Essay on An Analysis of a Woman’s Manhood in A Doll’s House

The roles of men and women evolve over time. In 1879 the roles, obligations, and expectations of a man and woman were very different from those today. In A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen illustrates the reproachful role of women in society and how appearances can be deceiving.

Men and women have established roles by society that can be deemed sexist. In Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, role of gender is portrayed in a family setting. Nora have been controlled first by her father and then by her husband, lacking authority or control in the household. The author portrays Nora and Torvald’s relationship as a father-daughter relationship. Torvald treats Nora as if she was a child, like a doll. Nora feels imprisoned in a doll’s house. Portraying sexist society where women are looked more down upon than men, Ibsen engages Nora in a household where little authority is given to her. The readers can see that love is orchestrated to favor the dominance of men; however, Nora grows as a character, being able to voice her own opinion and relates her own action. Gender roles are established by society, but human independence breaks the gender stereotypes and defaulted roles. In Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, the sexism can be overcome through self-awareness and motivation.

In “A Doll’s House,” women lead a difficult life. They live on restrictions in society, as well as in their home. “The play depicts the father not only as absent but also as morally polluted” (Rosefeldt). Men are seen as a higher being than women. However, women seem to take on more sacrifices than men. Throughout the play, it expresses the misery of women or mothers and their disadvantages in society.

Nora questions herself and what her life really meant and what the past 8 years of marriage to Torvald really was. She realized that she did not want to stay with Torvald because she needed to find herself. Torvald shows her that he is willing to fix the problem and wants to change for her. Torvald gives Nora many examples and ways he is willing to do in order for her to stay and reconstruct their

On gender roles and the pressure put on women by society’s given expectations, Psychologist and writer, Cordelia Fine says “blatant, intentional discrimination against women is far from being something merely to be read about in history books.” Society has been raging psychological and emotional warfare against women, since what seems like the beginning of time. Throughout history, women have been held by the standard of men and confined to these invisible barriers, threatened to never to step outside their “role”. In both plays, Susan Glaspell’s Trifles and Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, we get to explore this theme and the havoc it wrecks. While all the characters seem to be content with these ideologies, it eventually peaks into a stand-off between society and the women. We will explore the trials and tribulations of these women in both plays.

A Doll House by Henrik Ibsen demonstrates gender role stereotypes placed on men and women throughout the play. These labels placed on the characters seem to foreshadow those in real life. Ibsen uses a metaphor of forgery and the power of money to bring what men and women “natural” roles are to the forefront. The issue of gender equality in society and marriage is brought out before the play even begins. When Ibsen decided to make the title A Doll House, he gave away the hidden meaning of how the characters in the play will act like dolls and perform social scripts.

A Doll House is a play that focuses on human rights and feminism. Throughout the play there are two women: Nora and Mrs. Linde. Nora is the main character and though Mrs. Linde is less prominent throughout the play her role is very important. The two women become foils for each other in ways that don’t become apparent until the very end.

Men and women’s roles in society have been interchangeable since the equalitarian agrarian society and literary canons from multiple distinct eras support a man and woman’s position in society as a result of their personal needs, money, and marriage. An interesting shift occurred in theatre in which playwrights and directors began to use the stage as a platform for social and political ideas in which characters could move and talk as people do in their everyday manner. Selfhood, money, and marriage can have an effect on the traditional gender roles that men and women assume and these social commentaries have given distinct playwrights such as Henrik Ibsen and Tennessee Williams a voice to display their assertions through A Doll’s House and The Glass Menagerie, respectively. The gender

Nora tells Torvald, “You and [me] I both would transform ourselves to the point that…I have stopped believing in miracles” (Kirszner and Mandell). Henrik Ibsen’s ending for his play, “A Doll House” must stay the same, or many integral parts of Nora’s story would not have any intrinsic value. Although the description of Nora’s character at the beginning of Act I as an irresponsible spender and her husband calls her “my squirrel” (Ibsen 6). The conclusion of the play showed that people can grow and how the character of Nora Torvald developed through Ibsen’s writing. What eventually bewildered Nora’s friends and family was her abrupt exit from their lives. The play illustrated her personal growth even though others did not understand leaving was the next phase in her maturation process. The ending of the play represents

In Henrik Ibsen’s, A Doll House, there are a strict set of patriarchal standards that Nora is obligated to meet as a woman of her time. It has been over one hundred years since Ibsen’s publication and in that time much has changed. There have been exceptional developments made when it comes to the fight for women’s equality. However, even though the patriarchy’s standards for women have altered with time they have not been eradicated and that is problematic.

At the end of their first reconnection, Nora reveals that her transformation from obedient doll to liberated woman had already begun. She now admires Mrs. Linde for her long years of work and independence and uses it as inspiration for her own. In Mrs. Linde’s trust, Nora exposes her personal act of sovereignty: a few years ago, she had secretly borrowed money to save her husband’s life, incriminating herself. Even though she did the morally correct thing, Nora’s actions are condemnable and

A Doll’s House, written by Henrik Ibsen, tells the tale of Nora and her struggles throughout the play. And the setting has a key factor with the entire play because it takes place in a nineteenth century Norwegian village. The cultural context for women, like Nora, was completely different for men during the century. The domestic lifestyle was a key context in the play that highlighted problems that women faced during the time period. The roles of women and marriage and divorce are the context that the play uses to shine light at the avenge woman’s domestic life.

Nora perfectly portrays an average wife and Torvald portrays the average controlling husband. Nora is blind to the fact that she has been mistreated in the beginning. Towards the end of the play, Nora begins to realize just how bad she has been treated and Torvald reveals his true colors. When Torvald degrades Nora, this causes tension and hatred towards him for female readers. One thing he said was “Why can’t you understand your place in your own home?” (3.1). When Nora stands up to Torvald and tells him that she is no longer going to be mistreated; it gives female readers the strength to stand up for their rights. It also encourages women to not let their husbands treat them like a doll in a dollhouse.

My understanding of cultural and contextual considerations of the work, A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, was deepened through the interactive oral. We discussed about the cultural values of the time with its emphasis on the position of women, and the play’s influence on feminism in Norway. In fact, A Doll’s House is more relevant than before, since a paradigm shift occurred in the modern society that women are no longer dependent upon men.

“A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen is a play that valiantly explores the theme of equality throughout society in a way that has thoughtfully provoked many scholars between it’s release in late 1879 and now. The play is based around the marriage, and household, of Nora and Torvald Helmer. It explores, through a range of exciting literary devices (such as dramatic irony), the difference in equality between men and women circa 1879 – some of which seeming prevalent