Friday, 6 December 2013

What is the significance of minor characters in the transformation of Nora?

Drama criticism (in fact all literary criticism) divides characters into major and support characters.  In drama, the major character (Nora) is the one who undergoes changes; the minor or support characters (such as Nils Krogstad) are part of her mise-en-scene, part of her world of influences and consequences.  They change very little, because they merely serve the plot and development (an often-cited example is Horatio in Hamlet, who serves mainly as a devise for us to...

Drama criticism (in fact all literary criticism) divides characters into major and support characters.  In drama, the major character (Nora) is the one who undergoes changes; the minor or support characters (such as Nils Krogstad) are part of her mise-en-scene, part of her world of influences and consequences.  They change very little, because they merely serve the plot and development (an often-cited example is Horatio in Hamlet, who serves mainly as a devise for us to hear Hamlet's thoughts, through the dialogue between them).  Between major and minor characters are creations such as Torvald Helmer himself, who undergoes life changes as a result of Nora's new freedom.  The significance of the minor characters (Mrs. Linde, Dr. Rank) in Ibsen's A Doll's House is that they represent the status quo, in terms of the woman's subservient role in all of society; her "crime" of forgery pales in comparison with the moral injustice of her position in the world.

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