Dramatist Henrik Ibsen Essay

Henrik Johan Ibsen was a modern realistic dramatist. He is though of, by legion(predicate) authors and wagerwrights as the father of modern drama. Ibsen was considered a large(p) national treasure by the Norwegians. Henrik Ibsen wrote realityy controversial tactical manoeuvres which dealt with gender discrimination. The plays highlighted the struggles priggish women went through to find respect and adequateity. Ibsens take form gave insights into the barbarities that existed within the honor and society of those beats. Controversial writers like Ibsen intentionally or unintentionally oblige women to rise up and reclaim their rights.His work was considered immoral and come forwardrageous by many Europeans because it challenged their blue(a) note values. bandage other dramatists were writing moral dramas that consisted of a noble leaders character fighting against evil, Ibsen challenged the same nonion and came up with the opposite. He was born in Skien, a small Norwegi an village, on March 20, 1828 to parents Knud Ibsen and Marichen Altenburg. When he was eight age old, he suffered drastic changes in his family circumstances. His father was a rich merchant and extended to one of the elitist families of Norway.Unfortunately, the family went from prosperity to work out poverty. His mother hid her pain by becoming religious and his father became a depressive. This had a great effect on his later work. The protagonist of his many plays like his parents dealt with financial burdens and moral constraints. As a young man Ibsen was studious and non-athletic. He left home at the age of fifteen to be an apprentice pharmacist in the small town of Grimstad. He started writing plays in his ingenuous time. He had an illegitimate child with his wetnurse in 1846 and never accepted this child into his feel.He spent his free time preparing for his entrance into capital of Norway University. Bjorn give-and-take became friends with Ibsen at the same university. However, he never passed the entrance test and had to continue his writing. He make his setoff play Catilina in 1850 when he was only 22. He published under the inconclusive name Brynjulf Bjarme but the play it ego-importance was never performed. The first play present was the The Burial Mound in 1850. It left not much of an contact on the Norwegian audiences. Ibsen was unsounded determined to be a sucessful playwright but had to discontinue his writing for a few years.Soon he went to Bergen was hired at the Norwegian Theater and helped produce 145 plays. However, he refrained from publishing his own plays. Instead he worked on getting expensive practical experience at writing, directing and producing. In 1858 he returned to Christiania and started working at the Christianias National Theater. He hook up with Suzannah Thoresen in 1858 and some(prenominal) had had their first child Sigurd. They lived through financial problems and Ibsen became acerb nearly life in Norway . He make a execute to Italy in 1864 to better his financial conditions.He returned to Norway later 27 years. While living in Italy in 1865, he introduced his next play, Brand. The play brought Ibsen the much craved financial success and critical acclaim he needed. His next play Peer Gynt published in 1867 was just as sucessful. He became more and more confident about his work and merged his own views and judgements into the plays. He called his own work drama of ideas. The plays scripted after this time earned him power and influence and spurred tilt all crossways Europe. In this golden age he wrote many of his stovepipe plays.In 1868, Ibsen travelled to Dresden, Germany. He stayed in Germany and wrote the play Emperor and Galilean in 1873 about the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate. Although he thought this was his best work however others disagreed. The work that received the most international maintenance and critical acclaim was A Dolls House. It was scripted in 1879 and criticised the traditional gender theatrical roles in squeamish Society. The play was about Nora a middle class Victorian woman, ruled by her husband and unaware of her state of unfulfillment. It was set in the late 1800s during Christmas time in Norway.When Nora the protagonist was thrown into a dire situation she attempt to treasure her husband and family by committing forgery and dishonestly obtaining a loan. As a woman, she was completely oblivious to the legal consequences of her act. She believed her special post would protect her and her kids. The law on the other hand expected her to know better. At this moment she realized the hypocrisy of the system and tried to break onward from her doll like shell. She suddenly wanted to live a life less frivolous. Soon, she gets a job and starts earning her own money. This new found emancipation enthralled her.However, her relationship with her husband spirals downwards and sows the seed of doubt and self reflection. Nora, thro ughout the play never left the get on of her apartment. This one room showed various shades of hypocrisy, discrimination, arrogance and dishonesty exhibited by society. It could be Ibsens way of showing a microscopic vision of the world. It showed the plight and wretched of every woman in every preindicationhold all around the world. The fact that Nora does not leave the room throughout the play showed how she had been confine in this Victorian Doll House.The original ending broke boundaries and spewed controversy in many European countries. The original ending showed Nora rebelling against her husband, her father and ultimately the patriarchal society. However, it caused too much shock and disagreement within the audiences and Ibsen was obligate to change it. He later on lived to regret the change. Ibsens work showed the cruelty towards women in the Victorian Age. The law dictated that property children and income should belong only to men. Divorce or Separation was shunned u pon. Working women were frowned upon by society.The status of women was equivalent to the slaves, criminals or the insane. A woman had the role of reproducing children, keeping the house clean, and feeding the children while the husband worked. To conclude, this play had a great role in convincing men and women of the Victorian age that women should get equal pay for equal work equal rights to enjoy an independent self sufficient life rights to child custody and divorce equal tiptop in legal matters Equal access to knowledge. Nora, the leading lady made a great sacrifice when she left her husband and stopped universe treating like a mere rag doll.She influenced many other women that they shouldnt be treated like inanimate objects that are dispensable by the society. She taught them that they deserved respect, rights and esteem. After writing this phenomenal scathing criticism of Victorian Life, he wrote another play named Ghosts in 1881. The play was about a widow that revealed to a pastor about her life with a philandering husband. It was the first time any play had mentioned sexually transmitted diseases. In the play, the son contracted syphilis as a result of his fathers many affairs with women.The widows morality could not go along her from hidden evils. The play relayed to the public that sometimes fulfilling duties rather than desires can still cause trouble. In 1882, the play An Enemy of the People continued to be controversial. Ibsen challenged the notion that the society or community was an ethical institition. This was a chasticism of both liberals and the ring wingers. The plot was about a doctor revered by the community. However, when he tries to save the community he is called the enemy of the people. in the end the community ostracized him.Arthur Miller, an American playwright divine by this play vary it corresponding to Trumanism in America. Films were made based on this play in Bangladesh and America. The next play called The Wild Duck at tacked the beliefs of reformers and their idealistic ideologies. The play was published in 1884 and proved to be Ibsens best and the most mazy work to date. The plot was strewn around a young man named Gregers Werle who after a long exile reunites with his childhood pal Hjalmar Ekdal. Werle soon finds out the secrets behind Ekdal and his picture perfect family.Ekdals father had impreganted a retainer girl named Gina. He quickly married her to his son to legetimize the child. When Gregers convinces Ekdal that Hedvig is not his child he disavows her. Hedvig to prove her love for her father kills herself in a climatic end. At the end of his career he stopped denouncing Victorian morality but moved onto introspective dramas that dealt with interpersonal confrontations. Both plays Hedda Gabler written in 1890 and The Master Builder written in 1892 had female leading characters whose energies benefitted and destructed those around them.The personalities of Hedda Gabbler and Nora from The Doll House were quite similar. Ibsen completely revolutionized drama and inspired playwrights like Chekhov and many others. His plays were never written purely for entertainment value but to force a change within society. When he returned in 1891 to Norway, modernism had risen and replaced the dated Victorian ideals. Ibsens work was ideal and he died on May 23, 1906 in Christiania. A hundred years after his death, Norwegian authorities named 2006 as the Ibsen year to commemerate his wonderful work. whole kit CITED Henrik Ibsen. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 20 Apr 2007, 2004 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 27 Apr 2007 Bellinger, Martha Fletcher. A Short history of Drama. 1927. pp. 317-22. New York Henry Holt & Company. 27 April 2007. http//www. theatredatabase. com/19th_century/henrik_ibsen_001. html Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906). Pegasos. 2002. 27 Apr 2007. http//www. kirjasto. sci. fi/ibsen. htm