Gender Roles in Things Fall Apart and A Doll´s House

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Gender roles, an expectation within each individual based on the way one talks, acts, and the things done. It is not something humans are born with, it’s not something that comes naturally, it is something that is expected of us, something that humans naturally do. Formerly and still to this day, society has had boundaries between gender roles, man being above women in society due to their expectations in society. Throughout literature, it has been portrayed that gender roles play a decisive role in social status, showing that men are above women in society: this is evident in the novels Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House.
Sometimes, there is a misconception of the phrase, gender roles. Society has always seen a gap between men and women and their individual roles, viewing that men have always been more dominant. This belief is even seen throughout literature, take Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart for instance. As played through the novel, it can be seen that the Igbo culture has aimed men as the dominant sex in society. Okonkwo, the protagonist, is seen as the man of the house, he is in control of his wives and his children. Women are the silent ones, they are the outcast of society, “It was clear from the way the crowd stood or sat that the ceremony was for men. Women, but they looked on from the fringe like outsiders” (Achebe 87). In the Igbo tradition, women have no say in their world. They are excluded from judicial hearings like such. Only men have the right to speak, to converse issues, even though women might have important issues themselves. Quotes like these provide more information for my thesis, it shows that even in cultures around the world, the gender gap theory is true. T...

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