Strange attractors

Betsy Wortman is an Upper Middle Class housewife and mother of two residing in a chic Manhattan townhouse at the very tail end of the 20th Century. On appearance, she lives a perfect life; a doyenne of fashion and board member on multiple charities, she is both fashionable and an avatar of moral goodness. But upon reconnecting with an old friend encountering hard times, she finds herself in enmeshed in an increasingly ugly series of events that threaten to undo her marriage, her sanity, and her very existence. Written in a frenetic, jagged style that mashes up television ads, self-help books and valley girl slang with 19th Century melodrama, this brazen adaptation of Ibsen’s A Doll House is a wildly satiric and emotionally raw look at the pain and loathing buried inside the American Dream.

Publication Details

Journal
Iowa Research Online (The University of Iowa)
Published
2025-04-23
DOI
https://doi.org/10.25820/etd.007926
Primary Topic
Cultural Studies and Interdisciplinary Research
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

Strange attractors

Iowa Research Online (The University of Iowa)
Cultural Studies and Interdisciplinary Research
article

Strange attractors

article en

Abstract

Betsy Wortman is an Upper Middle Class housewife and mother of two residing in a chic Manhattan townhouse at the very tail end of the 20th Century. On appearance, she lives a perfect life; a doyenne of fashion and board member on multiple charities, she is both fashionable and an avatar of moral goodness. But upon reconnecting with an old friend encountering hard times, she finds herself in enmeshed in an increasingly ugly series of events that threaten to undo her marriage, her sanity, and her very existence. Written in a frenetic, jagged style that mashes up television ads, self-help books and valley girl slang with 19th Century melodrama, this brazen adaptation of Ibsen’s A Doll House is a wildly satiric and emotionally raw look at the pain and loathing buried inside the American Dream.

Iowa Research Online (The University of Iowa)
Gender equality
Openalex Percentile: Top 59%
Cultural Studies and Interdisciplinary Research
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Strange attractors · Iowa Research Online (The University of Iowa) (2025) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS