Comparison Between Mrs. Wright And Torvald

In portraying women as objects to be owned, Glaspell uses the bird cage and the dead bird, while Ibsen uses the dollhouse. Glaspell proves this point in Trifles, when Mrs. Hale declares that “It never seemed a very cheerful place” (Glaspell 918). Essentially, what this says is that Mrs. Wright was living in an environment where she was imprisoned –caged like a bird –by her husband and he tried to make her identity an extension of his own. Subsequently, Mrs. Hale says, “. . . she used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie Foster,” which implies that all the life was strangled out of her after marriage (Glaspell 920). Similarly, A Dollhouse illustrates ownership when Torvald says, “Is my little squirrel bursting about” (Ibsen 1205)? The reference to his wife as an animal is extremely condescending and indicates his power and authority over her. In response to her husband, Nora acts childishly and therefore, he continues to treat her like a childish woman, to dominate. Here, Nora proclaims to her husband, “I mean that I was simply transferred from papa’s hands into yours” (Ibsen 1247).Torvald treats his wife as if she is a doll to be owned, which in the end causes Nora to realize that she is entrapped within the walls of her own dollhouse.

As the ladies examine the house, while the men are other places, picking clothes and an apron up for Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Hale gains sympathy for her until finally she starts to take action. When they find the block of quilting that has stitching askew, she starts to fix it, perhaps to cover for Mrs. Wright?s distraught state of mind. While Mrs. Hale is finding sympathy for Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Peters offers a counterpoint that tries to justifies the men?s viewpoints and actions. Her comments to Mrs. Hale?s resentful musings on Mrs. Wright?s unhappy life and on the actions of men in regards to women in general all seem to be rote answers programmed into her by society and a desire not to cause any trouble. This all changes as soon as Mrs. Peters finds the bird.

Today I’m dining with 5 characters from the novel The Catcher in the Rye, who I consider close friends; the characters are Holden Caulfield, Ackley, Jane Gallagher, Phoebe Caulfield, and Stradlater. By the end of our Chinese dinner we all received a fortune cookie! The first to open their fortune cookies was Holden. His fortune said, “Don’t be unreal,” this is only appropriate for Holden because throughout the book he struggles with accepting reality and learning how to cooperate with it. Ackley struggles to open his fortune cookie, but he got there. His fortune said, “Lying is always your first choice, but it will become your last resort once you become the lie yourself.” This made complete sense considering Ackley was always lying about his sexual encounters; he kept his message to himself. Jane opens hers to see a surprise, “You know you're respected and loved, embrace it.” Jane is one of the few people Holden enjoys. This gave a hint to Jane, it left her puzzled. Phoebe, Holden's younger sister opened her fortune cookie with a sly look on her face. She read her fortune aloud, “Sunshine.” She got this message because her innocence would be the sunlight to Holden's day. Soon the sexy bastard (a nickname Holden gave to his roommate Stradlater) at the table got to his fortune cookie. The fortune cookie said, “Gross.” Stradlater is embarrassed and decides not to share his fortune with the table. This fortune was accurate because he is very unhygienic at “Home.” Everyone

Ibsen utilizes the boundaries of the “inexpensively furnished” (147) room to create Nora’s symbolic cage displaying how she is physically unable to leave the confines of the room and the role in which every 19th century wife must play. In Act I, Nora plays her façade of the frivolous “funny little spendthrift” (150) in an effort to seem as defenseless as the woodland creatures Torvald finds so endearing and subsequently patronizing. Nora’s quarantine is enhanced as she is called a “squirrel…skylark, and little bird” (150) by Torvald, infantilizing her character and consequently solidifying her inability to escape the confines of her assumed womanly role. Nora readily assumes the position of a subordinate and feeble woman to protect the illusion she perceives as a complete home in addition to avoid “[being] completely alone” (154). This absolute isolation in adherence to the role in which she has been nurtured to conform to is slowly deteriorating her character, which is displayed in the increased sporadic nature of “poor little Nora’s” (152) actions and her lack of ability to focus as the play progresses. Nora’s childlike behaviors steadily become more obvious as her fixated birdcage becomes increasingly suffocating, the discomfort with her current isolation grows and as her mask of perfection slowly disintegrates.

romantic and loving, there is a hidden side to both characters that is concealed in these

Ibsen uses creative, but effective, animal imagery to develop Nora's character throughout the play. He has Torvald call his wife "his little lark"(Isben) or "sulky squirrel"(Isben) or other animal names throughout the play. He uses a lot of 'bird' imagery-calling her many different bird names. The name Torvald uses directly relates to how he feels about her at the time. The animals Ibsen chooses to use are related to how Nora is acting, or how she needs to be portrayed.

The Play A Doll House is acted out in three different acts which all provide insight on the feministic world in the early 1900s. From the beginning of the play the readers can see how Torvald is strong successful banker who has just received large promotion, while he treats his wife like a child like doll. He calls her names such “sulky squirrel,” “sweet little lark,” “song bird,” and “little scattered brain” (Ibsen 785). These names portray Nora a weak individual who is nothing but an unintelligent housewife and can suggest that Nora is

lacking free will. Throughout the play, Torvald refers to Nora as his “lark” or “little squirrel”,

The title of the play “Trifles” is a major symbol of how men viewed women in the early nineteen hundreds, something small, and of little value or importance. One of the examples of trifles within the play is the bird in the cage which symbolized Mrs. Wright and the life not only she had to live, but other women faced during this time as well. Women, as well as Mrs. Wright, felt caged in her own homes, and some were not able to associate with their friends. Women had no right to vote, or have a say so as to anything except what went on inside the home as far as cleaning, cooking, sewing, and tending to their children.

    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

In “A Doll’s House”, Torvald and Nora each have a unique role in their marriage. Torvald treats Nora as his little doll, or plaything, while Nora treats him as the man of the house who has the authority to do anything he wants. These ideas form because the society within the play does not allow much freedom for women. According to this society and culture, a women’s role is depicted by the man she is with, the female character’s all exemplify Nora’s assertion that women have to sacrifice a lot more than men. In this play, Nora, Mrs. Linde, and the maid all hold sacrificial roles depicted by the society they

    Even so, the domestic system the men have set up for their wives and their disregard for them after the rules and boundaries have been laid down prove to be the men's downfall. The evidence that Mrs. Wright killed her husband is woven into Mrs. Hale's and Mrs. Peters's conversations about Mrs. Wright's sawing and her pet bird. The knots in her quilt match those in the rope used to strangle Mr. Wright, and the bird, the last symbol of Mrs. Wright's vitality to be taken by her husband, is found dead. Unable to play the role of subservient wife anymore, Mrs. Wright is foreign to herself and therefore lives a lie. As Mrs. Hale proclaims, "It looks as if she didn't know what she was about!" (1177).

The character of Nora goes through the dramatic transformation of a kind and loving housewife, to a desperate and bewildered woman, whom will ultimately leave her husband and everything she has known. Ibsen uses both the characters of Torvald and Nora to represent the tones and beliefs of 19th century society. By doing this, Ibsen effectively creates a dramatic argument that continues to this day; that of feminism.

In each play we have two main characters; in ‘A Doll’s House’ Torvald and Nora who are married and it’s been many years that they are living with each other, on the other side we have Henry and Eliza in ‘Pygmalion’ who have a teacher-student relationship, but it is clear that the attitude of Torvald and Henry is very similar most of the time. Henry as a teacher, encourages Eliza with chocolates to accommodate her with himself, while Torvald, with a father-like behavior, ignores Nora’s rights and demands such as forbidding her to bring her favorite sweets into the house. Moreover, both men name Eliza and Nora not only with their own names but whatever make them satisfied; Torvald calls Nora as his "little songbird" or his "squirrel", but Henry calls Eliza anything that occurs to him like a "squashed cabbage leaf." besides, by considering the conversations between Torvald with Nora, and Henry with Eliza it becomes clear that none of the men ever consider their partners as an adult by entering a serious conversation to them, as if they have lesser intelligence and understanding. Second, the judgement of men toward women is somehow shown in the plays. Torvald and Henry both misjudge Nora and Eliza, and it can show the fact that even the society of that era misjudged women in general. Consequently, both Pygmalion and A Doll's House are about women trying to find their position in the minds of Torvald and Henry that resist it as unfair; so it can be relevant to the begging of the time when women demand their rights in the society. Talking about the attitudes of the male character in ‘A Doll’s House’, declares that Torvald thinks of Nora only as a wife and a mother, not as a woman. She is only a doll for her husband. The setting in the whole play is a room which is a cage for Nora and she’s been keyed in. This condition is because Torvald thinks he has the right to possess his wife. It was a good condition to

Torvald is only concerned with, in regard to his relationship with Nora, how well she makes him look and what other people think about it. If he has a beautiful, obedient wife and joyful relationship, people will respect him. They’re relationship, on the outside appears to be happy. But, when you analyze their relationship, you see Nora is treated like a child in this relationship, but as the play progresses she begins to realize how phony her marriage is. Torvald sees Nora 's only role as being the subservient and loving wife. He refers to Nora as "my little squirrel" (185), “my little lark” (185), or “little spendthrift” (185). He only sees her as a possession. Torvald calls Nora by pet-names and speaks down to her because he thinks that she is not intelligent and that she can not think on her own. Whenever she begins