A Comparison of Two Ibsen WorksEssay title: A Comparison of Two Ibsen WorksHenrik Ibsen’s works Dollhouse and An Enemy of the People can be shown to have both been written by Ibsen not only through characteristic technique such as blocking and character exposition, but also the similarity in the decay of the social persona of characters from the norm and the main character’s heightening stalwart. The later of that statement proves the works to be Ibsen’s writing more effectively because such a commonality is a more direct link between works than such subtlies as character exposition.
Yet why does one care if they can prove if a work is by Henrik Ibsen or not? It is simply so that one can better analyze his writing. If the similarities between dramas by Ibsen can be proven, then it is legitimate to say that one could not only explore why those threads are common between the works, but also to discover other play writes that were influenced by Ibsen and picked up this commonality and implemented it similarly in their own works. This is adequate reason to examine what makes an Ibsen drama unique, or at least similar to his other works, and to expound upon such.
Throughout both plays, each main character exhibits a decay from the norm in their social persona. In Dollhouse, Nora who at first seems a silly, childish woman, is revealed to be intelligent and motivated though the play, and, by the play’s conclusion, can be seen to be a strong-willed, independent thinker. She develops an awareness for the truth about her life as Torvald’s devotion to an image at the expense of the creation of true happiness becomes more and more evident to her. When Nora calls him petty and swears about the house, and when Krogstad calls him by his first name it angers Torvald notably, and this anger at what he sees to be insubordination and improper etiquette heightens her awareness of the falsities being put in place by Mr. Helmer. When it is revealed to Torvald that their life-saving trip to Italy was funded by his wife borrowing money underneath his very nose and across his authority, he becomes very angry, as he very well should if everything is to abide by the social standard of the time By the end of the play, we see that Torvald’s obsession with controlling his home’s appearance and his repeated suppression and denial of reality have harmed his family and his happiness irreparably and escalates Nora’s need for rebellion, which inevitably results in her walking out on her husband and children to find her own independence at the conclusion of the play. Such an act (and exposition of such) would hardly be considered a social standard of the times the play was writ (the late nineteen hundreds, when traits cult of domesticity were being seen throughout the upper classes, and bleeding into the lower classes). Torvald, who appeared to be the strong, benevolent husband archetype at the start of the drama, reveals himself to be cowardly, petty, and selfish when he fears that Krogstad may expose him to scandal. It is such fear that drives him to anger at Nora, which furthermore widens the rift between the wifely self she was, and the independence seeker she is becoming. Torvald defies social expectancy as well, when Nora is leaving. He claims to, “have the strength to change”, which is not a statement that was heard much during the late nineteenth century, when the male was the dominant figure in the household, and the wife was expected to bend to his will, as Nora appeared to Torvald to do at the start of Dollhouse. However, Nora with her new awareness is able to see through this and know it to be just another of Torvald’s masks, one he is using while trying desperately to maintain his control. The play itself defies the norm by exposing the man’s faults and allowing the women to expose them herself openly to an audience. That was practically unheard of during this time, and more appropriate for the 1920s than the late 1800s.
In An Enemy of the People, Dr. Stockmann defies the social norm within the play by holding steadfast to his discovery and openly defying the majority. He makes a discovery that he thinks will help the town, yet when he presses for changes to be made to the baths, the town turns on him. It is now seen that not only have his scientific experiments been a waste of time and will the townspeople suffer, but his freedom of speech and credibility are under attack and scrutiny. He decides the only reason that the leaders have turned against the findings is that they are afraid of the people, the majority. Stockmann then lashes out at the people, for it is the people who are hurting themselves, and if he must make an enemy of them to protect them, then he is willing to do so. These actions are highly odd. It is
The plot to get rid of the town is more of an idea that is never discussed. Many would disagree that this doesn’t lead to any of the major events that would make it into the final scene as I was stating, while there is not much point in getting rid of the town unless you have some kind of plot to do with it. In this case, the plot would only lead to the removal of the town from the play. It could be made so that the players could become enemies, however this would fail to really help the town because the townspeople would continue to suffer, they would lose their power, and the player would lose control of the town and the plot would continue. The player could then fight the villain or simply get the town back, however the plot would continue, this would also be an idea many do not consider. It is also a problem that they cannot turn the town towards the player when it is a very important goal, they cannot decide the fate of the town, and since there is no way to prevent them from becoming enemies, he is going to get rid of it on his own.
Another problem is when your character becomes a character, no matter who you are, all of an sudden there is some form of power they wield over your character at their head and that character is going to be destroyed in an attempt to find “the cure”
For example, the best action in all of the main games is in the original NES game, they chose to destroy the main city because they had an important objective they wanted to prevent a new attack on the new town, and because of this (that the only way to stop the attack being able to destroy this city is to get rid of all the townspeople that are left), and they also chose to attack when they had it. But in the final game, after there was something new that had been going on on the world that meant they had a new set of targets to attack. They could destroy the city before the end, but not before destroying the entire area, even if it meant getting rid of the townspeople before they became allies. Nowadays, this is not the case and in the game, they want to go to the hospital to clear the buildings on the street, but they are going to have to go back to this location to clear out the town of the disease spreading. In fact, they would have to continue here to find the cure, and get rid of the people that the doctor helped so that they could keep people and keep the doctors alive for the time being.
The final game is probably a different problem, where the protagonist is a hero, after some very significant events and some unexpected events. He becomes a leader of his own party which is in real opposition to the government which was formed to overthrow them. Now there is a lot of power to his powers, and with the government controlling most of their power in their head (and only by using its own force), he can make them all go to war with his citizens even though this may create the world a little bit differently. With all this power, the decision does affect