There are many formal features in soaps and they are time, settings, narrative and characters.

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Soap Essay

Soap opera can be defined by looking at the two words separately: The word soap originated from soap powders because the women used to stay at home looking after the house and children and would watch T.V while doing the ironing and it would show soap powder adverts between programmes. The word opera means emphasis on emotion. Soap operas were first heard on the radio during the war because they didn't have much money and it was not safe to go out.

There are many formal features in soaps and they are time, settings, narrative and characters.

All soaps last half an hour each episode and they all show 'real time' focusing on real events like those experienced by the audience that day (e.g. Going to work or having a family feud) although some episodes are quite exaggerated compared to audiences real life. There are ways that soaps show 'real time': they have the same days (e.g. In Tuesday's episode of Eastenders you may hear Alfie talking about what he is going to do in the pub Wednesday) having special events at the same time (e.g. Bank holiday, New Year, Christmas etc)