What are the characteristics of melodrama? Who was its audience?

What will be an ideal response?

Melodrama was a nineteenth century popular form marked by simplicity, sensationalism, and sentimentality. Its characters are not complex or conflicted, but simply good or bad. The disasters that visit good people result from outside forces beyond their control—usually the evil machinations of a villain; suffering does not stem from any flaws within the good characters themselves. The villains are motivated by greed, anger, or other vices and do not elicit sympathy from the audience. In melodrama's morally simplistic world, good always wins over evil. Often the productions used masterful special effects, and the form was easily accessible and played to working-class audiences.