A Doll's House And Hedda Gabler

Se’Naia Simpson

Dr. Asabi

Final Research paper

5/6/2014

“A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view.”(Author Commentary 296) This is evidence that Henrik Ibsen was aware of the male dominance, in just about every aspect of the community, was prolific in the society of his time period. He addresses the idea of women being ridiculed and judged by men, from only a mans’ point of view. Ibsen’s works including A Doll House and Hedda Gabler, are representations of the issues women faced in the 19th century containing gender biases and male superiority. During the 1800s women

In 1879, when Ibsen wrote A Doll House, married women were not legally allowed to borrow money without a husband’s consent. The topic of whether women should have rights of citizenship was being debated during this same time. Nora Helmer is portrayed as a “macaroon-eating, sweet-tooth creature looking for ways to please her husband”(Commentary 660). But once Nora reveals her big secret of how she managed to borrow money from Krogstad to help her husband from dying we start to see a slight change in her. When Nora is just about to tell Mrs. Linde about her problem she says “Not so loud. What if Torvald heard! He mustn’t not for anything in the world. Nobody must know, Kristine. No one but you.” With this statement you can assume that the problem must be tremendous because she can’t let her own husband know. She continues to explaining to Mrs. Linde that she helped raise all the money to move to Italy and how she’s the one who saved Torvald’s life. Mrs. Linde interrupts asking how she raised the money “Because you couldn’t have borrowed it…A wife can’t borrow without her husband’s consent.” They both go back and forth until Nora explains that she did this indiscreetly for her husband’s sake.

Nora clearly broke the law but for good moral and ethical reasons. Her sacrifice eventually becomes a burden and she is blackmailed by Krogstad. As a woman in the nineteenth century Nora was only trying to be responsible and play her role because at that point in time her husband was too sick to play his part in the house. But because of the societal obligations she could not be acknowledge or take responsibility of her husband’s health later on. Having such a burden kept secret may have helped Nora observe and think more about the way she had been living her