Where Have You Been

Hedda Gabler, A Streetcar Named Desire and The Heidi Chronicles all have significant literary devices that are employed to develop theme. Setting is an important literary devices that the authors focus on.

Setting in The Heidi Chronicles

Shows how the social expectation of women doesn't change. Still expected to be either a working woman or a housewife, and those who focus on a career are criticized by others for not ‘fulfilling’ the role of women at the time period. Also there is the idea of desperation, as women cannot actively pursue men they are interested in as it is considered an act of desperation which the women feel as though is an extremely negative quality. Within the setting Heidi often is removed from the others in the scene.

In summary Wasserstein uses setting to show how the role of women did not change dramatically despite a change in time period and location.

The change in time period is also significant because the characters that once believed in feminist ideals are now no longer important to them. They have been changed with the times.

The fact that the setting always returns to the university after scenes, displays the notion of a lack of change. Time goes on but it seems as though everything is still stuck in one place.

Setting in Hedda Gabler

The time period marks the women’s movement in Norway. It was a Patriarchal society at the time. The background of the play plays a big role in understanding the social differences between aristocracy and the rest. The action itself is mostly set in the drawing room, acting as a gilded cage for Hedda. The Ssde room is Hedda’s sanctuary with her father’s portrait, her guns, etc. Hedda closes the curtains often, masking herself from the rest of the world. She changes the scenery, moves the objects out of the room and so everything’s changing.

Setting in A Streetcar Named Desire

•                New Orleans 1950’s. The Southern United States during this time treated women much differently from different eras, as seen by the actions of Heidi and Hedda.

The setting in the Streetcar is New Orleans LA after WII. The setting influences the characters, the values, and the music that you hear in the play. In the Blanche is no longer on a plantation she is in the city so she is learning the reality of being a modern woman in an urban setting. This is the trend that America was heading to.