melodrama
What is Melodrama? Definition, Usage, and Literary Examples
Melodrama Definition
A melodrama (MEH-low-drah-muh) is a literary or theatrical work that exaggerates the elements of the standard dramatic form. Melodramas overemphasize the emotions of their characters, usually to elicit an emotional response from the reader or viewer. There is often an outlandishness to the situations and events in which characters find themselves. Melodramas are frequently associated with theater, movies, and television shows, but they are also found in novels, short stories, and poems.
Historically, melodramas were performed recitations accompanied by music, which is where the genre gets its name: from the Greek melos, which means “song,” and the French drame, which means “drama.”
The History of Melodramas
Storytellers from the earliest days of the written word have incorporated melodramatic elements into their works. It wasn’t until the 18th and 19th centuries, though, that melodrama evolved as its own separate type of entertainment. Its original form was a spoken recitation or pantomime set to live music, with Pygmalion (1770) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau being the first full-length melodrama in this vein.
The combination of spoken word and music engendered an emotional response in viewers and had significant entertainment value, prompting writers to develop and refine longer, more dramatic works that achieved these same aims and minimized or eliminated the role of music. English and French dramatists wrote popular plays filled with stock characters, hyperbolic situations, and dramatic language. A Tale of Mystery (1802) by Thomas Holcroft was the first recognized English melodrama.
By the middle of the 19th century, sensation novels swept Great Britain. They stretched the bounds of romance and realism with entertaining storylines that often hinged on shocking secrets. The books of Wilkie Collins and Mary Elizabeth Braddon are classic sensation novels. These works paved the way for the further evolution and popularity of the genre, which saw more melodrama in dramatic and literary works—and, especially, in the film and television entertainments that would take hold in the 20th century.
The Characteristics of Melodramas
Writers of melodrama create works that share some notable characteristics, including:
- Characterizations: Characters tend to be one-dimensional and uncomplicated. Stock characters and stereotypical personalities are common in melodramas. You’ll often find overly virtuous heroes and heroines; archly evil villains; scheming femme fatales and seductresses; haughty aristocrats; and devoted, simple-minded servants.
- Dialogue: Much of the action in a melodrama unfolds through the dialogue, which employs over-the-top wording, grand declarations, and dramatic pronouncements. Narration, when present, serves to support the dialogue and further embellishes the scene with flowery language and sweeping statements.
- Plot: The plots of melodramas are simple, straightforward storylines that deal with age-old dilemmas and scenarios like the battle between good and evil, the struggle between repression and freedom, and betrayals in interpersonal relationships. While the melodramatic plot, at its core, is simple, it will generally unfold through exaggerated events.
- Settings: Most melodramas take place in private settings, like homes. This allows for an amplification of the characters’ personal struggles and all the emotions that go along with them.
The Function of Melodrama
These works are meant to entertain. The absence of nuance and complexity makes melodrama an easy world in which a reader or viewer can lose themselves. Also, the genre‘s penchant for displaying timeless struggles—good vs. evil, love vs. heartbreak, salvation vs. sacrifice—reminds us that many of the issues we face are, at heart, issues that humans have faced since time began. We aren’t alone in our desire to love and be loved, see right triumph over wrong, or make sense of interpersonal relationships and the world around us.
With that said, melodrama can be a pejorative term. Critics will utilize the moniker to describe a work that is unrealistic, soap operatic, or campy. However, there is a function and value to these works as well: They are fun, do not demand a lot of emotional investment, and often end on notes that tug the heartstrings.
Melodrama in Popular Culture
Melodrama is central to many movies and television shows. On the big screen, melodramas have been par for the course since the silent film era, with The Perils of Pauline series setting an early standard. Most movies contained at least some amount of melodrama until the late 1960s and 1970s, when grittier, more realistic storylines took centerstage. The Douglas Sirk films of the 1950s, such as All That Heaven Allows and Imitation of Life, are hallmarks of midcentury melodrama.
Television brought melodrama into viewers’ living rooms. Telenovelas and soap operas are the quintessential melodramas, with heightened realities and overstated emotions being the norm. It’s difficult to imagine the modern television landscape without the wedding of General Hospital’s Luke and Laura or viewers wondering who shot Dallas’s J.R. Ewing. Ugly Betty and Jane the Virgin, both loosely based on telenovelas, are two American TV shows that played on the entertainment value and campy tropes of melodrama.
Writers Known for Melodrama
- Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret
- James M. Cain, Mildred Pierce, The Postman Always Rings Twice
- Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White
- Olive Higgins Prouty, Stella Dallas; Now, Voyager
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Pygmalion
Examples in Literature
1. Ellen Wood, East Lynne
Wood’s 1861 sensation novel is the story of Lady Isabel Carlyle, who leaves her devoted husband and child to marry the aristocrat Francis Levison. This sets in motion a string of over-the-top tragedies, including an illegitimate pregnancy, a train accident, a disfigurement, a plummeting of Lady Isabel’s station in life, and, ultimately, her death. The novel is perhaps most famous for one melodramatic line, which actually came from a later stage adaptation: “Dead! Dead! And never called me mother!”
2. Olive Higgins Prouty, Stella Dallas
Prouty’s 1920 novel is a melodramatic sudser, centering on the working-class title character and her devotion to her daughter and life as a single mother. Stella scrapes and sacrifices for her daughter, Laurel, and the story culminates in Stella essentially cutting ties with Laurel to give her a better life than Stella has had. The melodramatic final scene finds Laurel marrying a rich, handsome man—with Stella watching, incognito, from outside the window in the pouring rain.
3. James M. Cain, Mildred Pierce
Another story of a hardworking woman sacrificing all for her daughter, Cain’s 1941 novel blends melodrama and noir thriller. After her husband leaves her, Mildred works her fingers to the bone for her daughter, Veda. Eventually, Mildred builds a restaurant empire—only for Veda to repeatedly show ingratitude toward and disdain for her mother. Mildred starts stealing from her own company to try to buy Veda’s love, to no avail. In the end, Veda runs off with Mildred’s lover.
Further Resources on Melodrama
AMC’s Filmsite discusses melodrama in film.
Slap Happy Larry offers some tips for writing melodrama.
Mythcreants tell you how to avoid melodrama in your writing.
Learn more about Victorian-era theatrical melodrama.
Professor Jim Davis looks at the history and legacy of melodrama.