Costumes are a very important aspect in all three texts, 'A Doll's House' by Ibsen, 'Rear Window' by Alfred Hitchcock and 'King Lear' by William Shakespeare. Costumes provided a sense of identity or lack there of. This importance of attire can easily and quickly show what a person's personality is like. They can be used in many ways, and this variety of expression through clothes shows each authors sense of imagination and creativeness in all three texts.
In the text 'A Doll's House' by Ibsen, costumes are a large focal point to develop the final scene. Costumes can be used to show the audience that a character is being transformed into a completely different character.
One of the first costumes that can be greatly recognized is when Christine enters the 'dolls house' . Christine being the foil for Nora, is wearing plain boring work clothes. The opposite of Nora, she is independent and loves to work and provide for her family. This work costume that she is wearing portrays her character, not overly dramatic or flamboyant. Throughout the play we see Christine's costume contributes to her character and her personality. She is the one who tries to make sense of all the drama in Nora's life. After caring for her brother's and her mother, this simple minded ' work ethic' is seen as she talks to and treats Nora. She almost switches from person to person, trying to fix their lives, without looking at her own life. Her costumes shows her sense of identity. Simple, and she would rather care for someone else than spend too much time on her outfit. A practical costume. We can also see this idea when she fixes Nora's tarantella costume.
One of the most important costume changes in the entire book is Nora's costume change after the tarantella. This dress shows he freedom and her realization of her current situation. This costume towards the end of the text, is being mended by Christine. While Christine is mending Nora's dress, she is also mending Nora's life. She continues to tell Nora that she needs to tell her husband, this is the miracle that Nora is searching for, whether she knows it or not. This mending of the dress shows how Nora's thoughts and feelings are being changed for her husband and her life. She starts to realize that she has never loved her husband, and it has only been some sort of game. For her, love or flirting is some sort of game (which she also shows by flirting with Dr rank). This is wildly portrayed through her (unlike Christine) flamboyant, tight and beautiful attire. Nora's final realization that her husband is not the man she thought he was finally appears, the miracle shes been searching for. After this epiphany, Nora removes her costume. She removes the person she was, the person everyone thought she was. She reveals her true self. Someone who is lost and needs to search for her real passions and she needs to seek after her own beliefs before she can care for anyone else. Her costume mimicked this masc that she had been wearing for the eight years of her marriage with Helmer.
One of the small costume changes in this drama, is when Nora is in a dire situation. She is in debt to Krogstad and cannot afford to waste any money on buying really expensive clothes for her or even her children. She buys attire that has less elegant fabric, but being the smart woman Nora is, she knows her husband would not notice. This shows that Helmer does not notice the little things about Nora and it portrays his lack of love for her. He does not know his wife and can't tell little differences with her and her children's clothes.
Likewise in the text 'Rear Window' by Hitchcock, costumes continue provide a large sense of identity and personality. Costumes are very important to the character of Lisa since she works for a fashion magazine.
Due to the occupation of Lisa and the position of her in that job, we see it really effects her clothing choice. For example the first time Lisa enters a scene to visit Jeff in his apartment, we see her wearing a black and white dress. This black and white dress is very important when comparing Lisa's views and morals to Jeff. Her views are very straight to the point. She has no grey or blurry views. She knows what she wants when she wants and no one can tell her otherwise. We can also compare this type of thinking to Nora in 'Rear Window' and Cordelia in 'King Lear'.
Lisa continues to impress us with her outfits when she visits Jeff a second time. She wears this almost wedding-like dress where she tries to influence Jeff on his view of marriage. Again we see this black and white sense of thinking, she is not willing to change at the moment with her views and nearly doesn't want to hear Jeff's. Lisa wears a veil covering the top of her face which adds to this idea of marriage. Marriage is a very prominent subject that continues to appear throughout the text and we can see this not only through dialogue but through the costumes of others.
One of the final and main costume changes we see with Lisa or any other character, is when we see Jeff and Lisa sitting in his apartment but Lisa's outfit has changed, She is now not wearing her usual elegant and 'typically feminine for that time' attire. She now has changed, into a new person, wearing trousers. These trousers mark her willingness to change, but we can still ask has she really changed? Just before the text comes to a close, we see Lisa unexpectedly pull out a fashion magazine. Unlike Nora in 'A Doll's House', we see Lisa stay the same person she was even though she went through an important costume change. Costumes represent an identity in this text but for Lisa, they do not define her. She stays the same no matter what outfit she wears.
So far we can see how costumes can define or not define certain characters in each text. 'King Lear' by William Shakespeare takes a strong hold when it comes to costumes and costume changes. Compared to the other two texts, Shakespeare concentrates more on the removal of clothes and how it can really have an impact on identity, inside and out, or how other people may see you. He also takes a look on the idea of costumes becoming a new identity to disguise or protect, just like in 'A Doll's House' by Ibsen.
For example, in the first scene we see Lear's rashness and how he casts out his own daughter and his loyal friend and knight Kent. Cordelia does what her father says, but Kent takes another approach of disguising himself to look after Lear. Costumes in this text can be used as a sort of protection not just a sense of identity. This costume allows Kent to protect not only himself but Lear. We see throughout the text that this costume allows a shield for them. Using this idea as a comparison, it is similar to 'A Doll's House' because Nora uses her tarantella dress as protective shield from not only Helmer, but herself. Not only does Helmer not know the real Nora, but neither does she, but this realization eventually comes to her towards the final scene.
We can also see costumes used as protection when Edgar is being chased out of his own house on a false accusation, he is forced to remove most of his clothing to hide his true self. He covers himself in dirt and even cuts himself to to appear as this peasant. He fools not only others around him but his friends and family too. He is seen as nothing but someone of a lower status. Even though this might not seem like justice, it gets him out of death and a terrible situation. This costumes change, or removal, marks Edgar's insanity or him pretending to be insane to stay alive. Edgar goes from a person of royal status to someone of the lowest.
We can see almost the same image when King Lear is just outside the hovel, during the storm. As this storm rises and continues to shatter the world around them, Lear's mind does the same. He begins to remove his clothes, just like Poor Tom but unlike any of the other two texts. This removal of of costumes also marks the peak of insanity and the peak of where Lear loses himself completely. As he removes his clothes, he removes everything he was, he loses his own self and his own identity. This also can be compared to Nora in a Doll's House where she removes her tarantella costume, she removes the person she was.
Thus, throughout all three texts of 'A Doll's House' by Ibsen, 'Rear Window' by Alfred Hitchcock and 'King Lear' by William Shakespeare, costumes are evident and have a large impact on characters identities and their personalities. Costumes reflect this through colour, style and even fabric. These costumes allow the audience to connect and get a deeper sense of the character. They really contribute to the development of plots and stories in each of the texts.
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