There has been a long history of women’s oppression by men in many traditional societies throughout the world. Society gave women an ideal image to follow: getting married, having a family and taking care of the family. Some women submit to the image, but certain individual stands against it. In Henrik Ibsen’s stories of Hedda Gabler and A Doll House, we witness examples of a single individual against the overwhelming society. Nora left her family and marriage behind to become an independent individual without the control of men; whereas, Hedda Gabler choose death as her ultimate solution when she was threatened to be control by man. Ibsen’s A Doll’s House was written in 1879 in a style of realism, which depicted life more truthfully …show more content…
Hedda Gabler only married her husband, Tesman because the society would look down upon her if she did not do so. She claimed “my time was up” (Ibsen 1484). She didn’t love her husband at all only married because she was at the age to marry. She married Tesman because in the eyes of the society, he is a worthy husband to a woman of her status. Hedda’s marriage was full of boredom. When Judge Barack asked her if she have any natural talents, she replied that her only natural talent was “boring to death” (Ibsen 1488). In fact, that was probably true. When she was single, she was under the control of her father. She was not allowed to go out and discover the world. Her only source of information about the world came from Mr. Loevborg. Now that she is married, she stays home and does nothing all day. In A Doll’s House, Nora Helmer discovered the truth about her life at the end of the story. Nora had never done anything for herself. When she was with her father, she took in her father’s opinion as her opinion. Her father called her a “doll child” (Ibsen 66). When she got married, the power only transferred from her father’s hand to her husband’s. For all those years she had lived, she was merely a puppet controlled by the strings in the hands of men. Even though the characters from both stories had been controlled by higher forces, they were not willing to conform to it. When Hedda was pregnant, she was not willing to accept it. She denied her responsibility as
Helga lives a life that is oppressive in Alabama, her husband's congregation disapproves of her, and she "felt alone, isolated from all other human beings" (Larsen 101). During her third pregnancy, Helga could not stand to live her life in that manner, but still tries to make the best of her situation. But once she loses her fourth child, she falls into a deep depression; she "felt herself so broken physically, mentally, that she had given up thinking" (Larsen 101). Afterwards Helga wants to "escape from the oppression, the gradation, that her life had become" (Larsen 125), but now that she has children she has to think about them. "She couldn't desert them" (Larsen 125) because she did not want her children to have the childhood that she had, a "lonely, unloved" (Larsen 125) childhood. She tries to formulate a plan to escape with her children, but in the end, there was no solid plan, so she stays where she was because she has responsibilities so her
In the play “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen, Nora goes through a transformation of self-realization. Nora lives a doll-like existence. she responds lovingly to her husband’s pet names such as “my little lark” or “my little squirrel” (Ibsen, 793). She does not mind playing a role for her husband. As the play progresses, Nora show that she is not a little girl. She understands how business work by taking out a loan behind her husband’s back to save his life. When she is blackmail by Krogstad, her eyes open to her unfulfilled and underappreciated life. she realizes that she been putting on a show for her husband. Nora has pretended to be someone else in order to fulfilled a role for not only her husband but also her father
In the beginning of the written story the author reveals Hester to be a cold-hearted mother. “She had bonny children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon her, and she could not love them”(75). In public she is thought of as
One of Hedda's main points in life is to control her position in society. She does everything in her power to avoid any type of scandal in the community and to go along with the norms of society. This occurs with her decision of marrying George Tesman, even though she had feelings
The judicious actions foreshadow disaster. Having no control over their relationship, she maximizes this opportunity of diverting his life. Although she is conservative, she also tries pushing the boundaries by continually being discontented, as opposed to what is expected of women during that era, and thus she is a victim of society. Her curiosity towards the outside world is a result of her being trapped indoors and explains her jealousy towards Lövborg, Thea or anybody who has freedom. Hedda withholds and controls her emotions; nonetheless this gives the audience an impression that she is mysterious and secretive.
In the play “A Doll’s House” Henrik Ibsen introduces us to Nora Helmer and shows us how spontanesly her design of the ideal life can change when a secret of her is revealed. Nora’s husbands promotion to Manager of the town Bank, leaves her convince she will be living a wonderful life; stress and worry free. However, Nora’s idea of a wonderful life is completely changed when her long-kept secret is revealed.
With no focus on Hedda’s mother we can imagine that the general did little to prepare his daughter for wifehood or motherhood. Hedda inherited his pride, coldness, and an authoritative attitude toward others of a lower rank. She lacks compassion for weak and submissive characters like Thea and Aunt Julia but has admiration for power and freedom, qualities she finds in Brack and Lövborg. Even after marrying Tesman, she keeps her father’s portrait and guns, which signifies her desire for masculine control as well as her personal form of mourning of the power she has lost by marrying Tesman. This perverse behavior can be attributed greatly to the era in which Hedda lives, because her choices are highly influenced by the male dominated society.
Hedda arouses sympathy from the readers through her own personal conflicts. She is a woman trapped by herself in a loveless marriage to an “ingenuous creature” (52 Ibsen) named George Tesman. Tesman is a simple soul with very little to offer. Not only is he an entire social class below Hedda, but he is oblivious, insecure due to his own banalities, and overly reliant on his Aunts’, despite being thirty-three-years-old. Hedda married George due to a “bond of sympathy. . .” (31 Ibsen) formed between them and she “took pity. . .” (31 Ibsen) on George. This brings a sense of sincerity to Hedda that was not turned to such a high magnitude preceding this discussion between Judge Brack and herself. Hedda is a lonely, yet independent, soul that wants sexual freedom without
In Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, the author reveals the oppressive qualities of minority groups who seek to express individuality rather than conformity. The most critical population that Ibsen chooses to address in the play are women living in Western Europe during the Victorian era. When considering Norwegian culture during the 1800s, Ibsen refers to his surrounding society as an environment where women are unable to look forward to anything other than marriage and motherhood (Lyons 164). Ibsen’s country is inclusive of issues relating to alcoholism, prostitution, exploitation, and poverty (Lyons 128). As a result, the only respectable lifestyle for many women is domestication. To confront these issues,
Ibsen uses the relationship and conflict between Hedda and Brack to illustrate Hedda’s struggle to assert her free will and power in a male-dominated society. The two characters are united as social equals who are members of the aristocracy as
Written in the late 19th century, Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House addresses flaws within Norwegian society. Ibsen specifically highlights the symbiotic relationship between social oppression and deception. Many groups within the 19th century Norwegian culture felt social oppression, but women were among the most heavily judged. In this time period, it was illegal for a married woman to be employed, so she was forced to the monotony of home making and child bearing. This law has a central role in the play as Nora struggles to break free from her stagnant lifestyle of following social expectations. Like Nora, many people felt obliged to lie and deceive people to seem as though they were following the rules of society. Ibsen’s negative depiction of social oppression and deception throughout different scenarios within the play contribute to the play’s major themes. Ibsen utilizes Torvald’s study, the masquerade ball, and Nora’s dress change to symbolize and develop the overarching themes of social oppression and deception in A Doll’s House.
The reflection of women in literature during the late eighteen-hundreds often features a submissive and less complex character than the usual male counterpart, however Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler features a women who confines herself to the conformities that women were to endure during that time period but separates herself from other female characters by using her intelligence and overall deviousness to manipulate the men in her life and take a dominant presence throughout the play. Hedda challenges the normal female identity of the time period by leaving the stereotype of the “quiet, subservient housewife” through her snide and condescending remarks as well as her overall spoiled aristocratic demeanor.
Hedda has been interpreted as an “unreal, as a defective woman, as vicious and manipulative in nature, as a failed New Woman, or as a woman who is afraid of sex” (Björklund 1). She also could be seen as a woman who is afraid of sex or her own sexuality because homosexuality wasn’t accepted like it is today. According to Björklund, “Hedda’s masculinity defeats the dysfunctional masculinities of Tesman and Lovborg, but, in the bathe with Brack’s hegemonic masculinity, Hedda’s female masculinity becomes absorbed into the dominant structures. Hedda desires masculinity as represented by Brack—power and control—but, in the end, that masculinity is what kills her; she shoots herself with one of her father’s pistols, and her masculinity is absorbed into the patriarchy. Hedda’s masculinity is rejected, but what it represents—power and control—is mirrored by Brack, whose masculinity is reconstructed: he is the one cock of the walk” (Björklund
For all of these reasons, Hester’s feminist mindset became prevalent throughout the novel. She questions the place of women and becomes heavyhearted when she realizes she does not possess the ability to make an impact. She ponders whether being alive is worth the travesty she believes is engrained
In Victorian England, “the bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation” (Engels). This upper middle class, the bourgeois, was divided into separate spheres determined by their “natural characteristics” such as being male or female (Gender 1). The bourgeois society’s main concern was their outward appearance and materialism while gaining respectability among their social class. A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, criticizes Victorian bourgeois society and their strict adherence to gender roles. As Nora Helmer walked away from her family, she generated a “door slam heard around the world” (“A Doll’s House” 1).