🎭 Naturalism vs Melodrama

Victorian stage dominated by melodrama: clear heroes/villains, emotional spectacle.

Ibsen rejected this for naturalism.

Influenced by Émile Zola’s determinism (1867).

Naturalism = truth to life; characters shaped by heredity, psychology, environment.

Ibsen aimed to create “the illusion…of reality.”

He avoided “the language of Gods” — focused on human beings.

Detailed stage directions created a “fourth wall” realism.

Everyday domestic setting replaced kings and heroes.

Erich Bogh praised the play’s simplicity and realism.

Ibsen described his characters’ interiority as “seemingly easy but concealing conversations.”