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Henrik Ibsen's Theatre Mask. Tableau, Absorption and Theatricality in The Wild Duck
Author(s) -
Østerud Erik
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
orbis litterarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1600-0730
pISSN - 0105-7510
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0730.1996.tb00006.x
Subject(s) - metaphor , depiction , painting , art , interpretation (philosophy) , parade , period (music) , unconscious mind , visual culture , literature , art history , aesthetics , visual arts , philosophy , epistemology , theology , linguistics
This article gives an analysis of Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck based on some concepts developed from Michael Fried's book Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot . Keywords are here: visuality, tableau, theatricality and absorption. It is my view that Ibsen is wrapped up in visuality in his plays, expressed not only by the richness of details and the precision of depiction given to the theater décor, but also by the way he chooses to introduce and develop the conflict. In addition to the verbal dialogue there is in The Wild Duck a “visual dialogue,” revolving around one dominant metaphor: the metaphor of photography. This makes life in the play unfold as if pictures were permanently taken both of the characters and by them. Life is here shaped as a long parade of spectacular stagings or tableaux, where the visual confrontations and conflicts between the characters can be described as an endless stream of clashes between the poser's self‐image and the seeing eye's interpretation of the person on display. The unconscious, which Ibsen explores in his late period, is rooted in the new visual culture brought forth by the overwhelming technical innovations in the visual field during the nineteenth century.