, a rumor began to be circulated that Henrik was the illegitimate son of another man. This fear (never proved), manifested itself in a theme of illegitimate offspring in Ibsen¹s later work. After his father’s business was possessed, all that remained of the family’s former wealth was a dilapidated farmhouse at the outskirts of Skein.
At the farmhouse, Ibsen began to attend a small middle-class school. In 1843, at the age of fifteen, Ibsen was taken from school and apprenticed to an apothecary despite his declared interest in becoming a painter.
Leaving his family, Ibsen traveled to Grimstad, a small, isolated town, to begin his apprenticeship, where he studied with the hopes of gaining admission to the University medical school. (While there he also fathered an illegitimate son by the servant of the apothecary). Grimstad is where Ibsen began to write in earnest. Inspired by the revolution of 1848 that was being felt throughout Europe, Ibsen wrote satire and elegant poetry. (Classic)
Henrik Ibsen became an extremely influential Norwegian playwright who was largely responsible for the rise of modern realistic drama.
His plays were considered scandalous in much of society at the time, when Victorian values of family life and propriety were still very much the norm, and any challenge to them considered immoral and outrageous. Ibsen's work examined the realities that lay behind many a facade, which the society of the time did not want to see.
In a very real way, Ibsen created the modern stage, by introducing a critical eye and free inquiry into the conditions of life and issues of morality. Prior to him, plays were expected to be moral dramas with noble protagonists pitted against darker forces. Every drama was expected to result in a "proper" conclusion, meaning that goodness was to bring happiness, and immorality only pain. Ibsen was to turn that concept on its head, challenging the beliefs of the times and shattering the illusions of his audiences. He was born into a relatively well-to-do family in the small port town of Skien, Norway, which was primarily noted for shipping timber. Shortly after his birth, however, his family's fortunes took a significant turn for the worse. His mother turned to religion for solace, while his father declined into a severe depression. The characters in his plays often mirror his parents, and his themes often deal with issues of financial difficulty.
His first play, Catilina (1848), was published when he was only 20, but was not performed. His first play to see production was The Burial Mound (1850), but it did not receive much attention. Still, Ibsen was determined to be a playwright, although he was not to write again for some years.
He spent the next several years employed at the Norwegian Theater, where he was involved in the production of more than 145 plays as a writer, director, and producer. During this period he did not publish any new plays of his own. Despite Ibsen's failure to achieve success as a playwright, at the Norwegian Theater he gained a great deal of practical experience, experience that was to prove valuable when next he wrote.
He returned to Oslo in 1857, where he lived in very poor financial circumstances. Still, he managed to marry (Suzannah) in 1859. He became very disenchanted with life in Norway, and left for Italy in 1864. He was not to return to his native land for the next 27 years, and when he returned it was to be as a noted playwright, however controversial.
His next play, Brand (1865), was to bring him the critical acclaim he sought, along with a measure of financial success, as was his next play, Peer Gynt (1867).
With success, he became more confident and began to introduce more and more of his own beliefs and judgments into his dramas, exploring what he termed the "drama of ideas". His next series of plays are often considered his Golden Age, when he entered the height of his power and influence, becoming the center of dramatic controversy across Europe.
A Doll's House (1879) was a scathing criticism of the traditional roles of men and women in Victorian marriage. …Some theatre houses refused to stage the play. Ibsen followed A Doll's House with Ghosts (1881), another scathing commentary on Victorian morality. In it, a widow reveals to her pastor that she has hidden the evils of her marriage for its duration. The pastor had advised her to marry her then fiancé despite his philandering, and she did so in the belief that her love would reform him. But she was not to receive the result she was promised. Her husband's philandering continued right up until his death, and the result is that her son is syphilitic. Even the mention of venereal disease was scandalous, but to show that even a person who followed society's ideals of morality had no protection against it, that was beyond scandalous. Hers was not the noble life which Victorians believed would result from fulfilling one's duty rather than following one's desires. Those idealized beliefs were only the “ghosts” of the past, haunting the present.
Society's criticism of Ibsen was raised to a fever pitch at this point, but society itself was losing its control over the mass of people, most of whom didn't live in the rarefied air of the Victorian Gentleman. They wanted to see Ibsen's plays because he showed what so many of them already knew to be the reality. The tide had turned.
In An Enemy of the People (1882), Ibsen went even further. Before, controversial elements were important and even pivotal components of the action, but they were on the small scale of individual households. In An Enemy, controversy became the primary focus, and the antagonist was the entire community. One primary message of the play is that the individual, who stands alone, is more often "right" than the mass of people, who are portrayed as ignorant and sheep-like. The Victorian belief was that the community was a noble institution that could be trusted, a fiction Ibsen challenged.
The protagonist is a doctor, a pillar of the community. The town is a vacation spot whose primary draw is a public bath. The doctor discovers that the water used by the bath is being contaminated when it seeps through the grounds of a local tannery. He expects to be acclaimed for saving the town from the nightmare of infecting visitors with disease, but instead he is declared “an enemy of the people” by the locals, who band against him and even throw stones through his windows. The play ends with his complete ostracism. It is obvious to the reader that disaster is in store for the town as well as for the doctor, due to the community's unwillingness to face reality.
As audiences by now expected of him, his next play again attacked entrenched beliefs and assumptions -- but this time his attack was not against the Victorians but against overeager reformers and their idealism. Always the iconoclast, Ibsen was as willing to tear down the ideologies of any part of the political spectrum, including his own.
The Wild Duck (1884) is considered by many to be Ibsen's finest work, and it is certainly the most complex. It tells the story of Gregers Werle, a young man who returns to his hometown after an extended exile and is reunited with his boyhood friend Hjalmar Ekdal. Over the course of the play the many secrets that lie behind the Ekdals' apparently happy home are revealed to Gregers, who insists on pursuing the absolute truth, or the "Summons of the Ideal". Among these truths: Gregers' father impregnated his servant Gina, then married her off to Hjalmar to legitimize the child. Another man has been disgraced and imprisoned for a crime the elder Werle committed. And while Hjalmar spends his days working on a wholly imaginary "invention", his wife is earning the household income.
Ibsen displays masterful use of irony: despite his dogmatic insistence on truth, Gregers never says what he thinks but only insinuates, and is never understood until the play reaches its climax. Gregers hammers away at Hjalmar through innuendo and coded phrases until he realizes the truth; Gina's daughter, Hedvig, is not his child. Blinded by Gregers' insistence on absolute truth, he disavows the child. Seeing the damage he has wrought, Gregers determines to repair things, and suggests to Hedvig that she sacrifice the wild duck, her wounded pet, to prove her love for Hjalmar. Hedvig, alone among the characters, recognizes that Gregers always speaks in code, and looking for the deeper meaning in the first important statement Gregers makes which does not contain one, kills herself rather than the duck in order to prove her love for him in the ultimate act of self-sacrifice. Only too late do Hjalmar and Gregers realize that the absolute truth of the "ideal" is sometimes too much for the human heart to bear.
Probably Ibsen's most performed play is Hedda Gabler (1890), the leading female role being regarded as one of the most challenging and rewarding for an actress even in the present day. There are many similarities between Hedda and the character of Nora in A Doll's House.
Ibsen had completely rewritten the rules of drama with a realism which was to be adopted by Chekhov and others, and which we see in the theater to this day. From Ibsen forward, challenging assumptions and directly speaking about issues has been considered one of the factors that makes a play Art rather than entertainment.
Finally, Ibsen returned to Norway in 1891, but it was in many ways not the Norway he had left. Indeed, he had played a major role in the changes that had happened across society. The Victorian Age was on its last legs, to be replaced by the rise of Modernism not only in the theater, but across public life.
With a stellar career behind him, the likes of which few authors or playwrights ever see, Ibsen died in Oslo. (Biography Base)
(http://www.biographybase.com)
(Classicnotes.com)
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