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Gender roles and societal expectation
Gender roles and societal expectation
Gender roles and societal expectation
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Analysis of Nora Helmer in A Doll’s House There are many ways in which society expects a women to act. She is meant to be a wife, a mother, and a homemaker. She is expected to have traits of innocence, dependency, moral soundness, and fragility. On the surface, it may seem like Nora Helmer fits the role of the average 19th century woman. Nora Helmer is the main character in the play A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen. She is the wife of Torvald Helmer and a mother of three. Nora fits the role of the perfect housewife, but a closer look shows us that not everything is as it seems to be. As the play progresses, Nora becomes confused about her role in life. Nora grows into a strong woman that stands up for herself and takes control of her destiny.
This simple act of dishonesty is representable of Nora 's character and the relationship that her and Torvald share. Nora also hides from him a large debt that she has because of a loan she took out behind his back. Torvald, similar to many men during this time period, seems to have ownership over his wife. He tells her what she can and can not eat, how to dress, etc. Even Though it seems that Torvald loves Nora. he is constantly belittling her and treating her like his “doll” to play with. He uses dehumanizing pet names such as “My little lark”, “Squirrel”, and “Spendthrift”. At the end of the play, Nora has an epiphany and realizes that torvald doesn 't truly love her. His constant degradation is part of what lead to her to leaving in the
Her main character strength is her independence and willingness to take control of her life. When her husband was dying, and they had no money, Nora took their fate into her own hands. Even Though she was not supposed to take out a loan, especially without speaking to her husband, she did so anyway. She saw that the man she loved was dying and she did everything she could to save him, no matter the consequences or legality of the situation. Nora is not as fragile and naive as many people think. She had tirelessly been working off her debt in secret, without help from anyone
Upon the first glance of Torvald and Nora’s relationship, Nora is returning from a day of Christmas shopping. She is acknowledged by her husband’s greetings of belittling pet names that he uses in an inconspicuous thus unnoticed form of verbal oppression and a verbal stake to claim her as his property “But if Helmer considers Nora his property, as he apparently does, Nora encourages him to do so. To him, she calls herself his little squirrel and his lark” (Dukore 121). These actions are not Nora’s fault, it appears Nora does not fight his degrading pet names because she knows no difference and also it benefits her in the ability to manipulate Torvald w...
Throughout the play we never get to know who the real Nora is and what her true personality consists of. Nora also realizes that she does not know who she is, and decides to leave her life. She comments that she needs to discover who she is separate from her husband, children and more importantly society. Nora feels she is not respected, and she is a “doll” to her husband.
In A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen wrote a play that showed how one woman, Nora Helmer, stood up to her husband after feeling like she was useless to their marriage and their family. Nora’s husband, Torvald Helmer, was the man of the house and would make every decision for the family, especially for Nora. He supported her financially, but not emotionally. He always took it upon himself to do everything a man was supposed to do at the time, but never let Nora explore herself. He made sure she was kept as just a wife and nothing more. As it was mentioned in the play, Nora was arranged into the marriage by her father. While going through eight years of marriage, she finally felt it was time to find herself as an independent woman in...
Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House, which was written during the Victorian era, introduced a woman as having her own purposes and goals, making the play unique and contemporary. Nora, the main character, is first depicted as a doll or a puppet because she relies on her husband, Torvald Helmer, for everything, from movements to thoughts, much like a puppet who is dependent on its puppet master for all of its actions. Nora’s duties, in general, are restricted to playing with the children, doing housework, and working on her needlepoint. A problem with her responsibilities is that her most important obligation is to please Helmer. Helmer thinks of Nora as being as small, fragile, helpless animal and as childlike, unable to make rational decisions by herself. This is a problem because she has to hide the fact that she has made a decision by herself, and it was an illegal one.
Torvald is the typical husband of the time of the play. He tries to control his wife and expect her to submit to him. He manipulates her through many different ways. First, he calls her pet names such as "little lark" (3) and "squirrel" (4) and speaks to her in a condescending tone, as if she is a child. He then tries to control her habits so he will not let her eat sweets or spend too much money. In fact, all the money she gets comes from him. He demands that she is subservient and treats her as almost a dog later on in the play. At the end, when Nora's secret is out, he lashes out at her and kicks her out of the house. When he wants her back after he realizes that he will no longer get into trouble for what she did, she does not want to come back, he finally realizes that she does not love him anymore and that his manipulation of her is over. This leaves him in a pickle because he now has to take care of his children without Nora, hardly a good position for him.
Nora lives in a dream world, a child fantasy, where everything is perfect, and everything makes sense. She thinks that the world would never condemn a woman who tries to save her husband's life or protect a dying father. When confronted by Krogstad, who tells her it is against the law to sign someone else's signature, she responds: " This I refuse to believe. A daughter hasn't a right to protect her dying father from anxiety and care? A wife hasn't a right to save her husband's life? I don't know much about laws, but I'm sure that somewhere in the books these things are allowed." Nora simply does not understand the ways of the world, and the final realization that she is in real danger of risking hers and her husband's reputation, and worse, makes her snap out of the childish dream she had been living.
Torvald is constantly referring to her through the use of pet names such as (quote pet names from book) and only ever refers to her by name when he is scolding her. Not only does Torvald see her as his doll, but also as her child (quote near end of story). By keeping Nora dependent and obedient to him, he plays the role of Nora’s second father. Nora eventually sees that her daughter is being treated in the same manner that she was her entire life, as a doll. In comes Mrs. Linde, Nora’s childhood best friend, whom she greats rather hesitantly.
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.
Nora is a dynamic character. When the play begins Nora is viewed and presented as a playful and carefree person. She seems to be more intent on shopping for frivolous things. But, as time goes on it becomes apparent that Nora actually has a certain amount of seriousness in her decisions and actions in dealing with the debt she incurred to save Torvald’s life. Nora’s openness in her friendship with Dr. Rank changes after he professes his affections toward her. Her restraint in dealing with him shows that Nora is a mature and intelligent woman. Nora shows courage, not seen previously, by manipulating her way around Krogstad and his threats to reveal her secret. After feeling betrayed by Torvald, Nora reveals that she is leaving him. Having
as well as social and moral principles, and even breaks the regulation in an attempt to save her husband’s life, as well as keep her family unbroken? It is Just such that woman, Nora Helmer, that in effort Henrik Ibsen depicts in “A Doll House” even through what she says concerning herself, through her dealings, actions as well as through her understanding of earlier event and occurrences, Ibsen reveals the cruel mind set of a society on the sides of woman and the capability to break the standard of conformity in favor of individuality.
Nora 's character is a little bit complicated. she is a representative of women in her time and shows how women were thought to be a content with the luxuries of modern society without worrying about men 's outside world. However, Nora proves that this idea is entirely wrong. Nora is not a spendthrift as all people think specially her husband. on the contrary, she has a business awareness and she is mature
Torvald even calls Nora pet names like "my sweet little lark" and "my squirrel”. These nicknames may seem harmless and cute, but in reality, the names actually show how little he thinks of her and how he’s the one harnessing the power in the relationship. When Torvald says "my little squirrel" he is suggesting that he in fact owns Nora and that she is second-rate to him, since she is seen as little and as a squirrel which are usually frightened, non-threatening creatures. Torvald sees women as both child-like, helpless creatures detached from reality and who are responsible for taking care of the chores and children while staying inside the house. Gender roles are also seen in the rules Torvald for Nora to follow.
...dlike mentality and needs to grow before she can raise her own children. Her defiance of Torvald, when he refuses to let her leave, reflects her epiphany that she isn't obligated to let Torvald dictate her actions. The height of Nora's realization comes when she tells Torvald that her duty to herself is as strong as her duty as a wife and mother. She now sees that she is a human being before she is a wife and mother and she owes herself to explore her personality, ambitions, and beliefs.
Nora then replies almost unconsciously, “Yes, whatever you say, Torvald.” It is clear that Nora could not even image at this point in the play to stick up for her thoughts, and opinions.
As the play goes on, Nora seems to transform from her delicate little character into something much more. At the end of act one, Krogstad goes to Nora for the recollection of the money she had borrowed from him. "You don?t mean that you will tell my husband that I owe you money?" (21). Since Nora was wrong in doing so socially, she could not tell Torvald or anyone else about her problem. Not only would that affect their social standard but also Torvald's ego, which inevitably would happen anyway. After Krogstad threatens to expose Nora for forging her father's signature, she realizes that no matter what she does Torvald was going to know the truth. The flaw with...