In the late ninetieth and early twentieth centuries women were thought of as dolls, puppets, or property. In many cases, they weren’t allowed to make decisions for themselves. Women were only good at worrying about frivolous housework and lighthearted pleasantries. In the two plays “A Doll House” by Heinrich Ibsen, and “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell, there are several exploitations of this way of thinking.
In the play, “A Doll House,” written in 1879, the main character is a doll for her husband and for her father. She realizes that when living with her father, she would develop the same opinions as him, and stifle her own opinion if it differed from his. Her father even called her his doll child. She, Nora, also becomes aware that he played with
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The two women are collecting items to bring to Mrs. Wright. It is Mrs. Wright’s house that is being probed through. She is the suspected murderer. There are also three men investigating in the house at the same time. To give credit to the men, one did say, “What would we do without the ladies?” However, he did it in the same breath as accusing Mrs. Wright of being a bad housekeeper. The men leave the women in the kitchen and stop though a couple of times. During one of the passing’s the men laugh at the women. The women were wondering if Mrs. Wright was going to knot or quilt a quilt she was piecing. The men mock this query. Shortly after that, the women piece together the events that likely caused the murder. Incidentally, the women do not reveal the probable narrative to the men. Did they keep it a secret to protect Mrs. Wright? Did they keep quiet because they didn’t think that the men would believe them? Or did the women keep it to themselves for fear of being …show more content…
Also, each play has women making decision for other women. This is human nature at its finest. People want to make decisions for other people. It is a basic desire to want to sway another person’s opinion. Even when teaching another person, opinions are passed along through most lessons. Control can be explicit or subliminal. Telling your wife, she can’t behave a certain way would be explicit. Saying “Women are used to worrying over trifles” has a more subliminal tone. Both plays are about control of women and their actions. In one play the woman are expected to give into men’s judgment, while in the other the women are generally ignored. Both plays have women portrayed as play things that are not meant to have
In the kitchen, the dishes are dirty, bread is sitting out on the counter, and everything is in disarray. The County Attorney is disturbed, because the kitchen is not clean. The men assume that Mrs. Wright must have not been a very tidy person. In this time era, men expected women to keep the house tidy and clean, cheerful, and decorated according to the County Attorney in Trifles; he states, “It’s not cheerful. I shouldn’t say she had the homemaking instinct” (1031). Men during this era think that women should only be in the house worrying about what the inside of a house should look. In the County Attorney’s mind, the house should have been warm, clean, organized, and presenting a happy feeling. This is a demonstration of how hard a woman’s life is when she is expected to be when a man’s views think of how a woman should be in the household, for example a slave to cooking, cleaning, and sewing. As shown in the beginning of the play, the men leave the women in the kitchen to gather some of Mrs. Wright’s items she requested as if this is where these women belong. The men go upstairs and out to the farmhouse to investigate for clues for a motive to prove that Mrs. Wright is guilty of the murder of her husband. The men never investigate the kitchen for any clues since they feel there is no significance in the kitchen. The kitchen is an area for women to do cooking and cleaning, which makes them feel there is nothing important in this area. Men
People are capable of doing crazy things! Nora, in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, loved her husband so much that she committed forgery just for the sake of his wellbeing. Susan Glaspell’s character in Trifles, Mrs. Wright, murders her husband after she discovers that he killed the one most precious thing to her, her pet bird. It was out of love that these women committed illegal crimes. Nora wanted her husband to be healthy because she loved him and knew that without his salary coming in, their home would fall apart. In contrast, Mrs. Wright wanted her husband dead. He was responsible for taking the life of the only company she had for many years. Mrs. Wright loved her pet bird more than she
A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen and Trifles by Susan Glaspell are two plays that depict sexist attitudes towards women as both take place in societies where men are deemed as strong and smart and women as vulnerable and even silly. In A Doll's House, women are depicted as beings whom are there to sacrifice for their men. Women are not to be taken seriously. Men, by and large, take women for granted because they are blind to the sacrifices that women do make for them; instead men see themselves as more important because they are the heads of households who make money and decisions for the family. In A Doll's House Nora's ultimate sacrifice is finally walking away from her family. In Trifles, women are once again rather ignored in society. This is reflected in the story that takes place in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Wright. Mr. Wright has just been murdered and some important men come to investigate the crime. The men believe that Mrs. Wright murdered her husband, but are confused as to why she would do it. As two of the men's wives wait downstairs while the men do their important work, they end up solving the crime. The name "Trifles" comes from the men in the story who scoff at the women for paying attention to "trifles" though, what they do not know is that it is these very trifles that help the women in solving the crime. In A Doll's House, Nora goes behind her husband's back and takes out a loan to help him. The lengths that Nora goes to in getting this loan must be kept in
The plays, Trifles and A Dollhouse use the literary tool of symbolism to portray the way women were treated throughout the nineteenth century. Susan Glaspell uses the bird cage and the dead bird to signify the role and life of women in marriage and society, whereas Henrik Ibsen uses the dollhouse. These symbols allow the reader to recognize the plays main similarities in the treatment of women, such as men dismissing women as trivial and treating them like property; however, the plays portray the women’s lifestyles as different which seal their fates.
A Doll’s House was published in Norway in 1879 by Henrik Isben. He is known as the father of Modern Theatre. He is also referred as the father of realism. The play is very interesting because of the funny dialogue, Ibsen 's view of the place of ladies in the public eye and the unique characters. The main characters of the play is Nora Helmer and her husband Torvald Helmer. Imagine what it would be like to live in a doll 's home? It 's a house in which you are controlled and have no energy to settle on any solid choice; It 's a house in which you are a play thing for another person 's amusement. This sounds a ton like an awful marriage, so it 's a house in which your husband holds the satchel strings, in a manner of speaking, and abandons you with no influence over your family 's accounts. In fact, your husband keeps you on a tightrope. Such is the perceived life of Nora Helmer.
The dialogues between the men and women in “Trifles” are important because they help the reader understand the patriarchal society which does not allow women to have a life of their own. In their dialogue towards the women, the men ridicule women’s roles. As we see this in the beginning of the play, Mr. Hale despises the women because
The plot of both Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” and Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll House” provides scope for a few scenes that lack the presence of all or any men. These scenes, consisting of communication between the female characters, assist in developing the theme of women openly defying the fact that the society they live in is primarily run by men. All the power and authority in their society, no matter the situation, belongs to the men while the women are simply excluded. The women in these plays defy the norms set by society and manage to evade the expectations of their patriarchal societies.
In A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen, is a play about the personal revolution of a Norwegian housewife. Nora appears to be happy with mindlessly obeying her husband, until it is discovered that she has a secret debt that she has hidden from him. Krogstad, Nora’s loaner, threatens to reveal the debt to her husband. When it is inadvertently revealed, Nora realizes the lack of depth of her husband’s feelings for her and leaves their established household and family to find her own personal identity. The theme of A Doll’s House is that societal norms restrict personal freedom.
Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll House examines a woman’s struggle for independence in her marriage and social world. Through the use of character change, Ibsen conveys his theme that by breaking away from all social expectations, we can be true to ourselves. When Ibsen presents Nora Helmer, we see a “perfect” wife, who lives in a “perfect” house with a “perfect” husband and children. The Helmer children have a nanny that raises them. By having the nanny, Nora has the freedom to come and go as she pleases. Torvald Helmer, Nora’s husband, will begin a new job as bank manager, so they will be rich, which will make her “perfect” life even better. Torvald even calls Nora pet names like “my sweet little lark” (Ibsen 1567) and “my squirrel”
The men in this story are mocking the women, because they do not expect the women to know anything of importance, and to only know their “womanly” duties, which are deemed unimportant. Another similarity between the two works are the changes that the women undergo towards the end of the plays. In “Trifles”, the women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, are stuck with the choice of aiding a murderer that was in an abusive relationship, or to tell their husbands what they have found:
In Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House, pointedly captures the reality of the Victorian Era within the play. Nora Helmer, the protagonist of the story, represents the typical women in society during that era. The audience’s first impression of Nora is a money obsessed, childish, obedient house wife to her husband, Torvald Helmer. However, as the play progresses one can see that Nora is far from being that typical ideal trophy wife, she is an impulsive liar who goes against society’s norm to be whom and what she wants. Her husband is illustrated as the stereotypical man during the 19th century, as he is the dominate breadwinner of the family, who too deserts his position as the play reaches its end. A key theme that is brought to light in A
In Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Nora Helmer is a traditional “angel in the house” she is a human being, but first and foremost a wife and a mother who is devoted to the care of her children, and the happiness of her husband. The play is influenced by the Victorian time period when the division of men and women was evident, and each gender had their own role to conform to. Ibsen’s views on these entrenched values is what lead to the A Doll’s House becoming so controversial as the main overarching theme of A Doll’s House is the fight for independence in an otherwise patriarchal society. This theme draws attention to how women are capable in their own rights, yet do not govern their own lives due to the lack of legal entitlement and
The enforcement of specific gender roles by societal standards in 19th century married life proved to be suffocating. Women were objects to perform those duties for which their gender was thought to have been created: to remain complacent, readily accept any chore and complete it “gracefully” (Ibsen 213). Contrarily, men were the absolute monarchs over their respective homes and all that dwelled within. In Henrik Ibsen’s play, A Doll’s House, Nora is subjected to moral degradation through her familial role, the consistent patronization of her husband and her own assumed subordinance. Ibsen belittles the role of the housewife through means of stage direction, diminutive pet names and through Nora’s interaction with her morally ultimate
Henrik Ibsen’s play “A Doll House” addresses the importance of the roles women play throughout this time period. Women are thought to be like “dolls” to their husbands, by obeying their commands and keeping a good image. We see the main character, Nora Helmer struggle to keep her perfect image of a great wife as troubles start to arise. Throughout the play we begin to see Nora push through her troubles and find her true identity, Nora shifts from being the loving, perfect wife, to being a strong and independent woman.
Trifles has long been considered a drama about feminism and the prejudice men develop toward women. The female characters play a significant role in the drama because they produced minor evidence to solve a murder case. The women sympathized for Mrs. Wright because they want to find her motivation for killing her husband and covering up for it. Glaspell presents the male characters in the play as being ignorant and in and inability to connect with the women’s ideology. The men patronized and ridiculed the women ideas and characterized their activity in the house as being relatively unimportant. (Holstein 283) They devalued the women and made a valid point that the women were impotent to them. Glaspell uses literal and symbolic references