Essay

Through a discussion of specific aspects and detail of your chosen texts, discuss the intersections between ideology and aesthetics in stage and/or screen melodrama. Your essay should use detailed close readings of three melodrama text

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Course
Melodrama: Theatre and Film

Institution
University Of Exeter (UoEX)

Filmic and Text Analysis. In this essay, I will be exploring the implications of the intersections between ideology and aesthetics through analysing the representation of gender in Stella Dallas (Vidor, 1937) Now Voyager (Rapper, 1942) and East Lynne (Palmer, 1875.) I’m particularly intereste...

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Uploaded on September 21, 2024
Number of pages 12
Written in 2024/2025
Type Essay
Professor(s) Unknown
Grade A+

ideology
aesthetics
melodrama
now voyager
stella dallis
film analysis
east lynne

Institution
University of Exeter (UoEX)
Education Unknown
Course
Melodrama: Theatre and Film

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1

Through a discussion of specific aspects and detail of your chosen texts, discuss the

intersections between ideology and aesthetics in stage and/or screen melodrama. Your

essay should use detailed close readings of three melodrama texts (plays and/or films, as

you prefer).

In your essay, you should discuss 3 melodrama texts in detail. You can focus on texts

we’ve looked at in seminars, but you are encouraged to read/view beyond those texts.

Your answer should demonstrate your reading/viewing in the module as a whole, and

your understanding of the issues and themes raised in the module.

Texts Chosen:

Now, Voyager. 1942. Directed by Irving Rapper. New York: Warner Bros.

Stella Dallis. 1937. Directed by King Vidor Samuel. New York: Goldwyn Productions.

Palmer, T.A. 1875. East Lynne: A Domestic Drama in a Prologue and Four Acts. London:

Samuel French.

In this essay, I will be exploring the implications of the intersections between ideology and

aesthetics through analysing the representation of gender in Stella Dallas (Vidor, 1937) Now

Voyager (Rapper, 1942) and East Lynne (Palmer, 1875.) I’m particularly interested in the

ideologies of sexual difference, specifically the presentation of female sexuality, sacrifice,

and suffering due to the oppressing societal expectations operating in their respective time

periods. Through a detailed examination of specific scenes in these texts, I will be analysing

how particular aesthetic melodramatic features and dramaturgy methods emphasise these

ideological drives. In commentating on the relationship between gender and melodrama,

Laing notes how together they inform the audience of these ideological ideas through ‘the

combination of romantic conceptions of emotion, music and gender, and more ancient

, 2

archetypes of musical, emotional, sexual and (anti-)social behaviour’ (Laing, 2007:7) These

melodramatic tropes including a focus on excess, suffering, and pathos are clearly seen in all

three highly emotional texts which I will argue can be seen to heighten emotion and audience

sympathy for the protagonists. Concerning the melodramatic conventions prominent in these

three texts, many of the themes and emotions elicited in a melodrama can be argued to be

also present in a woman’s film, a genre that emerged in the 1930s and 1940s. Often cited as

examples of a woman’s films, Stella Dallis & Now Voyager align with the conventions of this

genre in that they both ‘treat problems defined as ‘female’’ (Whelehan, 2007:138) and

therefore are geared towards female audiences. With regards to the relationship between

melodrama and the Woman’s film, Whelehan further notes that ‘films in this grouping largely

come under the categories of melodrama with their focus on the domestic and drive to expose

the realities of the inequities of women’s lives’ (Whelehan, 2007:138) and these ideologies

can be seen to be explored through melodramatic storytelling techniques in not only Stella

Dallis & Now Voyager but also Palmers play, East Lynne. Overall, through detailed scene

analysis, I will explore the intersections between how meaning is constructed and how

melodrama points to particular issues of social conflict and ideological matters regarding

gender and class. This analysis will hopefully prove my opinion, which is aligned with

Rosenman’s, that these melodramatic stories ‘tell us that pain is gendered, not in and of itself

but in its meanings and aims through the distinctive demands that ideology places on men

and women’ (Rosenman, 2003: 22).

In discussing the intersections between aesthetic composition and ideological matters

regarding female sexuality, suffering, sacrifice, and I have chosen to focus on King Vidor’s

Stella Dallis (Vidor, 1937.) The film follows Stella Dallis’ desire to become the ideal upper-

class woman, and throughout, we watch her failure to achieve permanent upward social

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Exam (elaborations) ·

Essay

Through a discussion of specific aspects and detail of your chosen texts, discuss the intersections between ideology and aesthetics in stage and/or screen melodrama. Your essay should use detailed close readings of three melodrama text

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