Intoduction
In the world of stage, masks are often used figuratively or
literally to camouflage and disguise the true intent or personality of a character,
allowing them to manipulate situations and people as a means to an end to great
effect. In Tennessee Williams’ A
Streetcar Named Desire, and Henrik Ibsens’s Hedda Gabler, the female protagonists Blanche DuBois and Hedda
Gabler use metaphorical masks to hide from the real world that they cannot
accept or face to create a delusional one. Ironically during this staged play
acting façade, they convince not only those around them, but sadly themselves
that their illusions are not just mirages. That is until their masks become
irretrievably broken down leading to tragic or disastrous consequences. Blanche
an ageing beauty on the brink of insanity and a closet alcoholic, having lost
her wealth, youth, position in society and her first love finds herself
clinging to her past and clutching at straws to desperately find a gullible
husband to free her from her misery.
Blanche’s mask hides her vulnerability, fear, and ultimately her unsavory
past until she is exposed to be a conniving
drunk whose mental instability sends her to the asylum. Hedda, coming from a
wealthy background, masculine and independent in outlook feels trapped in an
age where women are mere pretty props. Similarly,
Hedda’s mask disguises her isolation
from society as she cannot conform to their ideals and her unhappiness in a
loveless marriage until unable to hold onto the charade she kills herself with
the gun that symbolizes her freedom and past. Williams and Ibsen utilize varying
literary devices to illustrate their protagonists’ masks.
Topic Sentence 1: The
Mask of Darkness
In A Streetcar Named Desire a dimly lit
room is used as a metaphor of a fading beauty and serves to hide not only the
age of Blanche but to mask her eyes and face so they cannot betray her feelings
and emotions.
In Hedda Gabler, the
drawing of the curtains by Hedda is a metaphor not only for the staged act she is
playing as an actress but to shut out the world riddled by societies restraints
that she abhors, and acts as her cloak of misery and darkness.
Topic Sentence 2: The
Mask of Femininity.
In A Streetcar Named
Desire, uses her feminine wiles backed with stage like hair, make up and
clothes, to pretend to be a high society lady, with airs and social graces to
trap a husband using these masks as a cover for her actual immoral activity and
feisty, independent self.
In Hedda Gabler, Hedda
plays up her femininity and acts as the perfect wife and hostess, as she
re-arranges her flowers and furniture which acts as a metaphor for her
frustration and the change in her life she craves, all the while masking her
entrapment as she hides her true self symbolized by guns locked in a drawer.
Topic Sentence 3: The
Mask of Illusions.
In A Streetcar Named
Desire, Blanche uses fabricated story telling to create an illusion and
myth that she has a life filled with admirers and high society parties to mask
her downtrodden actual lonely self.
In Hedda Gabler, Hedda uses conversation to illustrate story
telling to create an illusion of a well settled homely character with a caring
attitude to mask her disillusioned, depressed self.
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