You are currently browsing the Point Of View category

POV Paper- Racism in Irena’s Vow and Madama Butterfly

§ December 19th, 2008 § Filed under Point Of View § No Comments

Irena Gut Opdyke from Dan Gordon’s Irena’s Vow and Madama Butterfly from Puccini’s Madama Butterfly both encountered racism from their significant others. Irena endured oppression during the Holocaust, when millions of Poles (among other victimized races, including Jews) perished under German tyranny. Her lover was Major Eduard Rugemer,  a Nazi officer who clarified his distaste for non-Aryan, “inferior” races. Madama Butterfly encountered racism during the early 1900’s from her husband, American Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton. The libretto, written from a Western perspective, depicted Eastern nations as substandard. Westerners equated Easterners with feminine qualities, believing that Asians were submissive, fragile, and easily overpowered.  Pinkerton exemplified that viewpoint by dominating and manipulating Madama Butterfly. Throughout their marriage, she became completely obedient and dependent upon him. On the contrary, Irena refused to be victimized in her relationship and fought for survival and independence.
Irena’s sexual relationship with Major Rugemer and Butterfly’s marriage to Pinkerton started under different circumstances. In the former, Major Rugemer despised Poles but allowed Irena to serve as his housekeeper. She lived in constant terror, worrying whether the twelve Jewish companions she was hiding would be discovered. Eventually, Rugemer found out and threatened to expose them publicly unless Irena became his mistress. While he loved her, Irena obliged solely to ensure her and her Jewish companions’ survival. Irena agreed to this relationship with honorable intentions, fighting the Nazi regime by protecting and saving Jews. Major Rugemer’s discovery of the Jews and his consequent request created an intense, dramatic scene. Shocked and outraged by Irena’s betrayal, Rugemer smoldered with pure wrath. He withdrew his gun, silencing Irena’s feeble attempts to explain the situation. It appeared certain that Rugemer would murder Irena, until he lowered the weapon and confessed that he loved her. Unless she returned his love and became his mistress, she and her Jewish companions would be murdered. Irena’s expressions betrayed her conflicted feelings and a dreadful silence loomed as she considered the request. Remembering her promise to keep the twelve Jews safe, she finally agreed in a soft, trembling voice. Major Rugemer calmly walked away, pretending as though the encounter never happened. Although he despised Jews, he manipulated the situation to serve his selfish purpose and degraded Irena.
Similarly to Rugemer, Pinkerton used Butterfly for sensual pleasure in Madama Butterfly. Similarly to Irena, Pinkerton feigned his love. His intentions and discriminatory viewpoints were clear from the very beginning. During his brief stay in Japan, he would marry a compliant and delicate native woman. When he returned to America, he would remarry an American woman indefinitely. He actually purchased Butterfly from a marriage-broker, as though she were a disposable product rather than a human being. In these terms, Pinkerton regarded Butterfly as a toy, something to play with until he became bored or found somebody better.  Unlike Irena, Butterfly completely bought Pinkerton’s act and succumbed to racism; she was younger, 15-years-old, and naïve. She was initially unaware of the truth and unwilling to accept it after Pinkerton returned to America and deserted her.
Madama Butterfly’s submission was unrelated to honorable intentions; by marrying a Westerner and converting to Christianity, she rejected her Japanese roots. This destroyed her companions and family, who rejected her and furiously stormed out the wedding. By changing religions before marriage, Butterfly was already conforming to Pinkerton’s stereotypical belief that Easterners were easily influenced. When Madama Butterfly finally recognized Pinkerton’s true intentions and discriminatory views, she felt defeated. Unlike Irena, she could not overcome the oppression and gain control of the situation because it was too late; Pinkerton had married an American woman and her family and friends had disowned her. She had allowed herself to be swept away and dominated, coinciding with the Western world’s perception of Asians. Heartbroken by Pinkterton’s deceit and rejection because she was Japanese, Butterfly ultimately committed suicide.
Irena and Madama Butterfly both encountered different forms of racism. Irena endured oppression during the Holocaust for being Polish and therefore inferior by Nazi standards. Madama Butterfly was discriminated against Western nations viewed Eastern countries as substandard. Irena’s lover, SS officer Major Eduard Rugemer, and Butterfly’s husband, Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton, both discriminated against their significant others. Both relationships were founded on feigned interest and relatively short-term. However, Madama Butterfly was ambiguous to the racism and truly loved Pinkerton, becoming submissive and conforming to the Western perception of Asians. Irena recognized the prejudice and became Major Rugemer’s mistress to ensure her and her Jewish companions’ survival.

-Ramandeep Singh

Andrey Grebenetsky-POV Paper

§ December 18th, 2008 § Filed under Assignments, Point Of View § No Comments

 

Point Of View: Turner vs. Monet

 

 

          Art is the ultimate form of self-expression.  It exists in several forms such as sculpture, theatre, music, and painting.  For many, it provides a means to achieve what Maslow believed to be the highest human need, self-actualization.  A skilled artist can depict and immortalize his or her feelings, what they stand for, major events, or even market something to the public.  They may pass on, but their art, their calling remains, whether embedded in stone, on canvas or paper, or on film.   

            Water is the basic building block of life.  In its liquid form, it is at the same time majestic as an ocean, conforming to a container, life-giving biologically, and life-taking ironically.  Its flow serves as the thesis of microphysics and is extraordinarily difficult to recreate in the virtual reality of a video game.  Needless to say, with water’s status as a vital force, artists have had no choice but to undertake the tall task of depicting water on canvas.  Their methods are purely individual and bear results that are dramatically unique.  We will be comparing two  select works of art that are dominated by water, one by Joseph M.W Turner, and one by Claude Monet. 

            J.M.W Turner’s 1805 masterpiece, Shipwreck, is a stunning display of the otherworldliness of water.  It depicts how something most view as calm and tranquil can claim countless lives during storms at sea.  As the title implies, the painting depicts several ships being overtaken by the tempest.  The first aspect of this marvel that comes to mind is extraordinary realism.  It is a nearly photographical account of an event.    Immediately, the viewer cannot help but to believe in the painting and feel empathy for the people doomed to perish.  It could serve as a prime example of dire straits.  Fascinated by the sublime force of the sea, Turner placed humans to dramatize their susceptibility of humanity to the natural world.

            The water is the essence of The Shipwreck, and its grandeur is beautifully rendered.  Commonly known as “The Painter Of Light,” (National Gallery) Turner decided to challenge himself with a morning storm.   That concept forced him to use a greater variety of colors for the water, yielding extremely fine detail.  The darker depths of water, the lighter waves, and the white foam on top of the waves is beautifully rendered.  Somewhat resembling flash photography, the morning sun creeps through the storm clouds, illuminating the water and ships.  At the same time, the light allows for a stronger, more personal visual account of the damage done.  It appears to be the instant before the end, as the largest ship has toppled over, causing a wave that will momentarily engulf the remaining ships. 

            This and many other Turner paintings served as a source of study and inspiration for Claude Monet when he visited England in 1870, nineteen years after Turner’s death.(Pioch)  In 1872/1873, Monet released his magnum opus, Impression, Sunrise.  It was in reviewing this epochal painting that art critic Louis Leroy coined the term “Impressionism.”(Art Picture)

            Monet depicted a calm sunrise at sea, definitely not sharing Turner’s zeal for the extremes of nature, but sharing his zeal for landscaping or in this case, “seascaping.”  The visibility of a body of land in the background serves to illustrate tranquility and safety.  The first major characteristic of impressionist painting is the presence of visual brush strokes, and Monet masterfully executed this technique.  Unlike The Shipwreck, which lacks visible brushstrokes, Impression, Sunrise is built with them like a bridge made out of popsicle sticks and toothpicks.  The sun reflecting off of the water is done with a linear series of parallel orange brush strokes, almost comical in simplicity, yet stunning in appearance.   Small waves in the foreground are illustrated with dark blue brush stokes contrasting from the lighter sea, heavily dissenting from Turner in that the contrasting colors were the opposite for his waves.  

Another aspect of Impressionist painting was the use of ordinary subject matter and the inclusion of movement.  In stunning simplicity, a single boat is left for the mid-background of the painting and requires only a smudge of ink.  However, a person is seen standing in the boat and rowing.  Larger, more complex ships are anchored nearer to the landmass and Monet beautifully uses the illusion of a slight fog overlapping the ships to make them opaquely visible.  Movement is included with the smoke blowing from the exhausts of the ship’s engines. 

The last aspect of Impressionism is the use of unusual visual angles.  Monet takes a high altitude viewpoint even though the point of view of the painting is at sea.  That implies that Monet or the viewer is either a higher figure looking down or on top of a tall mast of a ship.  I lean towards the higher power because the viewpoint is on the same level of the sun.  A modern viewer could imagine that he was parasailing off of the small boat.

Overall, Turner and Monet both produced dazzling yet fundamentally different works of art and depictions of water.  Which is better is highly subjective and it is safe to say that depicting water is extremely difficult to do and completely up to the artist.  There are many ways to portray it, as frightening, as calm, as blue, as orange, as realistic, or as impressionistic.  In the end, Monet was influenced by Turner and created his own distinct style, and that is the beauty of art. 

Works Cited:

The National Gallery. “TURNER, Joseph Mallord William”  (no author credited) http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/artistBiography?artistID=702

 

Pioch Nicolas.  “Monet, Claude.”  WebMuseum, Paris  19 September 2002    http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/monet/

 

Art In The Picture ,  Impressionism – Overview   2008 (no author credited)  http://www.artinthepicture.com/styles/Impressionism/

 

Turner, J.M.W  “Shipwreck of the Minotaur,” 1805 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Shipwreck_turner.jpg

 

Monet, Claude  “Impression, Sunrise”  1872/1873  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Claude_Monet,_Impression,_soleil_levant,_1872.jpg

POV Point of View Paper - Yan Davydov

§ December 18th, 2008 § Filed under Assignments, Point Of View § Tagged § No Comments

Point of View Paper:
Considering David H. Hwang’s M. Butterfly and David Belasco’s Madama Butterfly

It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder; that is to say, what is beautiful for one may not be so for another. The play Madama Butterfly by David Belasco and the dramatic play M. Butterfly by David H. Hwang both deal with the topic of Western attraction towards the stereotypically humble and modest Butterflies of the Orient. Having read the dramatic play M. Butterfly after reading the play Madama Butterfly, uncertainties are raised about how one would feel about both works in relation to one another, and effectively deciding whether or not they are “beautiful” in one’s eyes. Although can be admired and greatly enjoyed on a separate scale, co-examining their unique approaches to the Western/Oriental relationship will raise questions as to any original opinion of Madama Butterfly because of what is presented in M. Butterfly.
When I first read Belasco’s play, I found it to have a truly enticing storyline. Each added twist – a wealthy Japanese suitor, a young baby, a new wife, adoption – threw me for a loop and made me just a little bit more eager to find out how the story ends. I was most impressed by Cho-Cho-San’s saint-like bravery and patience with the entire heart wrenching ordeal. The end scene, in which Cho-Cho-San performs the ritualistic hari-kari because she believes that is better to “die with honor when one can no longer live with honor,” shows just how painful finally realizing Pinkerton abandoned her was to her. After reading it, I considered Madama Butterfly to be one of the most beautiful tales of unrequited love ever written. Pinkerton’s selfishness and mistakes did not go unnoticed, but it seemed to me that this was the expected and usual course of a Western/Oriental relationship, as both Mr. Sharpless and Yamadori repeatedly reminded Cho-Cho-San.
But after reading David H. Hwang’s M. Butterfly I realized that as a young Westerner myself, I had not at all shown empathy for the other side of the spectrum – that of Asian people. One paragraph in particular in M. Butterfly resounded deeply for me, and changed everything. The paragraph begins with a sharp accusation from the character Song Liling against Rene Gallimard. As Song said, “It’s one of your favorite fantasies, isn’t it? The submissive Oriental woman and the cruel white man.” This quote could very well be Hwang vicariously expressing his personal opinions against the phenomenon of romanticized Western-Dominant/Oriental-Submissive relationships that were so common during the greater part of his lifetime, the 20th Century. After reading Belasco’s Madama Butterfly, Hwang commented that, “it contained a wealth of sexist and racial clichés, reaffirming my faith [or lack thereof] in Western culture” (Hwang 86). I understood that for Hwang, the famous Madama Butterfly was not beautiful at all, to say the least.
In order to understand possible motives that Hwang may have had in writing M. Butterfly, one should take into consideration his background history. From the foreword in the Dramatists Play Service copy of M. Butterfly, I learned that Hwang was born in 1957 in California to first generation Chinese-Americans. He grew up in California and today lives in Los Angeles. By all counts, I would say that Hwang grew up as an American through and through. Then, in 1986, the unbelievable scandal involving an imprisoned French diplomat and his Chinese lover was publicized. It turned out to be a Chinese male spy who paraded around as a woman for twenty years with the French diplomat in order to obtain valuable information from him. With this, the wheels were put in motion for one of Hwang’s great works, M. Butterfly.
Although I do not think there is any reason to believe Hwang’s motives were actually anti-Western, M. Butterfly is not without its faults. There are moments in M. Butterfly that outright humiliate the Western character, Rene Gallimard. Indeed, the two main white characters, Rene and his friend Marc, represent only two stereotypical manifestations of Westerners. Rene is the weak man who falls short of success all his life, and Marc is made out to be the promiscuous playboy with no morals. In an ultimate “slap to the Westerner’s face,” Rene realizes too late that he was duped into being the Oriental butterfly, a role reversal that was planned by Song since the beginning. (The “M” in M. Butterfly does not stand for “Madama,” but rather for “Monsieur.”) The following excerpt from M. Butterfly (a continuation from the earlier mentioned quote) gives further insight into the mindset of Hwang, as expressed via the character Song:

Song: Consider it this way: what would you say if a blonde homecoming queen fell in love with a short Japanese businessman? He treats her cruelly, then goes home for three years, during which time she prays to his picture and turns down marriage from a young Kennedy. Then, when she learns he has remarried, she kills herself. Now, I believe you would consider this girl to be a deranged idiot, correct? But because it’s an Oriental who kills herself for a Westerner – ah! – you find it beautiful. (Silence)

This paragraph brings up the possibility that perhaps Belasco’s Madama Butterfly is actually an erroneous representation of what true love is. Hwang argues that the typical Western/Oriental relationship is a humiliating scam for the Asian party. For him, Madama Butterfly is based entirely on this principle and there is nothing beautiful about the story.
As I’ve already said, I admire and greatly enjoy Belasco’s Madama Butterfly and Hwang’s M. Butterfly as two separate works. But since the two are inarguably interlinked, each offering opposing views on the same topic, it is impossible to shield oneself behind that statement for long. When comparing the two works of art, it would seem that Madama Butterfly, the story of suicide in the name of true love, is the more romanticized one. M. Butterfly, the story of a grotesque relationship between a delusional man and an opportunistic antagonist, would be the more twisted one. However, there are facts that support the opposite argument for both works. In Madama Butterfly, Cho-Cho-San’s hari-kari is in itself a twisted act. And in M. Butterfly, Rene’s love for a stereotypical idealized “Oriental butterfly,” is as strong as, if not stronger than, Cho-Cho-San’s romantic love for Pinkerton – it certainly fooled him for 20 years.
Either way, both works are based on events that actually happened in real life at some point, which is to say that life is equally as romantic and twisted. After all, as Pablo Picasso said, “We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth…” In my opinion, Madama Butterfly is beautiful, as is M. Butterfly. Hwang’s postmodern take on the Western/Oriental relationship serves to bring forward the other side of the story, inverting what was commonly accepted as the norm. I think they work together in a paradoxical sort of harmony, ultimately brining out the best and worst in one another.

Orientalism: Transcending Culture and Extending Towards Gender - POV

§ December 18th, 2008 § Filed under Point Of View § No Comments

Western writers have long been producing popular stories about Americans living and interacting with Easterners. Among these stories are Madama Butterfly, an opera adapted by Giacomo Puccini, and Tales of the South Pacific, a series of related short stories written by James A. Michener. Surprisingly, both of these works centralize on an American officer falling in love with an Asian woman, but leaving her heart-broken and deserted. The West has dominance over the East, just as the male has power over the female. Orientals, just like women, are idealized to be beautiful, exotic, loving, and obedient, giving all and demanding nothing.

The protagonist in Madama Butterfly, Cio-Cio-San is fifteen years old – a childlike geisha. Pinkerton exploits the powerlessness of her youth, sex, poverty, and race as he alienates her from her Japanese family, religion, and language. However, in true Orientalist fashion, Cio-Cio-San does not utter a single word of protest or anger; she willingly gives up these things for him. In fact, Cio-Cio-San even takes on the new role of an American wife to accommodate her husband. She offers Sharpless, the consul who made marriage arrangements for the couple, American cigars and corrects him when he calls her Madame Butterfly; “nay,” she says, “Madame Pinkerton.”

When Pinkerton deserts her for three years, Cio-Cio-San still trusts that he would go back to her “with the roses, / The warm and sunny season / When the red-breasted robins Are busy nesting,” as he promised. Every Spring, she decorates the house to faithfully await his return, refusing to even consider the possibility that he has left her for good. Cio-Cio-San completely disregards the Japanese law that “For the wife desertion / gives the right of divorce” because to her, the United States is now her home country. There, she thinks, husbands are not free to leave their wives as they please; the “unbiass’d judge” will put them in prison for being “wicked scoundrel[s].”

In the end, even when she realizes that Pinkerton has married another woman, a real American wife, Cio-Cio-San not only agrees to give up her child to them, but also kills herself because of him. Her suicide to keep her honor is unreasonable because she still has other choices; many Japanese men want to marry her. Prince Yamadori, for instance, is rich, handsome, and royal. Yet, Cio-Cio-San refuses to even consider him, who, unlike Pinkerton, “would swear eternal faith” to her, because she does not “think it, for [she] know[s] it” that she is still married.

To Cio-Cio-San, Pinkerton is everything; thus, when he deserts her, he leaves her with nothing. Pinkerton, on the other hand, is “marrying in Japanese / fashion, tied for nine hundred / and ninety-nine /years! Free, though, to annul the marriage monthly!” Cio-Cio-San thinks their marriage is based on love, but only because she does not know the real him. Thus, her tragic fate was sealed from the beginning because Pinkerton never had any intensions of staying in Japan.

In Tales of the South Pacific, Lieutenant Joe Cable and his Oriental Tonkinese girl share a similar story. Liat, like Cio-Cio-San, is a quiet, young, beautiful girl. The two also have a language barrier, as Liat only speaks French while Cable only speaks English. Yet, somehow, he manages to ravish her. When Blood Mary, Liat’s mother, hands her over to Cable, she willingly embraces and accepts him as if being given to a strange man is perfectly normal. Liat is submissive, exotic, and erotic; the couple has sexual relations and fall in love.

At first, when Bloody Mary makes marriage arrangements for the couple, however, Cable does not accept. He cannot see himself, a White man, becoming the husband of an Oriental woman because they are of different statuses. Cable would not be able to bring Liat back to America without being shunned by his family and friends; she does not meet society’s expectations as a wife for him. He cannot risk his reputation and ideals, even though he finds “true love”. Soon after seeing Liat a few more times, though, Cable changes his mind. He comes to a sudden realization that everything he wants is with her; Cable decides to stay with her on Bali Ha’i and not go back to America.

This, of course, is a big taboo; no American should give up their life and settle down with a lowly Asian girl. Thus, Cable knowingly accepts a dangerous mission to go behind Japanese lines and spy on them. He claims that he loves Liat tremendously, but does not hesitate to think that he could lose her for good. Cable vows never to go back to his home country, but ironically, is willing to give up his life to win a war for America. Unsurprisingly, the Japanese discover Cable and kill him. Now he does not have to return to Liat and decide what to do with her. He does not have to continue choosing between his mind and his emotions. Liat is thus left heart-broken and without her lover, who gallantly sacrifices himself for a place he originally “renounces” for her.

In these two love stories, the Western white man wins over the Eastern Asian woman – the perfect stereotypical sexual and colonial fantasy. People view the world as having two unequal halves: the developing East and the developed West. The imbalance of power is apparent, as the West constructs the East as a place that is weak enough to conquer and rule, simply because the latter is seen as more “feminine” and the former as more “masculine.” Thus, as the Orients try to gain respectability and power in the world, women are forced to do the same in society.

Carissa Dech

Mariya Morgaylo’s POV paper

§ December 18th, 2008 § Filed under Point Of View § No Comments

In between the lines there’s something to relate to.
Art is a lens that distorts the world around us to reveal a truth that is otherwise overlooked. Sometimes this distortion merely presents this world bluntly and without embellishment to expose an unpleasant reality. At other times it utilizes symbolism and abstraction to force an onlooker to think, analyze, and push the limits of his comfort zone to realize something new. Georg Buchner’s “Woyzeck” and Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” propose two very different means of seeing reality and thus while the former conveys large-scale issues, the former is far more accessible to the 21st century audience.
Both “Woyzeck” and “A Doll’s House” were 19th century plays that became definitive of two polar schools of art: expressionism, in which the artist attempts to depict the subjective emotions that objects arouse in him ; and realism in which the artist depicts familiar scenes and events as they actually looked, typically in an effort to express a sociopolitical or moral message1. These plays take place over the course of two days and to an extent, portray the deterioration of a relationship between a man and his partner.  The effects they produced however are extremely different.
“A Doll’s House” is made up of three acts that take place in the same scene. The scene is described with minute details that entail not only what the set is decorated with, but also the exact location of each item, “A comfortable room, tastefully but not expensively furnished… in the left-hand wall a door, and further back a window. Near the window a round table with an armchair and a small sofa” (Norton,1508). In the same manner, the stage directions are very concise.  Ibsen often indicates the texture of voice of the characters as well as their motions on stage. There is very little room for an actor to personalize each character. As a result, the characters become very concrete and are difficult to reinvent with different actors.  A definitive example is when Torvald reaches for the letter Krogstad had written him, exposing Nora, “NORA: [With bewildered glances, groping about, seizing HELMER’S domino, throwing it around her, and speaking in short, hoarse, broken whispers,]” (Norton, pg. 1549).  Every motion is accounted for and defined.

“Woyzeck” was written in open form, so various theater interpretations adapted different scene sequences. For the purposes of this paper, I am using Dan Farrelly’s translation of the play as well as the scene sequence he provides; and I will be focusing on the three final scenes 23-25. Scene 23 has very sparse stage direction, indicating only that Woyzeck is alone, and at the end of the short scene he runs away. This leaves the actor a lot of room to personalize the Woyzeck through mannerisms and gestures. Woyzeck’s mood is open to interpretation because his tone of voice or attitude is not explicitly defined. The other two scenes are equally unspecific and provide little (if any) direction. Expressionism is an art form that seeks to depict the subjective emotions of the artist, Buchner attempts to do this without direction, and it would not be surprising if his message were lost in translation.
The dialogue in “A Doll’s House” is extremely expressive. The characters reveal their entire thought processes to the audience openly. Some of the lines are written in stream of consciousness, which puts the audience into the mind of the characters. I refer to my previous example, where as Torvald reaches for the envelope, Nora is thrown into fear, “Never see him again. Never, never… Never see the children either – them, too. Never, never. Oh, the freezing black water! The depths – down – Oh, I wish it were over – ” (Norton, 1549). This is revealing not only of Nora’s suicidal thoughts, but also of her frantic state of mind evidenced by the repetition and frequent use of dashes where her thought breaks off. This allows the audience to better understand her position. With every motive and thought on the table, there is little left for the imagination.
The dialogue in “Woyzeck” is much more terse and as a result, less telling of the minds of the characters. For the sake of the focus of the paper I will maintain my focus on the final three scenes. Here, there is ample use of stream of consciousness as Woyzeck realizes he has killed Marie, “The knife? Where’s the knife? I left it here. It’ll give me away. Closer, still closer…Marie? Hey Marie! Sshh! Quiet, quiet as death. Why are you so pale, Marie?” (Farrelly, 30-31).  The similar repetition and abrupt change in thought reveals the disturbed mind of our hero. Buchner does not indicate whether Woyzeck actually sees the corpse in front of him or if she is in his mind, yet another element open to interpretation. Unlike in “A Doll’s House,” the rare glimpses we get into the characters’ minds indicate particular significance. Woyzeck’s mind is deteriorating, and insight into his thought process is almost necessary to see that. On the other hand, Nora’s thoughts are exposed for the sole benefit of the audience, to provide a comprehensive character sketch. In both cases stream of consciousness exposes the mentality and emotional state of the character.
Because Ibsen meticulously details the motives and rationale of both Nora and Torvald, the play does not have a hero or villain. Both characters are imperfect and deserve both sympathy and criticism. Torvald in particular, softens towards the conclusion as he is on the brink of losing his wife. His genuine desperation to keep his family together allows the audience to better understand his position, “I see. There’s a gulf that’s opened between us – that’s clear. Oh, but Nora, can’t we bridge it somehow?” (Norton, 1555). The more the playwright describes the character, the more difficult it is to label him/her as merely a protagonist or antagonist. In “Woyzeck,” although the main character is a murderer, we understand his motives and drives, whereas the other characters’ thoughts are not described nearly as vividly. As a result, the audience has a hard time rationalizing their actions and may be rash to demonize them. This leaves the director a lot of room for creative license, where he may chose to make Marie, the Doctor and the Drum Major relatable or allow them to remain as antagonistic forces. These ambiguities might cause different interpretations of the work, so Buchner’s personal subjective view may not be conveyed.
The greatest difference between expressionistic theater and realistic theater is the former employs selective focus to express a subjective view. The more details and direction a playwright provides the more concrete and rigid the play will be, essentially providing almost any audience a single moral or idea. By leaving many gaps in both stage direction and dialogue, an author’s intention may be lost. Both actors and directors may have the option of personalizing characters by taste and the audience’s perspective may become skewed. Despite this, the ambiguities that come hand-in-hand with expressionism are extremely engaging to the audience because it is encouraged to actively seek out messages. Whether direct or not, both expressionist and realist works encourage an audience to rethink reality and convention.

« Older Entries