Nov 27, 2006 21:32
I'm pathetically worried about the darn English essay: The poem seemed terribly pointless, but I couldn't make myself write that for fear of hearing "academic dignity" again, and now I regret that. I regret it greatly. And seeing how the task simply told med to "interpret", I did that, just that. No analysis, whatsoever. Not even a theme *headdesk/keyboard*. The part on terrror was hopeless, I haven't written such rubbish for ages. I'm not sure about the language, I had some fun with the poem - "expressedly chaste" and a sentence or two on virtue - but it was generally lowly and boring. I tried, but I doubt it's adequacy.
Just saw "Hedda Gabler" - an awful, modern version. No props, all they did was spend an hour smoking cigarettes and throwing shoes about. The play is built on insinuations, half-truths and shadows of the past, and the idiots manage to draw from that a soup, of disputable taste I might add, and hurl it at their audience. They just assume we're dim-witted and do the thinking for us.
Yes, Hedda is cold, spoiled and bored to death. But she does not scream, or state outright that life bores her. She needs control over her own life, and wishes for the courage to fully take that (which leads to her renewed hatred of Thea Elvestad: not only has she had a connection to Eilert not unlike hers, but she had the courage to run). Tesman bores her endlessly, with his condescendence, interests and complete adoration. They're not intellectual equals - proved, pointedly, in her conversations with Brakk - and she considers him a coward. Why then, would she marry him? The spoiled daughter of General Gabbler, she's used to money and getting what she wants, when she wants it. In order to keep those things she must maintain her position in society, people's general respect, and a steady income; Tesman is in the end her only option. Brakk fascinates her up to the point where he takes controll. Hedda doesn't want Tesman, he comes easily, and is no challenge. She didn't want Eilert, she had him on too short a leash and he was too willing. But when he is in the grasp of another, she wants him for the challenge of stealing him and getting what she cannot have.
And the poem was, by the way, "Old Maidens".
"old maidens",
theatre,
hedda gabler,
essay on terrorism