Drama the Family Drama All

Drama

The Family Drama

All families are dysfunctional, one might say, after a cursory glance at most of the husband-wife couples and extended families of Western drama -- only some are more dysfunctional than others. The Helmers of "A Doll's House," and the Wrights of "Trifles" illustrate the dark side of the husband-wife dynamic, whereby two people joined in matrimony can live side by side in a perpetual state of mutual misunderstanding. Children are incidental to this state of misunderstanding. Rather the well-intentioned crime of fraud that is perpetuated by Nora in Ibsen's drama, and the frustration-propelled murder of the husband in "Trifles" are both the realistic result of the man's refusal to acknowledge the contribution of what his wife has given up for him in the context of her marriage.

Yet even the happier, more fully fleshed out family of the Wrights, of "Our Town" suggest that Emily, who dies young, might have been happier had she spread her wings more and left her town and the offered prospect of the marriage that results in her death from childbirth. The play's climax reveals how much families interact as a part of daily routine but how little they actually interact emotionally. Still, the thwarted desires of Emily have more of a sense of inevitability, and thus seem less tragic than the willed and possibly preventable actions of the heroines of the "Doll's House" and "Trifles."