Herik Ibsen Father of Modern Drama - 1459 Words

Shivany Condor Mrs. Besnard IB English HL2 21 November 2013 Henrik Ibsen as â€Å"The Father of Modern Drama† Henrik Ibsen has long been referred to as the Father of Modern Drama, and such title has rightly been given so. Mr. Ibsen was one of the pioneer theatre dramaturges that began the Modernism Movement, primarily known as the Realism Movement. Modernism/Realism was a revolutionary idea back in Ibsen s time. Many concepts of theater - including plots, dialogue, and characters – were renovated in order to make theater more useful to society’s goals back then. During 1859 to 1900 s, before the rise of Realism, theatre was mainly composed of melodramas, spectacle plays, comic operas, and vaudevilles. The stories displayed did†¦show more content†¦He called these initial Realist theatre works his â€Å"problem plays.† For example, in A Doll’s House, Ibsen primarily mocks the 17th century society’s version of a â€Å"good† marriage. A Doll’s House was one of the problem plays tha t demanded a reform in the average marriage, the treatment/rights of women, and their inability to control money independently. To attract the public’s support, Ibsen used an easily relatable struggle in A Doll’s House: Nora s oppression as a woman both in her marriage and society. Many women of the 17th century - and maybe even nowadays - had the ability to connect to Nora’s struggle because the degrading of women was a very modern dilemma back in Ibsen’s times. Due to society in that era, women were expected to be very submissive to their husband’s desires. Ibsen wanted to show the world how primitive the expectation of a woman having to serve her husband was. They were seen as being below men and this is evidently shown with Torvald’s treatment of Nora. Torvalds thinks of Nora as a doll who needs him for protection. Torvald just loved her dependence on him, and to remind her of her place and duty as a wife, he would call her derogatory na mes that seem to have a loving purpose but are just downright disrespectful. Ibsen also wanted to show how such a controlling relationship from one end was bound to contain lies and deception. Torvald’s marriage