The homework for this lesson was to draw an 'emotional graph' for our characters. The points on the graph were different lines the character says in the play, and the points should correlate with the intensity of their emotions.
I chose 4 lines said by my character, Nora:
'How do you do Mrs Linde. You don't recognise me I suppose.'
- I chose this line because it has a relatively low emotional intensity, Nora doesn't feel particularly strong about Christine, but they are friends so she greets her welcomingly whilst also using relaxed, informal speech by saying 'don't' instead of 'do not'.
'You are just like all of the others. They think that I am incapable of doing anything really serious...that I have gone through nothing in this world of cares.'
- I chose this line because it has high emotional intensity. It is during this point in the play where it is revealed to the audience that Nora has committed this indiscretion and her deliverance of the news shows the audience how much Nora loves her independence. This line is the first instance of Nora not conforming to her womanly expectations, challenging the opinion others have on her.
'You are going to work I suppose'
- This is another low intensity line. I chose this to show contrast to Nora's more emotional lines. For the majority of the play when Nora is with Torvald, she is more subdued and becomes the recessive character in the scene, this line signifies that. This shows the growth of her character throughout the play.
'Yes indeed I can. It was tonight, when those wonderful things didn't happen; I saw that you were not the man I thought you were'
-This is a high intensity line at the end of the play, when Nora is about to leave Torvald. There are a lot of clauses in this line, which provide lots of breaks to form short sentences. This shows that Nora wants Torvald to understand what she is saying. Also in the last pat the language becomes more formal saying 'were not' instead of 'weren't' shows the separation between the characters, that Nora no longer feels comfortable around Torvald and see's him as a stranger so she talks to him as if he is one.
After this the task was the perform each line one after another, how they were meant to be delivered at their point in the play. For this activity I only chose 2 of the lines as there was a short time limit and I chose quality over quality.
I chose both of the high intensity lines because although they both convey lots of emotion, they are from different emotional strengths from the character i.e one is before she realises she is capable of so much more and the other is once she has come to terms with herself.
This first line I chose was 'You are just like all of the others. They think that I am incapable of doing anything really serious...that I have gone through nothing in this world of cares.' To deliver this I stood with my back facing away from where Mrs Linde would be standing to show the audience my frustration towards her and also creating space between us to show the building tension between our characters. The pause in this line also allowed me to build tension and show Nora's inner conflict, that she knows she shouldn't rebel against her duties but does anyway.
The second line I chose was 'Yes indeed I can. It was tonight, when those wonderful things didn't happen; I saw that you were not the man I thought you were' To deliver this line I was sat down and sat down, to show that Nora meant what she was saying, that she was serious. I displayed a concerned emotion in my face but did not express this so much in my body language to show the audience that any feelings Nora had for Torvald didn't transcend through her whole body, they weren't real.]
I think Anton's interpretation of this task was effective as his lines were read in order of their emotional intensity, and with each line Anton took a step forward. Anton spoke all 5 of his lines and by stepping forward as an audience we could appreciate the growth and change of the character.
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