The Importance of Scenography in Miss Julie and A Doll's House

The Importance of Scenography in Miss Julie and A Doll's House The work of a playwright is customarily evaluated in terms of the interaction between the elements of literature such as setting, character, theme, plot, and style. Scenography, which deals with the physical materiality of a production, is probably the farthest away from the literal and abstract contents of a drama - elements which have traditionally gained the most attention and appreciation from audiences and critics alike. It is an aspect often undermined upon reading a play, despite its importance in enhancing dramatic effect and capacity to generate and convey ideological ideas to the audience. Both Strindberg and Ibsen wrote carefully visualized, highly charged mise-en-scene into their plays that serves a double role - on one hand, it is a functional construction assisting the actor's work, while on the other hand, it is aimed at concretizing the psychological states and spiritual conditions of the characters. The arrangement of space and visual environment around the characters, as well as the use of props in both A Doll's House and Miss Julie can be seen as metaphoric parallels into Nora's, Miss Julie's and Jean's emotional struggles. Miss Julie takes place over a very short time interval in the kitchen of the Count's country house. Although the kitchen is the only room visible on stage, there are

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Nora Helmer vs. Miss Julie - the Role of Women being Degraded by Man

Nora Helmer vs. Miss Julie - the Role of Women being Degraded by Man "A Doll's House" by Henrik Ibsen and "Miss Julie" by August Strindberg are two plays, the first from 1879 and the latter from 1888, which portrays the life and role of women at their time in society, as both have as their main characters two women - Nora Helmer and Miss Julie. Still, the role of women in the two plays is shown to be different. Strindberg, in one hand, conveys in "Miss Julie" that women are inferior in the society, as he pictures them as a less important form of human beings. In the other hand, Ibsen portrays Nora, at a first look, to be a standard innocent wife - showing women to be plain wives, mothers and working at home at the eyes of society. In order to show the need for change, Ibsen illustrates and emphasizes the subordination of women in the social pyramid. The purpose of this essay is to make a comparative analysis in order to understand the lives of these two women and the roles they've taken up in each play. In "A Doll's House", Nora is a housewife married to Torvald Helmer, and she stays at home with her children and managing the household. This is the typical life of a standard wife at that time. Ibsen leads on the play, penetrating and unveiling Nora in a subtle way conveying a huge effect. At the beginning he illustrates Nora to be taking the most normal life, and Torvald to

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