journal #6

A dramatist often creates a gap between what the audience knows and what the characters know. With reference to at least two plays, discuss how and to what effect dramatists have used this technique.


         In the stories of "The Wild Duck" and "Oedipus the King", both writers used a gap of what the reader knows and what the characters know to create foreshadow and dramatic irony. Foreshadow is created when the audience gets to understand the characters more and can tell how they will react to a certain event that the audience knows, but the actual character doesn't. In "Oedipus the King" there was obvious foreshadow when the mother is trying to warn Oedipus from trying to figure out who is mother is. The audience knows that she is already his wife/mother, but Oedipus doesn't. From earlier in the story, Sophocles makes Oedipus seem like a heroic, but flawed character who gets too worked up and the audience know that with the wife warning him, there is going to be something huge about to happen. Likewise, in "The WIld Duck", Ibsen creates foreshadow of Hjalamar going to freakj out when he realizes Hedvig probably is not his child. This is shown with the wife warning Hjalamar not to go on a talk with Gregers and that Greger's dad is blind and has poor eyesight, which Hedvig also has poor eyesight. So there is this gap of knowledge from the reader and character because the audience can see a conflict building up, while the characters cannot.
         Dramatic irony is used in "Oedipus the King" when the audience knows more than the characters do. this creates a funny situation because the audience knows Oedipus is very liking going to screw everything up and can see that Oedipus can easily prevent things from happening, but it is humerous seeing Oedipus dig himself into holes. Ibsen is more serious then Sophocles. He does not really create humor, he makes the audience feel sad. When Ibsen talked about the fully loaded gun and how Hedvig just wanted Hjalamar to be happy, the audience knew what was going to happen. It is irony though because Hjalamar  was just talking about how Hedvig probably does not love him until he realized the gun was gone and thought he heard a shot. But still, he thought the opposite thinking Hedvig actually killed the WIld and she was happy, but really, she was dead. This is very sad. but ironic.