King Argimenes and His Men. (Savagely and hungrily.) Bones!
King Argimenes. (Remembering suddenly what has happened and where he is.) Let him be buried with the late King.
Zarb. (In a voice of protest.) Majesty!
Curtain.[4]
John G. Whittier’s poem, Barbara Frietchie, provided the picture or incident which started Clyde Fitch on his play of the same name. In Cyrano de Bergerac; in the numerous adaptations of Vanity Fair usually known as Becky Sharp; in Peg O’ My Heart, Rip Van Winkle, and Louis XI, it is characterization of a central figure which was probably the point of departure for the play. Whether the source was an observed or an imagined figure, a character from history or fiction, the problem of the dramatist was like that of Sardou in Rabagas,—to find the story which will best illustrate the facets of character of the leading figure. Sometimes, as in Nos Bons Villageois, by the same author, the point of departure is a group of country people whose manners and customs must be portrayed,—in this case to illustrate the reception these rapacious peasants give pleasure-seeking Parisians, whom they detest and seek to turn to monetary advantage.[5] Mr. William Archer points out that Strife “arose in Mr. Galsworthy’s mind from his actually having seen in conflict the two men who were the prototypes of Anthony and Roberts, and thus noted the waste and inefficacy arising from the clash of strong characters unaccompanied by balance. It was accident that led him to place the two men in an environment of capital and labour. In reality, both of them were, if not capitalists, at any rate, on the side of capital.” [6] In Theodora, Sardou tried to reconstitute an historical epoch which interested him.[7] Still another source is this: “The point of departure of the plays of M. de Curel is psychological. What allures him is a curious situation which raises some problem. He asks himself, ‘What, under such circumstances, can have been going on in our minds?’ This was the case with L’Envers d’une Sainte. M. de Curel was thinking of this: A woman was arrested for murder; thanks to protection in high places, the action of the courts was held up. The woman was represented to be insane and shut up in an asylum. Years pass by; the woman succeeds in escaping, and returning home secretly, suddenly opens the door of the room where her children are playing. It is in this picture-like form that the idea of the piece came to him, a picture so detailed and concrete that in imagination he saw the astonishment of the children, the terror of the nurse calling for aid, and the husband hurrying to prevent his wife from stepping into the room.”[8] The origin of A Doll’s House, of Ibsen, we have in these, his first, “Notes for the Modern Tragedy”:
Rome, 19.10, 78.
There are two kinds of spiritual law, two kinds of conscience, one in man, and another, altogether different, in woman. They do not understand each, other; but in practical life the woman is judged by man’s law, as though she were not a woman but a man.
The wife in the play ends by having no idea of what is right or wrong; natural feeling on the one hand and belief in authority on the other have altogether bewildered her.
A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view.
She has committed forgery and she is proud of it; for she did it out of love for her husband, to save his life. But this husband with his commonplace principles of honour is on the side of the law and regards the question with masculine eyes.