In Henrik Ibsen's acclaimed play Hedda Gabler, the main female character, Hedda Gabler, is a modern woman striving to attain her desires through manipulation. She persistently endeavors to create a world that matches her masculine character by...

In Whale’s classic motion picture interpretation of Frankenstein, the Creature is nothing but a monster, a blight to humanity, from the moment of his creation. The inherently evil nature depicted in the movie comes as a direct result of the...

For centuries, authors have strived to use their literary texts as a medium for social change and justice – conveying their thoughts and ideas on a variety of key issues and themes. In “Hedda Gabler” by Henrik Ibsen and “Master Harold and the...

Henrik Ibsen was born in 1828 to a merchant family in the small Norwegian town of Skien. After his family fell into poverty, he was forced out of his education and, at 15, worked as an apprentice in a pharmacy. It was here that he began writing...

The play Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen centers on a woman named Hedda, the daughter of General Gabler, who is married to George Tesman - a person in the middle class. In the play, Ibsen has described the set in a way which makes it very distinct;...

With the advent of the Industrial Revolution came new schools of thought that attempted to define the position of the individual within the society. The Romantic Era that dominated the early part of the 19th century tried to establish the...

In Jane Austen’s Persuasion, Lady Russell convinces Anne not to marry Frederick Wentworth as she finds him unworthy of Anne. Similarly, in Hedda Gabler, Hedda herself conceals her knowledge of and destroys Eilert’s manuscript in order to end his...

Typical of his work, Henrik Ibsen's ‘Hedda Gabler' challenges social convention through deeply flawed and simultaneously, progressive characters. Eilert Loevborg is one of the more unconventional characters in the play, and as a man who has solely...

Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler reflects the life of the eponymous protagonist against the backdrop of a wealthy upper middle class Norwegian city in the nineteenth century. During this time, there were clear social structures and traditions shown...

The Role of Women in "A Doll's House" and "Ghosts"

The role of women has changed significantly throughout history, driven in part by women who took risks in setting examples for others to follow. During the Victorian era, women were beginning to...

The playwright Henrik Ibsen once stated, “Do you know what we are those of us who count as pillars of society? We are society's tools, neither more nor less.” Ibsen was a great anti-idealistic writer of the mid to late nineteenth century. His...

Mrs. Alving: "But I’m inclined to think we’re all ghosts, Pastor Manders; it’s not only the things that we’ve inherited from our fathers and mothers that live on in us, but all sorts of old dead ideas and old dead beliefs, and things of that sort....

Culture perceives ghosts as apparitions that appear in the dark to petrify the living. Adichie’s interpretation of ghosts, however, transcends the literal. In “Ghosts,” true phantoms are the memories that haunt us. James’ past trauma festers as...

Both William Shakespeare and Eamon Flack cleverly invite us to experience and explore discovery through their texts, the tempest and ghosts, respectively. It appears common in both texts that a discovery of family betrayal prompts both Prospero in...

In Henrik Ibsen’s famous yet controversial play The Wild Duck, most of the significant events are mental and psychological. Specifically, it is the subconscious thoughts of Hjalmar Ekdal that construct the play. As the protagonist of the play,...

In An Enemy of the People, Henrik Ibsen dissects the social malaise that arises from democracy’s twin failures to sanction controversial scientific breakthroughs and to allocate liberty and sovereignty to the area of scientific research. In this...

Henrik Ibsen was born in 1828 to a merchant family in the small Norwegian town of Skien. After his family fell into poverty, he was forced out of his education and, at 15, worked as an apprentice in a pharmacy. It was here that he began writing...

“ I think we must agree that fools are in a terrible, overwhelming majority, all the wide world over. But how in the devil’s name can it ever be right for fools to rule over wise men?” (113). This quote describes Henrik Ibsen’s philosophy towards...

Henry Ibsen’s 1882 play Enemy of the People and Steven Spielberg’s iconic film Jaws both a address the same central theme: a power struggle between the needs of the individual and the needs of the majority. As Thomas attempts to persuade the...

An enemy of the people vs 12 angry men When an individual desires something so strongly, this individual will vigorously invest him/herself into achieving this desire that they begin to lose their moral compass. This desire will take over their...