Music, Gender + Anxiety

Question 1

Melodrama

Answer 1

composed by Ibsen
- black and white, hero vs. villain

Question 2

Ibsen and Freud

Answer 2

Freud: inner worlds and the unconscious

Ibsen: unconscious at a societal level and “acting out”

Question 3

Femme Fatale

Answer 3

a woman who is smart, manipulative and can take control of a man

• women fight for right to vote between 1890 + 1910
• men were threatened

Question 4

The Interpretation of Dreams 1900

Answer 4

Freud
unconscious that controls more than we thought

Question 5

Polymorphously Perverse

Answer 5

erotic pleasures for their own sake
that is separate from procreation

If women can vote and have more power, and they can have their own sexual pleasure and power
(even separately from men), then we have an anxiety about what they will do!

Question 6

Representations of Femme Fatale

Answer 6

vampire, sperpent, Salome

Question 7

Strauss’s Opera Music for Salome

Answer 7

chromaticism
glissandos
the oboe “snake charmer”

other example: habanera with lots of chromaticism