Date: 2/15/16
Topic: The Truth of Reality
In Chapter 4 of Revolutions in Communication, Kovarik et al. discuss the history of photography and the ways in which photography has been used “to advance social causes as well as artistic subjects” (Kovarik et al., ebook location: 3513). Through numerous examples, Kovarik suggests that the medium of photography can be used as a way to identify a deeper meaning or truer reality in a contrived setting. In the 1930s, for example, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) was taxed with the job to help “introduce Americans to Americans…by sending photographers and writers out into the country to document the national spirit.” As it turned out, the result of such efforts “was not always a morale-boosting portrait, but rather one of a people struggling to cope and not always managing” (Kovarik et al., ebook location: 3557). With the country functioning under the pretense of strong nationalism, the photographs of these reporters provided an ulterior reality – a vastly more accurate reality – of the American population discovering the falsities of the “American Dream.” Similarly, Kovarik discusses Dorothy Lange’s uncovering of the Migrant Mother which brought to light the reality of poverty in America. Kovarik says, “the Migrant Mother gave no hint that the subjects had brought misery on themselves through any fault of their own. Instead, they portrayed good people as victim’s of a flawed system” (Kovarik, ebook location:3618). Kovarik et al. acknowledge photography’s ability to capture the authenticity of modern life hidden beneath the façade of a disillusioned reality.
Like Kovarik, Zarilli et al.’s examination of Modernism in drama in Chapter 9 of Theater Histories looks at the way in which modernist playwrights, such as Henrik Ibsen and Anton Chekov, “represent the many dimensions of real experience” through their works. As Zarilli discusses, modernist playwrights attempt to “separate realms through which they [can] transcend the problems of modern life… look[ing] to new modes of aesthetic order that could help people [move beyond] the chaos of the industrial city” (388 & 389). Such Kantian ideals are present throughout Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. In A Doll’s House, Ibsen seeks “to confront and change the oppression and obsession of bourgeois culture” through his character Nora, who, the course of the show, puts on many different personas in order to identify (at the end of the play) that she no longer wants to play the role of the doting housewife; she decides to leave her husband and children behind in search of a more fulfilling life. The one room in which the entire play takes place works as a metaphor for Nora being trapped in a home-life that she wants to escape. Having Nora play the overly enthusiastic housewife of her demeaning, patriarchal husband and then seeing her switch to the various different roles she takes on when other characters – Mrs. Linde, Doctor Rank, Krogstad, and even her children – enter the room not only highlights the absurdity and oppressiveness of the bourgeois culture Ibsen attempts to dismantle, but also shows the true repressive reality of the bourgeoisie housewife. Through Nora, Ibsen communicates “real human experience” as not only the modernist drama do, but also other forms of media – photography included – do (Zarilli et al., 389).
Questions:
In what other ways does Ibsen’s A Doll’s House communicate the reality of society in the time of bourgeois culture? How do different forms of media, in particular theater and photography, mediate self and societal understanding? Do you see any connections between the ways in which theater and photography mediate self and societal understanding and the way in which contemporary social media platforms help develop this understanding?
Last class, in examining The Importance of Being Ernest, we discussed the ways in which people change their identity depending on the setting they are in and the people they are with. It seems to me that Nora plays this exact same “hat-switching” game with the various people she encounters throughout the play. What does this say about humans? How is this “identity switching” carried out on social media and what does this show us as individuals (our values?, Our desires?, etc.)?
Phoebe Smukler