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
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
