This paper identifies and analyzes the technical devices used in "A Doll's House" by Henrick Isben and "The House of Bernarda Alba" by Federico Garcia Lorca in order to accentuate themes.
Abstract The paper examines plays by Henrick Isben ("A Doll's House") and Garcia Lorca ("The House of Bernarda Alba") who both wrote very dramatic and risque works which challenged the social standards of the time. The paper shows that in order to dramatize and accentuate the themes of "A Doll's House" and "The House of Bernarda Alba", Isben and Garcia Lorca employed several specialized on-stage technical devices (such as sound and lighting).
From the Paper "Throughout the history of theater, playwrights have used color to emphasize a point, theme, statement, etc. Isben and Garcia Lorca use the color black to introduce the presence of death and disobedience. In A Doll's House, Nora Helmer begins to plan the events of a dreadful evening. She fantasizes that her husband, Torvald, will stand by her side when he is made aware her socially unacceptable actions and that she will then refuse to allow him to ruin his own reputation by publicly announcing herself to blame and committing suicide. While plotting the events Nora becomes uneasy of her planned suicide. Nora says to herself, ?Ah! the icy black water - the unfathomable depths - if only it were over!? (Isben 61). The unrealistic black color of the water Nora plans to drown herself in emphasizes the tragic restrictions placed on society and the consequences resulting in ignoring those restrictions. In The House of Bernarda Alba, Garcia Lorca also uses the color black to show the results of disobeying societal restrictions. Towards the conclusion of the play, shortly before Adela commits suicide, the stage directions call for Adela to wear "a small black scarf" (Garcia Lorca 205). Adela is wearing the black scarf as she walks out to the barn to visit with her engaged lover. The small amount of black adds emphasis to the fact that Adela is driving herself to suicide through her unsuitable actions."
Abstract Forster's "A Passage to India" and Kipling's "Kim" have often been viewed as literary works that are in opposition to each other, since the former has been construed as a critique of British imperialism in India, whereas the latter has been seen as pro-imperialism. Indeed, this scholarly opinion seems to dominate critical analysis of British colonial literature on India, leading to a wide body of work that highlights the striking contrast between Forster's and Kipling's portrayal of the British Raj in India. One outcome of this scholarly tradition is that very little attempt has been made to analyze the similarities, if any, between the two works. As a result, there is one very marked commonality between the two works that has tended to be overlooked, which is the theme of social identity. Therefore, this paper highlights and discusses the fact that both "A Passage to India" and "Kim" serve as a commentary on the importance of the role played by social and cultural identity in creating and perpetuating the divide between nations and races.
From the Paper "Kipling, in fact, achieves his purpose through positing the premise that the only way to bridge the divide between nations and races is through the intermingling of social and cultural values. Whereas, as evidenced by the earlier discussion, Forster's approach was to highlight the social and cultural differences that prevented the formation of friendships between the British and the Indians. Of course, several critics have interpreted Kipling's Kim as a novel that demonstrates the importance of knowing India and its customs in order to rule it (Hubel, p. 87), thereby further supporting the view of Kipling as a pro-imperialism author. The fact, however, remains that there is enough scope to equally interpret Kim as a story that shows the path to becoming a ?friend of all the world.?"
