Opening of A Dolls House

Opening of A Dolls House, King Lear and Rear Window

The start of a play is key to story telling as it gives us our first impression of the characters, the setting and the general mood of the movie. At the beginning of A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen we see deceit and lies straight away which is a common them through out the play.

From the very beginning of the play we see both the main characters, Nora and Helmer, portrayed in very different ways. Nora is portrayed as a kind of silly character who is completely dependent on her husband Helmer. Whereas Helmer is portrayed as a stern and strict man who hates to be lied to and wants everyone around him to live by a certain set of rules. I found is interesting because Nora's character completely changes throughout the play until she is the one making decisions at the end of the play.  

Lies and deceit is evident as Nora lies to Helmer from start to end of the play no matter how big the lie was. We see she lies at the very beginning when she is eating macaroons which is one of the things that Torvald (Helmer) is so against.

Nora is very content and comfortable to lie straight to her husbands face which in the end is part of her downfall. Is this what marriage should really be about? My impression of marriage was that all secrets were shared to prevent any conflict but the marriage between Helmer and Nora completely goes against this theory.

The interesting thing in A Doll's House is that is begins with Nora opening the door full of hope and laughter and ends with Nora closing the door in a serious and determined way.

This relationship reminds use of the relationship between King Lear and his daughters as both relationships are destructive and pessimistic as no good comes out of their relationship.

The relationship between Lear and his daughters is similar to the relationship between Helmer and Nora due to how negative both relationships are. Lies and deceit is also evident in King Lear as we see Goneril and Regan plotting against Lear from the beginning. As soon as they receive their land from Lear from lying about how much love they have for their father they both plan how to put Lear out of power and control. There are similarities between this play and A Doll's House due to the switch in power and control from the beginning to the end of the play.

In the beginning of King Lear, Lear is a man a power making rash and crazy decisions such as dividing his land with his daughters that openly speak fondly of him and banishing those who refuse
who refuse to openly explain their love for him. This is interesting as it is the complete opposite throughout the play as we see Lear lose all his power and his evil daughters, Goneril and Regan, take complete advantage of this by declining him the right to live with them. We also see Edmund, a man of no power or wealth slowly begin to use lies and deceit to get his brother Edgar, who is the rightful heir to his father, banished and how his also back stabs his own father to take his status as Earl of Gloucester. By doing this he is responsible for the eye gouging of his own father.

The only difference in King Lear is that two characters, Cordelia and Kent, actually try to keep a positive and healthy relationship with Lear by not lying about their love to him but by doing this they irritate Lear and he banishes them.( Although Kent stays in disguise.)

The start of King Lear was key to story telling as we also see lies and deceit from the very beginning of the play with is also a common theme throughout the play, as we see Gloucester gets deceived by  a lie told by his son Edmund at the beginning which ends up with him getting his eyes gouged in the middle of the play.

Lear's generosity in the opening scene is his downfall in my opinion as he doesn't anticipate how selfish his daughters can be. Shakespeare draws us in due to Lear being a crazy man making crazy decisions such as banishing his friend Kent and daughter Cordelia. This is a big bang that immediately grabs our attention.

In contrast to Rear Window by Hitchcock which is a slow burner and takes a while to get into the climax of the story which is Thorwald's murder of his wife.  The method of story telling in this text is different as Hitchcock draws the audience in slowly and steadily with his slow build up of climax with hits its peak when Thorwald kills his wife.

This text is also similar to both King Lear and A Dolls House in the way in which the relationships between characters are destructive. The relationship between Thorwald and his wife is negative as it results in him killing her as she constantly annoys him. As the film progresses we see the relationship between Thorwald and his wife start to worsen and worsen. She pretends to be sick and irritate him until it gets to much for Thorwald and he kills her.

In contrast to every other relationship I have studied the relationship between the main characters of Rear Window, Lisa and Jeffery. The relationship differs as it goes from them clashing at the start to actually being happily together at the end. In the beginning Lisa is not what Jeffery wants in a girlfriend as he doesn't believe she is daring or brave but she proves throughout the story that she does have these characteristics and Jeffery falls from her.