Paper 2 Notes (HL Language and Literature)

Structure

Introduction
- General statement​ on topic of question
- Sentences that ​connect to its relevance to 2 texts
- Briefly summarize the texts (​CONTEXTual details​ essential to question, names of works, years of
publication, authors’ names)
- Thesis statement​ where answer question directly, considering both texts together and ​list 3
main ideas/arguments​ or compare/contrast (like paper 1 → both do this; however…)

Body Paragraphs
- 6 body paragraphs​ in ABABAB scheme​ (back and forth to compare/contrast the texts, organize
THEMATICALLY)
- Clear/focused ​topic sentences​ (establish focus of paragraph, text + argument in relation to
question and ​connected to thesis​)
- Evidence​ from works (quotations, specific examples, explain text details, link to question, make
inferences about content of texts)
- Devices ​(2-3/paragraph)​ to show understand writers’ techniques + use of lit terms
- CONTEXT​ of production and reception as relevant to the thesis
- Explain ​effect​ to illustrate authors’ message (​reinforce the question​)
- Concluding sentence​ to connect to thesis

Conclusion
- Rephrase the thesis
- Summarize/reflect​ on essay ​topic​ (question) and ​CONTEXT
- Statement of overall impact​/greater relevance

Timing
- 5 minutes to read, 2 hours to write
- Choose question (underline/circle key words and parts of question)
- Write outline in 15 minutes, then write response in 1.5 ish hours (save time to read over)

Criteria
- Knowledge and understanding of texts + way their ​context​ affects meaning (perceptive,
illustrate persuasively)
- Response to the question (subtleties, focused/insightful answer, use ​question key words​ as part
of argument)
- Understanding of use/​effects​ of stylistic features (a variety of them, specific/precise, ​drama
conventions​, how literary conventions affect ​meaning​)
- Organization and development for coherent structure/sequence + developed response
- Language needs to be clear, effective, precise, grammatical/vocab/sentence construction
accuracy,​ formal register and style​ (no personal pronouns, use present tense, active voice)
 A Doll’s House (1879)

Summary (structure, setting, characters, plot)

- Act 1​ = Christmas Eve, Nora Helmer enters her well-furnished living room, Torvald comes out of study to
greet her (tells her to stop spending so much--he got a new job at the bank, but they’ve had to be careful
with money for many years), Kristine Linde arrives and they catch up (Kristine’s husband died = left with
no $/children + had to care for her sick mother/2 younger brothers, but mother has now died + brothers
are older; Nora went to Italy with Torvald when he was sick), Nora says Torvald can help Kristine get a job,
reveals secret that borrowed $, Krogstad comes to meet with Torvald, Nora’s children return with nanny
Anne-Marie, Krogstad comes to talk with Nora (revealed he gave her loan + he blackmails her to get him
to keep his job at bank), tries to convince Torvald but he says Krogstad makes him “sick”

- Act 2​ = Christmas, Nora is anxious, Mrs. Linde helps her sew her costume for the ball, Nora tells her that
Dr. Rank has a mortal illness + Mrs. Linde thinks he was source of loan, Nora begs Torvald to keep
Krogstad at bank, but Torvald says it’s his familiar attitude that bothers him, he sends maid to deliver
Krogstad’s order of dismissal, Dr. Ranks reveals to Nora that he is close to death, she flirts with him + tries
to get his help, he admits he’s in love with her, Krogstad comes with a letter detailing Nora’s forgery, Mrs.
Linde tells Nora to stall while she goes to talk with Krogstad, Nora practices tarantella + dances wildly

- Act 3​ = ball upstairs, Krogstad meets Mrs. Linde in the Helmer’s living room, were once in love, now that
Mrs. Linde is free from obligations to family, she wants to be with him again, she insists he leave letter b/c
she believes Nora + Torvald need openness b/n them, Torvald reads letter + is outraged, Helene brings in
letter from Krogstad containing the contract, Torvald tries to take back his words to Nora, but she
declares they don’t understand each other after 8 years of marriage (first serious conversation, treated
like a doll), leaves + slams door

- Work in translation → originally written in Dano-Norwegian, a dialect of Danish (Riksmal), which was still
the official language of Noway at the time (until early 1900s) *Henrik Ibsen considered father of modern
realism
- Based on a true story =​ Laura Kieler illegally borrowed a sum of money to save her husband’s life, her
fraud discovered, she was put in a mental asylum and her children were taken away
Quotes
Marriage Belittling diction - “the results were rather measly, Nora” “The child shall have her way”
Significance: establishes relationship between Torvald and Noraby showing that he appreciates her efforts but believes
himself to be on a superior level to her, establishes the motif that Nora is a child, making her seem naïve
Personal Pronoun - “I’m saved”
Significance: Torvald is only thinking about himself
Duality/balance - “first time the two of us, you and I, man and wife, are talking seriously”
Significance: develops their relationship, as Nora takes charge for the first time
“That our living together could become a marriage. Goodbye.” (Nora)
Significance: releases suspense/tension as Nora resolves the conflict of the play (her trying to find independence and
reveal her secrets to her husband)
Alliteration and repetition “Shouldn’t I look at my most precious possession? At all the glory that is mine, mine alone,
mine completely and utterly” (Torvald)
Significance: theme that women are owned by men “possession” and shows Torvald’s greed
Diction “I can’t stay the night in a strange man’s rooms”
Significance: the diction creates a distant tone which changes the dynamic of their relationship and advances plot
Short sentences “You don’t love me anymore … No that’s just the thing.” (Torvald, Nora)
 Significance: very blunt, instant change to relationship, Nora’s change in character = she is more sure of herself
“But nobody would sacrifice their ​honour​ for the one they love” (Torvald)
Significance: contrast from Nora + establishes character
Strong diction - “Neither of you ever loved me. You just thought it was amusing to be in love with me” (Nora)
Significance: important distinction establishes character + develops her decision making skills, definitive statements
enforces finality of moment + releases tension
“wait till tomorrow” (Torvald)
Significance: Torvald doesn’t like change, doesn’t want to make decision/think about marriage
- Compare to The Children’s Hour

Gender Generalization - “You all think that I’m incapable of anything really serious” (Nora 120)
Significance: broad statement with “all”, Nora does not have any really serious relationships
Metaphor “You’re an enigma to me” (Rank)
Significance: develops theme that the men in Nora’s world don’t understand her/women
Metaphor “I’m a man shipwrecked on a broken vessel” (Krogstad) “what if two shipwrecked people were to reach
across to each other” (Linde)
Significance: advances the plot (gets them together so that Krogstad forgives Nora) and develops their relationship
“I believe I am first and foremost a human being” (Nora)
Significance: develops theme that women can be independent + are humans too

Morality “The law doesn’t ask about motives” (Krogstad)

Significance: pathos (audience feels for Nora who is in a perilous situation) and creates suspense since audience does not
know what will happen
“poisoning his own children with his lies and hypocrisy … morally destitute” (Torvald)
Significance: develops the relationship between Nora and Torvald (now Nora is afraid of how Torvald will view her if he
knows her secrets) + strong negative diction shows that Torvald does not accept immoral behaviour at all
“You’ve inherited all your father’s frivolous attitudes: no religion, no morals, no sense of duty” (Torvald)
Significance: develops the theme that morality can be inherited and creates imagery of it being like a disease
Modality “Something like that ​can’t​ happen. It’s impossible.” (Nora)
Significance: creates suspense
“a hypocrite, a liar” “a criminal!” (Torvald)
Significance: Torvald only cares about himself + creates conflict in their relationship

Identity “Nora; you are in many respects like a child still” (Kristine)
Significance: develops relationship between Kristine and Nora by showing that even her closest friends think of her as a
child (based on her actions/life experience
Colloquial “I’m the one who wrote Daddy’s name” (135)
Significance: establishes character (very open/unaware of consequences)
Repetition “miraculous to be alive and to be happy” “absolutely miraculous”
“Oh, Torvald, I no longer believe in the miraculous” (Nora)
Significance: develops character (change from repetition at the beginning of the play when she was more naive)

Social Class “first step on the ladder … down in the dirt again” (Krogstad)
Significance: shows that social class is a difficult aspect of society since it is so structured and does not easily allow for
change + reveals Krogstad’s situation (what he will do to improve living conditions for him/his children)
“What do I care about boring society?” “It would never occur to me to go against you”
Significance: contrast from end of play, stereotypes, establishes character
Imagery “moral decay” (Rank)
Significance: emphasizes Rank’s ideas about class (shouldn’t mix)
Symbols
The “When it’s over, we can expect them” (Linde)
tarantella “chasing and teasing in the tarantella--my blood fired up” (Torvald)
 Stage Directions “NORA dances increasingly wildly”
Significance: last hurrah before secret is revealed, last disguise before Nora’s life changes (facade)

The “stripped, dishevelled and with its candles burned down to the stubs”
Christmas Significance: happy family setting and represents joy + shows change by end of the play (which reflects Nora’s internal
tree feelings/conflict) after stripped of decorations, ​pathetic fallacy​ = mirror’s Nora’s doubts
(adorned
and
unadorned)

Dolls “No, dogs don’t bite lovely little baby dolls” (Nora)
“I’ve been your doll-wife here, just as at home I was Daddy’s doll-child. And the children, they have in turn been my
dolls” (Nora)
Significance: motif (in title) = control, dependence, small/fragile, owned (possession), establishes relationship between
Nora and her children, showing that she treats them as dolls

Macaroons “[takes a bag of macaroons from her pocket and eats a couple; then she cautiously goes to listen at her husband’s
door]”
Significance: secrets (going against Torvald, doesn’t always obey him), trivial conflicts at the start when he asks her
whether ​“my sweet-tooth”​ made detour to the confectioner’s

Nora’s “Taking off my masquerade costume”

costume Significance: shows that Nora is changing (lies are hidden, mask to cover up secrets)

Money “No debts! Never borrow!” (Torvald)

“Has my little spending-bird been out frittering money again?” (Torvald)
Significance: money signifies freedom (foreshadows Torvald’s character), establishes setting by showing that women of
the upper class are very frivolous and dépendent
Repetition “a proper, proper amount of money” (Nora)
Significance: Nora’s ideas about society are not very advanced + she is very privileged

Time of “a fire in the stove. A winter’s day.”

Year Significance: Christmas/winter/New Year, symbolizes joy, celebration, family, new possibilities in contrast to the
harshness of the outside world → ​antithesis​ to expected Christmas ideas

Light “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, now that the lamp’s come in?” (Nora)
Stage directions “lamp is burning on the table” (when Kristine goes to talk to Krogstad)
“Sleep well. And thank you for the light.” (Rank)
“Helene, put out the lamp in the hall” (Torvald)
“this disastrous secret must come to light” (Linde)
Significance: establishes motif (light/secrets being brought to light (= truth), hope)

Small “Your skylark would chirrup in all the rooms, both high and low” (Nora)
animals “my skylark is talking as though it were a person” “spent thrift” “squirrel” “lark”
Significance: refers to Nora as “it”, showing that she is not considered a human being, reveals character + Nora’s role in
the household (refers to herself this way, seems not bothered by pet names, accustomed to it)

Doors “another door”

(doors of Significance: lots of doors in house, symbol of house being like a prison (a doll’s-house)
house, “The sound of the street door being slammed is heard from below”
slamming of Significance: Nora slams the door on her doll’s-house, shutting herself out of the only world she has known and stepping
door at the into a future that is unknown (promising + threatening), the sound resonates with the apocalyptic tremors of Ibsen’s
end) time (reflects instability of Norwegian society in regards to women’s rights)
 Context
Role of “when a wife leaves her husband’s house, as I am doing, I’ve heard that he is freed according to the law from all
Women obligations towards her” (Nora)
Significance: shows Nora understands society more than she lets on + in beginning to learn
- a wife ​couldn’t borrow money without permission from husband​ (woman transitioned from living under authority of
father to husband on her wedding day)
- not expected to be intelligent or independent + treated as possessions, depend on men, little power = ​19th century
family organized along traditional patriarchal lines
- play caused immediate sensation/controversy
- ​women’s rights organizations​ gaining momentum in 1800s (​poverty forced women to workplace​ in early 1800s =
Norwegian govn’t had passed laws protecting women’s employment ~50 years before play published)
- women had same legal protection as male children by 1850s → permitted inheritance rights, right to university
education 3 years before play performed
- estimated that only ⅓ women employed at any time in 1800s (⅔ in 1978)

Setting in - use the Kroner, part of a union with Sweden = ‘Union of the Crowns’ until 1905
Norway - Norwegians beginning to understand cultural identity → issue of political and personal freedom were important
- Ibsen believed in ​“human rights”​, not women’s rights
- universal suffrage in 1913 (first EU country to have equal voting rights for men/women)
“we’re on first-name terms” (Torvald)
Significance: establishes setting + reveals Torvald’s more petty problems

Controversy Alternate ending - “Motherless! Oh, this is a sin against myself, but I cannot leave them”
- Ibsen reluctantly + under pressure, wrote alternative ending for German theatre (Hamburg, Vienna) wanted a
‘conciliatory’ ending, Ibsen called it a ​“barbaric outrage”
Reviews
- up until the last scene, audiences at the time liked the play
- offense due to ideas on marriage (there are children), doesn’t adhere to “moral law”, seems they are dissolving their
marriage when it no longer satisfies them, portrayed marriage as an arrangement instead of way to educate each other
(not Christian)
- people afraid of change, because women’s rights would need restructuring of society
- others saw as “powerful contribution to the question of female emancipation”

Social Class “You’ll go on living here; that goes without saying. But you won’t be allowed to bring up the children” (Torvald)
Significance: importance of appearance in society (especially in upper class)
- Idea of ​bourgeois respectability​ prevailed in 1800s (Ibsen challenges)
“Well, you don’t get anything for nothing in this life” (Rank)
Significance: establishes setting + reveals Rank’s pessimistic character
- The institution of marriage and motherhood restricted freedom of middle class women​ (didn’t see same working
rights/advantages as lower class in teaching/clerical work)
- married women didn’t work if in upper/middle class
- lords/ladies attended courts for official functions + did not work for wages
- 1860s construction of ​Social Darwinism​ meant men placed higher on pseudo-scientific evolutionary ladder → women
as ​decorative trophies/spiritual guardians
- men dominated public decision-making ($, political), women dominated by men in ​Victorian Era​ (even though
paradoxically, Queen Victoria socially/symbolically superior)
- ‘masculine’ values of courage supported military + expansion
- ​strident misogyny ​strong + popular in intellectual writing in late 1800s

Henrik Ibsen - born in 1828 in Skien, Norway, was second son in a wealthy family, rejected from university, first play rejected
(struggled early on), he wrote his early plays in verse + drawn from Norse folklore
- Shifted from focus on realism (social concerns = A Doll’s House), to more symbolism
 The Children’s Hour (1934)

Summary (structure, setting, characters, plot)

- Act 1 ​set at the ​“Wright-Dobie School for girls, a converted farmhouse eighteen miles from the town of
Lancet”​ (Massachusetts, New England = small town mentality, proximity, can’t escape) , in April with the
“first wildflowers of the season”​ (spring = rebirth) = intro → girls working on school work, Mrs. Mortar
flattered when Mary brings her flowers when she walks in late, Karen gets there and comments that the
flowers were from the garbage can, Karen and Mary talk about Mary’s lying (but Mary denies everything),
Karen forbids her from going to the boat races on Saturday, Mary pretends to have a pain in her heart +
faints, Martha phones Joe, Martha/Karen discuss Karen’s wedding with Joe after the term ends, Joe
comes to examine Mary, Mrs. Mortar criticizes Martha, says “unnatural” that she’s jealous whenever Joe
is around, Evelyn/Peggy eavesdropping + Martha sends them upstairs, Joe says there’s nothing wrong
with Mary, Martha gets angry with Joe + apologizes, Karen decides to separate Peggy/Evelyn/Mary, but
Mary thinks it’s just to punish her for fainting, Mary decides to run away (home to her Grandma), Peggy
tells girls about what they overheard, Mary uses violence to coerce Peggy into giving her $3.25 to go
home

- Act 2​ set at Mrs. Tilford’s house (same day) in the evening, located right in town (power/centre) = conflict
- Scene 1​ - Mary gets home, Agatha doesn’t believe her when she says she’s sick, Mrs. Tilford is
sympathetic to Mary’s pain, Mary complains about always getting punished, Mary stalls (trying to
find a way to get out of going back to school) + starts using word “unnatural” to describe
Karen/Martha and ​“Vaguely realizing that she is on the right track”​, accuses them of being
lovers (whispers it), Mrs. Tilford calls Joe to come + begins to call parents of students at the
school
- Scene 2​ - Rosalie comes over to spend the night at Mary’s house, Rosalie doesn’t know what
happened, Mary accuses Rosalie of stealing Helen Burton’s bracelet (she borrowed it) + says
she’ll go to prison for life, Mary gets Rosalie to swear to be ​“the vassal of Mary Tilford”​/to do
whatever she says, Mrs. Tilford tells Joe he can’t marry Karen, Martha/Karen show up + try to
defend themselves, Joe convinces Mrs. Tilford to let them talk to Mary, Mary says it’s true, Karen
asserts there’s ​“no keyhole”​ on her door, Mary says Rosalie told her (believable b/c they’re not
friends), Rosalie confesses b/c Mary begins to tell on her for stealing the bracelet

- Act 3 ​set at WD school in November (fall = everything’s dying, pathetic fallacy, time jump from Act 2,
oppressive atmosphere with changing of seasons), the room is ​“dull and dark and uncared for”​. It is the
climax/resolution of the play → Martha/Karen sitting alone at the school, nothing to do, grocery boy
brings stares at them, Mrs. Mortar gets back from her tour, Martha yells at her for not supporting them,
Joe/Karen talk, he wants to move, she accuses him of not believing (he asks ​“Was it ever--?”​), she forces
him to leave/not come back, Martha confesses to loving Karen (being ​“guilty”​), Martha shoots herself,
Mrs. Tilford comes in saying she knows truth, Karen says there’s nothing she can do b/c Martha is dead

- Realism​ → chronological passage of time, ​dialogue​ (like a slice of life), based on time period where set,
maintains fourth wall, stage settings believable, drama = psychologically driven (interior conflict/motives)

- Based on a true story​ → in Edinburgh, 2 female teachers named Marianne Woods (27) + Jane Pirie (26)
ran small boarding school called Drumsheugh Gardens, careers ruined b/c accused in 1810 by Jane
Cumming (illegitimate child of Lady Cumming Gordon’s late son + a Bengali servant girl) of having
“inordinate affection” for each other, scandal, eventually won case, but business ruined
 Quotes
Good vs. Violence stage directions - “Mary slaps Evelyn’s face”
Evil Significance: reveals Mary’s violent character + the fact that she will use violence to get her own way
Negative diction - “Your Mary’s a strange girl. A dark girl. There’s something very awful the matter with her”
Significance: establishes Mary’s character + contributes to suspenseful mood (Karen)
Repetition - “You crazy, crazy, crazy old woman!”
Significance: Martha calls Mrs. Tilford this when she asserts the lie is true, creates conflict
Religion - “God will punish you for that.” “He’s doing all right”
Significance: develops theme that there are ramifications for one’s actions
Foreshadowing - “I don’t want tomorrow. It’s a bad word.”
Significance: foreshadows Martha’s suicide by revealing her inner turmoil

Sexuality Diction - “She said it was unnatural for a girl to feel that way” “stop using that silly word, Mary”
Significance: repetition of the word creates suspense as Mrs. Tilford’s reaction begins to change
Negative diction - “something wrong with Karen, something horrible”
Significance: negative views of homosexuality in society
Context - “There aren’t three stores in Lancet that would sell us anything”
Significance: establishes setting of small town (idea that can’t escape problems, feel like everyone knows and they will not
be able to recover) = the views of homosexuality in the context of the 1930s
Negative diction - “I feel so God-damned sick and dirty”
Significance: contrast to Mrs. Mortar’s views of religion, enforces idea that people punish themselves the most
“​I have loved you the way they said​”
Significance: establishes Martha’s character, reveals the inner turmoil that is obviously affecting her

Morality Metaphor - “You might pull the wool over some people’s eyes”
(Lies, Significance: Agatha sees through Mary’s lies, provides point of contrast to how spoiled Mary is by her Grandma
Secrets, Hyperbole - “you’ll go to one of those prisons, and you’ll get older and older”
Guilt) Significance: dramatic irony b/c we know Rosalie wouldn’t go to prison, but shows how Mary can control her
Generalization - “Everybody lies all the time. Sometimes they have to, sometimes they don’t”
Significance: shows that there’s nothing inherently wrong with lying, but that it can have negative consequences
Link to A Doll’s House - “You’re not playing with paper dolls. We’re human beings, see?”
Significance: theme that it is important to use power carefully because human lives are fragile and valuable
Repetition - “I said it, I said it, I said it”
Significance: Rosalie confesses to telling Mary, but incessant repetition contributes to a tone of rapidity/chaos
Diction - “get somebody else to help you be a “good” woman again”
Significance: Karen doesn’t want anything to do with Mrs. Tilford anymore (she’s done)
Rhetorical question - “What’s somebody else’s life to you? A way to show your own righteousness”
Significance: resolution to the question of the value of someone’s life/the meaning of true justice
Short/direct sentence - “(Deliberately) You are guilty of nothing.”
Significance: short sentence emphasizes Karen’s conviction that it isn’t true → unsure whether implied that she doesn’t
think Martha really loves her or whether she thinks that’s okay
“She found the lie with an ounce of truth”
Significance: shows the interconnectedness of lies and truth, contributing to the ongoing theme that lies are not always
completely wrong/inaccurate (degrees of truth) + how they can generate doubt in the victims

Identity “I can always do it better on the spur of the moment”

Significance: reveals that Mary lies deliberatively (she is actually an evil demon)
“That school meant things to them: self-respect, and bread and butter, and honest work”
Significance: material items + hard work can become a part of someone’s identity
Repetition - “There’s something in you and you don’t do anything about it because you don’t know it’s there”
Significance: repeated “you” shows that Martha is trying to rationalize her thoughts aloud (not blame herself)

Friendship “You’ve always had a jealous and possessive nature. Even as a child. If you had a friend, you always got mad if she liked
 anybody else … And it’s unnatural”
Significance: begins question of a person’s “nature” and what is right/wrong, natural/unnatural
“Oh God, I wanted that for you so much”
Significance: shows that Martha really cares about Karen’s happiness, even though she was jealous before

Family “I miss you an awful lot, Grandma”

Significance: Mary sucks up to her Grandma to get what she wants (not a balanced familial relationship)
“I’m trying to keep from killing her”
Significance: contrasts to start of play when Martha must tolerate Mrs. Mortar (she lets her true feelings show)

Love Foreshadowing - “There musn’t be anything wrong between you and Joe. Never, never”
Significance: creates tension in Karen/Martha’s relationship (Martha supports their marriage, but didn’t before)
“I don’t think you could kiss me without wondering if you really wanted to. And I’d hate myself for all that”
Significance: contrast between love and hate, how love can change over time, importance of self-love
“Go away for a little while. Away from me and love and pity, and all the things that mess people up”
Significance: establishes the theme that love can be dangerous and can eventually destroy lives
Repetition - “”What you’ve done”? Tell me darling. Tell me what you mean”
Significance: creates suspenseful atmosphere, as repetition of “tell me” is forceful (imperative tense)
Connotation - “every word has a new meaning. Child, love, lawyer, judge, friend, room, woman”
Significance: connotation of words changes with life experiences (not the same for everyone, can’t fix easily)

Transforma Children are “fond of her and they respect her”

tion Significance: establishes Karen’s character as a nice and well-respected woman (no major flaws)
Metaphor - “It was a madhouse”
Significance: children frantically taken from the school, creates a chaotic tone for the argument with Mrs. Tilford
“I look forward to that bath. Makes me feel important to know there’s one thing I’ve got to do”
Significance: juxtaposition to the start of the play when Martha says she’s tired b/c she wakes up so early to work
Simile - “It’s as if we’re in a nightmare”
Significance: change from the bright school + large windows at the start of the play (dramatic contrast in mood)
“Get out of here and be noble on the street”
Significance: juxtaposition to when Mrs. Tilford tells Karen/Martha to leave her house (shift in power dynamic)

Gender Exclamations - “Burying yourself on a farm! Meeting no men! You’ll regret it”
Significance: establishes setting + reveals the role of women at the time (expected to get married and have children)
High modality - “Every woman, no matter what she says, is jealous when another woman gets a husband”
Significance: Mrs. Mortar’s firm assertion enforces the theme that jealousy is normal (in heterosexual context)

Symbols
Doors Negative diction - “Close that door, you idiot”
Significance: represents Mary hiding secrets (does not want adults to hear her), rude to her peers, establishes the
relationship b/n Mary and Rosalie b/c they are evidently not close friends
Setting - “​There’s no keyhole on my door​”
Significance: Karen creates tension b/c Mrs. Tilford is suddenly less sure of herself

Lover’s Gift “(Takes small china kitchen ornament, a kitten, from table and throws it on floor)”
“There’s nothing like a lover’s gift”
Significance: Mary does not care for Karen/Joe’s love (or its destruction), as the other girls are horrified when she breaks
their lover’s gift, a material symbol of the stability of their relationship

Baths Rhetorical question - “Where ought any clean person be at this time of day? She’s taking a bath”
(cleanliness) Significance: contextual idea that proper/upper classes need to stay clean (both literally and figuratively)
“I look forward to that bath. Makes me feel important to know there’s one thing I’ve got to do”
Phone Stage directions - “the ringing becomes too insistent”, then Martha “takes receiver off”
ringing Significance: reveals that Martha/Karen have changed = desensitized + do not have any hope

Gun Foreshadowing + rhetorical question - “Were we supposed to lie down and smile while you took up a gun and looked
around for people to kill?”
Significance: foreshadows Martha’s suicide, pathos (emotion in the audience b/c makes them reflect)
Passive voice - “a shot is heard. The sound of the shot should not be too loud or too strong, the act has not been
sensational”
Significance: enforces the notion that Martha’s death wasn’t very important in the scheme of things + this
emotional/climactic moment leaves the reader stiff with shock as it is not as chaotic as previous events

Foreshadow - Cliché​ - “We’re reaching the end of our rope with her” ​in Act I, Martha and Karen do not get along well with Mary + they
ing are clearly bothered by her lying/manipulation
- “Helen Burton’s bracelet”​ (manipulation) in Act II foreshadows the blackmail Mary will use
- Stressing the diction ​“unnatural”​ in Act I (Mrs. Mortar’s role in the conflict)
- ​“dark girl”​ in Act II foreshadows the further evil manipulation Mary commits
- ​“took up a gun”​ in Act II foreshadows Martha shooting herself
- ​“In the end they punish themselves”​ in Act II foreshadows Martha’s suicide
- ​“I don’t want tomorrow”​ in Act III demonstrates Martha’s negative thoughts + imminent actions to prevent the coming
of tomorrow

Irony - Dramatic irony b/c ​we know that Mary is lying​, which creates tension for the reader
- Dramatic irony = Mary blackmails Rosalie, ​we know she wouldn’t actually go to prison​ for taking bracelet
- Situational irony when ​Mrs. Tilford walks in right after Martha kills herself​ (after waiting for days) by creating a sense of
unfairness/injustice
- Rosalie is not Mary’s friend, but still blackmailed
- The lie that mary chose is the one that Martha relates to

Context
Setting in Imagery - “Think of having a winter coat without holes in the lining again”
United States Significance: generates a hopeful tone, shows the struggles Karen/Martha have gone through
Pathos - “They did without everything that young people ought to have”
Significance: readers feel for Karen/Martha whose life’s work is being uprooted by Mrs. Tilford’s actions
- Great Depression (Karen and Matha worked hard, Mrs. Tilford’s $ support), political struggle in EU, US isolationism

Views of - Hollywood’s ideas about homosexuality = there for pity/fear/laughs, showing what is acceptable (makes homosexuals
homosexuality feel invisible/isolated), used gay stock characters as a cliché + joke (very feminine male characters)
- Catholic Church played major role in changing stories/treatment of being gay in film
- ​Hays Code​ ​adopted in 1930 + banned many topics, seriously enforced from 1934 (couldn’t portray immorality
positively, must uphold law, no overt nudity/sexuality, no mocking religion, no “perverse” subjects like homsexuality)
- portrayed as villains + would die at end (classified as a mental illness in US until 1987)
- shocking for suggesting that schoolgirls knew about sex and “sexual perversion”

Movie - “These Three” film (1936) = ​no lesbian aspect​, happy ending, switch certain lines to allow for heterosexual affair, see
adaptations of court trial, Martha goes to Rosalie to get her to tell the truth, Agatha smacks Mary, Karen + Joe move to Vienna
the play - “The Children’s Hour” film (1961) = ​keeps lesbianism​, Martha talks about how she thought Karen was “pretty”, Mary
sees Karen kiss Martha on the cheek, Mrs. Tilford talks to Mrs. Mortar about Martha being “unnatural”, confirming her
suspicions, Joe fired from his job at the hospital, Martha hangs herself, see the funeral

Lillian Hellman “not really a play about lesbianism, but about a lie” ​(Lillian Hellman)
- Hellman was very feminine, smoked, German-Jewish, liberal, only child, went to boarding school run by 2 maiden
aunts (New Orleans), ran away for 2 days at age 14 (after a scolding)