It has been said that great works of drama have a universality about them, a timelessness all their own. Many important plays have similarities to one another regardless of the time in which they were written because of this fact. Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House and Harvey Fierstein's On Tidy Endings are certainly no exception to that rule. Although they were written over a hundred years apart they do show some similarities. An examination of the main characters, foil characters and taboo themes dealt with in each play will make these parities more visible.

Themes are universal in nature. A play can have themes about relationships, family, greed, secrets, among many others, all of which have been around since the beginning of the storytelling tradition. The themes dealt with in the plays On Tidy Endings and A Doll's House have more similarities than one might realize. Firstly, there is the fact that both plays deal with themes controversial in their times. A Doll's House deals with the themes of a woman fulfilling her dreams and her dishonesty towards her husband, infrequently discussed subjects in the late 1800s. On Tidy Endings deals with the themes of AIDS and homosexual rela

Lastly, the main characters within the plays On Tidy Endings and A Doll's House share many common aspects. The main characters in A Doll's House are Nora and Torvald Helmer, a husband and wife whose marriage is based mainly on secrets and pageantry. The main characters of On Tidy Endings are Arthur and Marion, a gay man and his lover's ex-wife whose relationship is based mainly on pleasantries and improprieties. The two main characters of each play all have different views on their relationships. Not only are the relationships similar, but the characters themselves show some likenesses.

tionships, which, in the late 1980s, was not a common topic of conversation. This similarity is an important factor in the fame of both plays. Another, perhaps more obvious similarity in theme is that many of them are the same. Relationships, honesty, family, crises and letting go are all common and major themes to both A Doll's House and On Tidy Endings.

Other common foil characters would be Jim and Krogstad. They are both more involved with the main female character than with the main male character. An example of this is the secret that Nils and Nora share about the loan in A Doll's House, and that Jim and Marion obviously share some knowledge about one another that others in On Tidy Endings do not know. Similarities on the level of foil characters may seem slightly less important to the overall comparison of the two plays, but the foil characters are an important feature.

Torvald Helmer in A Doll's House, for instance, is ignorant of the fact that his wife, Nora, is not happy in their relationship. Torvald believes that Nora is as madly in l

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Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)