A Study On The Reveal Of The Inner World Of Characters In German Expressionism Theatre

Expressionism,as an artistic tendency originated in Germany in the early 20 th century.It first appeared in the field of painting and poetry,and then developed rapidly and achieved brilliant achievements in the drama.The German expressionist drama,with the creations of Ernst Toller and Georg Kaiser,marks the culmination of its development and has influenced the whole Europe as one of the most important drama schools in a short period of time.German expressionist dramatists oppose the reproduction of the objective world,and advocate the breakthrough of the appearance of things to express the inner essence of things and to display the eternal truth.In their creations,they try to break the description of human behavior and to reveal their inner soul.In addition,they emphasize presenting the secret inner world of characters and manifesting the authors' subjective consciousness.Therefore,exaggerated and distorted artistic techniques are often used to externalize the psychological activities of characters.German expressionist dramatists oppose the reproduction of the objective world,and advocate the breakthrough of the appearance of things to express the inner essence of things and to display the eternal truth.In their creations,they try to break the description of human behavior and to reveal their inner soul.In addition,they emphasize presenting the secret inner world of characters and manifesting the authors' subjective consciousness.Therefore,exaggerated and distorted artistic techniques are often used to externalize the psychological activities of characters.This paper firstly intends to clarify the relationship between German expressionism and Western modernism from a macro historical background,and finds out the external and internal reasons for the pursuit of German expressionist drama.Secondly,according to the theoretical core of the expressionist dramatists' “re-creation of objective reality”,the article analyzes the irrational psychological activities and the negative psychological states of minds of the characters in German expressionist dramas.Through the interpretation of the abstract objects,dreamlike scenes,and the analysis of the unique use of sights,lights and colors in the plays,the thesis focuses on the way in which the characters in German expressionist dramas are externalized.Then,the article explores the innovation of German expressionist dramas in the psychological externalization of characters,and expounds its influence on Western modernist drama.Finally,it concludes that the German expressionist drama externalizes the irrational and negative psychological activities of the characters by materializing the drama language,weakening the external actions of the characters,and assimilation of subjective emotions.