Post for Tuesday, April 7th - "Ghosts" ACT III and Late Work
Overview and Homework: As we discussed, below you will find materials to prepare you for our next class session. I provided a link for our Google Meet on Friday. With regard to late work, please email any work you complete to my K12 account, and make sure it is dated and labeled. Finally, I provided the video of myself reading and analyzing Act III of Ghosts, below. You will also find a link to the full text and the 1988 BBC film we watched in class. In this blog space, please provide questions you would like me to address on Friday, as we will engage in a discussion of Act III, introduction to An Enemy of the People or Hamlet, followed by a preview of the Q2 we do next week.
Late Work: The first order of business. If you have not done so, please complete any work assigned before March 13th (ACT II blog for Ghosts is the last one). This work will be graded and will count for graduation. Send all completed late work to my email for evaluation. Final district due date is Friday, April 17th.
View: Mr. P. Reading Act III of Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen, with Analysis. You may add comments and/or ask questions if you'd further feedback.
After finishing the play I have noticed something interesting when comparing A Doll’s house to Ghosts. It seems that the two plays share a strong female lead, but I have noticed in Ghosts the path of feminism and women empowerment seem to move in the opposite direction than how the theme played out in a Dolls House. In Ghosts Mrs. Alving seems to be a strong woman who is living by herself, reading intense novels, and providing education to the maid, while setting up an orphanage in honor of her late husband. Now as we read on the drama of her life, as well as the opinions of others around her play out a complex storyline we still refer to her as an independent woman. In comparison to A Doll’s House Nora is portrayed as a woman suffering through a controlling marriage where she is not happy. In order to have any freedom at all, she is forced to lie and hold secrecy from her husband for which she feels much guilt over. In both plays, each woman has a strong protective nature over their children, for Nora, she contemplates how her children would be if she were to kill herself, and for Mrs. Alving she sends Oswald away to boarding school. At the end of A Doll’s House, Nora decides to leave her husband and release herself from his toxicity so she can be happy. But in Ghosts, Mrs. Alvings begins to shift the blame of her husband’s actions onto herself because she wants to agree and comfort how Oswald thinks he is perceived as he has revealed his illness. She describes her husband’s sins as if his actions were appropriate because he was a vibrant spirit with no place to escape. Now she is left conflicted in her feelings towards her son who she loves or her dead husband who she hates.
Ghosts Act III Response:
ReplyDeleteAfter finishing the play I have noticed something interesting when comparing A Doll’s house to Ghosts. It seems that the two plays share a strong female lead, but I have noticed in Ghosts the path of feminism and women empowerment seem to move in the opposite direction than how the theme played out in a Dolls House. In Ghosts Mrs. Alving seems to be a strong woman who is living by herself, reading intense novels, and providing education to the maid, while setting up an orphanage in honor of her late husband. Now as we read on the drama of her life, as well as the opinions of others around her play out a complex storyline we still refer to her as an independent woman. In comparison to A Doll’s House Nora is portrayed as a woman suffering through a controlling marriage where she is not happy. In order to have any freedom at all, she is forced to lie and hold secrecy from her husband for which she feels much guilt over. In both plays, each woman has a strong protective nature over their children, for Nora, she contemplates how her children would be if she were to kill herself, and for Mrs. Alving she sends Oswald away to boarding school. At the end of A Doll’s House, Nora decides to leave her husband and release herself from his toxicity so she can be happy. But in Ghosts, Mrs. Alvings begins to shift the blame of her husband’s actions onto herself because she wants to agree and comfort how Oswald thinks he is perceived as he has revealed his illness. She describes her husband’s sins as if his actions were appropriate because he was a vibrant spirit with no place to escape. Now she is left conflicted in her feelings towards her son who she loves or her dead husband who she hates.