Action and Consequence in Ibsen Chekhov and Strindberg

<p> Henrik Ibsen Anton Chekhov and August Strindberg--innovators of modern drama--created characters whose reckless pursuits of irrational objectives blind them to better options. Ibsen's protagonists in <I>A Doll's House Hedda Gabler</I> and <I>The Master Builder</I> try to bend the world to conform to their personal visions--with disastrous results. Chekhov's characters refuse to do anything instead dramatizing their lives as if they were actors in a play (which they are). Rehearsing the intractable squabbles between men and women in <I>The Dance of Death</I> and <I>The Ghost Sonata</I> Strindberg suggests that only in life beyond death can humanity transcend the brutality of existence. Together the lives of these characters offer a study of the individual's struggle with modernity.</p>