Cages are significant throughout A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen and Venus by Suzan-Lori Parks. In A Doll’s House, Nora is treated like a “doll-child” and she can’t escape Helmer’s idealistic view of a perfect wife. While these bars are invisible at the beginning of the play, they are still just as oppressing. In contrast, The Venus is chained behind physical bars of a cage and she’s forced to perform for the sake of others. Her cage is very much real and the moment she steps foot in England she’s unable to escape. Additionally, both women are forced into two spectrums of women’s role. The Venus plays the role of The Hottentot Venus who is a temptress and a seductress. While Nora plays the role of a pure, loving, and gentle wife. In the end, …show more content…
The Venus is over sexualized and depicts 17th century ideas of women being a temptress and a seductress. This is shown by The Venus’ new identity as The Hottentot Venus. Throughout Venus, The Hottentot Venus is described in crude and sexual terms. On page five, they refer to The Hottentot Venus as a “Wild Female Jungle Creature” (Parks, 5) and The Mother Showman claims that The Venus is “wild” and “pure heathen” (Parks, 81). When others describe The Venus Hottentot they also use terminology that makes The Venus appear as exotic and foreign. Additionally, The Venus Hottentot it talked about in terms that continue to sexualize her. Parks writes, “She gained fortune and fame by not wearing a scrap/ hiding only the privates that lipped in her lap” (Parks, 6), and they refer to The Venus Hottentot as a “filthy slut” (Parks, 7). When The Venus Hottentot is introduced to spectators she’s almost always been shown in a sexual light and her exotic nature is always brought up. The Mother Showman forces The Venus to play the hyper-sexualized role of a temptress. When introducing The Venus, The Mother Showman says, “COME SEE THE HOT MISS HOTTENTOT” (Parks, 36). It’s required for the The Venus to portray this stereotypical role of an African-American where she’s seen as exotic and sexualized to European spectators in order to gather a larger crowd. While, Nora depicts 19th century ideas of True Motherhood and The Angel in the House, where the mother exist only in the domestic field and her identity is defined by being a mother and wife. Not only, is Nora only defined by her children and husband, Helmer uses her a possession in order to show his success to the world. Nora becomes a “doll” that Helmer trains in order to show his idealized version of a picture perfect family (Ibsen, 63). This is shown by Helmer’s belief that Nora’s duties are to him and to their children. Ibsen
The media is lying to our faces while pushing their own opinions onto the groups that they have influence over. This statement might sound insane but an overwhelming number of Americans believe that the media is not being completely honest with the information that they are reporting. Media bias may not seem like a hard-hitting issue but it can become extremely dangerous in the right circumstances. Media bias becomes a dangerous weapon when politicians use it as a tactic to get the upper hand in a situation. Often, this situation involves the presidential elections and other high ranking official elections. In almost every presidential election there are reports where party officials often accuse certain networks of favoritism towards one party
It’s very clear that the poor and the wealthy have different concerns. The poor worry more about finical issues while the wealthy are more concerned with economic or personal issues. But there are some concerns that they share quite equally such as the freedom from fear. To prove this, we will analyze the text from Barack Obama’s “Welcoming Remarks” speech and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” speech.
In A Doll’s House, Ibsen uses three different doors to symbolize control, the outside world, and fantasy. By the end of the play, there is a drastic change to all three doors. The door that leads to Torvald’s study is on the left rear wall. Torvald chooses when to open and close the door to represent security, authority, and patriarchal power. Torvald is always in his study behind a closed door; he uses the door as a way to hide from Nora, who he is.
Macaroons: nora ! Nora! Please don’t leave me and go… why did she leave me half eaten? what is going to happen of me now!! Torvald detests me, he was always against Nora eating me………why did it have to be me?
Throughout A Doll’s House, the use of symbolism is present. Through Torvald’s actions, the reader develops a clear understanding of Nora and Torvald’s relationship and thus developing the role of women theme. Firstly, Torvald treats Nora as if she is a child, but Nora doesn’t act upon this until the end of the play. This symbolic action could be due to the constant reminder of Nora’s secret bank loan, which affects her attitude and interaction with her husband, along with the constant inequalities present between herself and Torvald. Secondly, although not typically considered as imagery, stage directions are very helpful to the reader as they provide visual information that the reader can use to help create the setting and act out interactions in their mind. And lastly, without prior knowledge of the play, the title seems nonsensical, but as the story unfolds, the title becomes clearly connected to the plot and the theme of the story through the use of symbolism.
‘A good text will engage us with enduring and relevant ideas’ Animal Farm, written by George Owell, emphasises this quote with unique themes to keep the story interesting and entertaining to readers alike. Main ideas in the story include betrayal, manipulation and corruption. Corruption is one of the core themes conveyed in this text. This is one of the main plot points in the story because it explains more depth of the Napoleon’s ambitions and his true characteristics and how this made the entire farm corrupted. The author used Napoleon’s character to base on Joseph Stalin, so he could personify his arrogant and selfish behaviour.
The play a doll's house had the apparent theme of women independence, and in developing these themes, author Ibsen used a variety of symbols and metaphors. The setting of the play is said to be the late 1870s in Norway. Around those times the role of women were limited to serving their husbands, raising children, and in poor families taking up menial jobs. So as far fetched as the marriage life of Nora and Torvald seemed, it was in some sort realistic to most married houses. Ibsen was trying to convey a message to the public, a woman should be allowed to be independent of her husband/men.
The play A Doll’s House centers around the appearance of a perfect marriage. As it says in the name of the play, the characters in A Doll’s House seem to be living like dolls in perfect worlds. Gender roles are prominent – with Nora as the meek wife, and Torvald as the “puppet master”. However, deception and lies are woven into the dolls of the Helmer clan. The doll house soon becomes a prison, and Nora shatters the perfect image to do so.
Across the centuries there have been many different dynasties and eras. With each new time period comes a unique set of standards. The play A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen takes place during the Victorian Era. This time period was very unique in that it placed a large emphasis on morality and quality of life depended on your social status. With all of the peculiarities that came with the Victorian Era a certain standard was placed on society and individuals were pressured to conform to said standards. One character who is affected greatly by the standards placed on society is Torvald Helmer.
According to Merriam-Webster, duty is defined by an obligatory task, conduct, service, or functions that arise from one’s position (as in life or in a group). There are many ways to express the power of duty. The duty to family or self over the duty to the law is represented in “A Doll’s House” a play written by Henrik Ibsen, in a unique way by the resistance against authority to protect the needs of their family or friends. Each character in the play faced a consequence good or bad, which was experienced from their decision to resist or rebel against authority of the law. In which, resulting to having the concept of choosing duty to self over duty to family or duty to law is expressed all throughout the play.
The Doll House takes place in the late 1800s, in which things were way different than they are now. During this time, men were basically the ones running the place instead of woman. Society expects women to be the ones who will stay home to cook, clean, and take care of the kids. During that, men will be able to do almost anything they want and they basically bring in the income to the house. The play taught us how women are treated and how they can redeem themselves by finding their own virtues and values. Nora was basically treated like the “squirrel” she was by Torvald, in which he didn’t think nothing was wrong at all.
A bird may have beautiful wings, but within a cage, the beautiful wings are useless. Within the cage, the bird is not fulfilling the potential for which it was created - it is merely a household decoration. In Ibsen's symbolic play A Doll House, Nora is the bird, and her marriage is the cage. Externally, Nora is a beautiful creature entertaining her husband with the beautiful images of a docile wife, but internally, she is a desperate creature longing to explore her potential outside the cage of her marriage. In a society dominated by the expectations of men, Nora must choose between the obligations determined by her role as wife in opposition to the obligations of self, in
A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen was an interesting play to read. This play is about a woman named Nora who was treated like a child by her husband and whom though her problems would be over because her husband found a new highly pay job. Also, the main idea behind this play is about the importance of happiness and freedom.
In A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen focuses on the importance of women's roles and freedom in society. Widely regarded as a feminist paean, the play features two major female characters; the most prominent of whom, Nora Helmer, shatters her position as a subservient, doll-like female when she walks out on her husband and children with a flagrant "door slam heard round the world." Nora’s evolution, though inspiring, should not overshadow another crucial woman in the play: Mrs. Kristine Linde. Both women attain freedom in a society dominated by the adherence to conservative marital roles, but do it in different ways. While Nora reaches her consciousness and slams the door on her shackling domicile, Mrs.
A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen, portrays a young married woman, Nora, who plays a dramatic role of deception and self-indulgence. The author creates a good understanding of a woman’s role by assuming Nora is an average housewife who does not work; her only job is to maintain the house and raise the children like a stereotypical woman that cannot work or help society. In reality, she is not an average housewife in that she has a hired maid who deals with the house and children. Although Ibsen focuses on these “housewife” attributes, Nora’s character is ambitious, naive, and somewhat cunning. She hides a dark secret from her husband that not only includes borrowing money, but also forgery. Nora’s choices were irrational; she handled the