Women and men are not equal. Never have been, and it is hard to believe that they ever will be. Sexism permeates the lives of women from the day they are born. Women are either trying to fit into the “Act Like a Lady” box, they are actively resisting the same box, or sometimes both. The experience of fitting in the box and resisting the box can be observed in two plays: Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” and Henrick Ibsen’s “A Doll House”. In Hansberry’s play, initially, Beneatha seems uncontrolled and independent, but by the end she is controlled and dependent; whereas, in Ibsen’s play Nora seems controlled and dependent at the beginning of the play, but by the end she is independent and free.
What does it mean to be an independent
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woman? Hansberry initially introduces Beneatha as an independent woman. Beneatha, represents the independent woman because she has decided to go to she likes to try new things, she is extremely discerning about who she courts, and she is planning to be a medical student. Hansberry writes: BENEATHA. Listen, I’m going to be a doctor. I’m not worried about who I’m going to marry yet -- if I ever get married. MAMA AND RUTH. If! MAMA. Now, Bennie-- BENEATHA. Oh, I probably will… but first I’m going to be a doctor, and George, for one, still thinks that’s pretty funny. I couldn’t be bothered with that. I am going to be a doctor and everybody around her better understand that! (1522) In this moment Beneatha declares the order of her priorities: first is medical school and marriage may be second. As an independent woman, she also makes clear that if she were to marry, her husband would need to understand that. Beneatha is showing strength, critical self-thought, and independence. She refuses to succumb to traditional female roles, which is momentous given the fact that she is also a Black woman. Beneatha could play it safe and marry a rich man who does not care about her life goals, or she can give up marriage and achieve her life goals. At the beginning of the play, Beneatha chooses her life goals. However, this quickly changes. Even though Beneatha has an independent mindset, she is trapped and dependent on her mother, brother, and sister-in-law for financial support. This dependence on family also hinders her from living out her dreams. At the end of the play, as the Youngers’ move out of their old apartment Beneatha shares with Mama some exciting news: BENEATHA. Mama, Asagai asked me to marry him today and go to Africa-- MAMA. (in the middle of her getting-ready activity) He did? You ain’t old enough to marry nobody… BENEATHA. (girlishly and unreasonably trying to pursue the conversation) To go to Africa, Mama -- be a doctor in Africa… MAMA. (distracted) Yes, baby-- WALTER. Africa! What he want you to go to Africa for? BENEATHA. To practice there… WALTER. Girl, if you don’t get all them silly ideas out your head! You better marry yourself a man with some loot… (1574) Beneatha does not ask her mother or Walter if she could go to Africa, rather she explains to them the situation.
She shares that not only would she be able to get married as well as become a doctor, she would get to live in Africa. Her mother does not say no, but she kind of “brushes off” the news Beneatha shares with her as if it is not an option. Her brother, Walter, tells her to forget about it and marry rich. Neither her mother or brother are supportive in this moment. Hansberry ends the play shortly after this moment, so it is unclear what Beneatha’s final decision was. Was she independent enough to liberate herself from her family’s hold? Or did she remain trapped and dependent by their expectations of what her future should look like?
Similarly, in Ibsen’s “A Doll House” there is a female character trapped in a dependence situation. Nora is dependent on her husband Torvald for practically everything. Nora indebted herself to her husband when she secretly took out a loan to save him. She was trapped in the roles of wife, mother, and homemaker to her family, but this additional debt, this loan, made Nora need to beg and plead for money from Torvald. Nora explains to Christine her relationship with Torvald:
NORA. (meditatively, and with a half smile) Yes -- someday, perhaps, after many years, when I am no longer as nice-looking as I am now. Don’t laugh at me! I mean of course, when Torvald is no longer as devoted to me as he is now; when my dancing and dressing-up and reciting have palled on him.
(1358) These lines make it obvious that Nora is an intelligent individual trapped in a charade. Fairly early on in the play, Nora knows that she is the object of her husband’s affection, not because of who she is, but because of how she looks and dances. Nora feels like she would only be able to tell Torvald the truth when he no longer desires her for those superficial reasons. Even though Nora realizes and verbalizes these feelings, she does not oppose them. At this point in the play, she is content with being dependent on her husband. As the play continued, the situation changed. Nora’s secret loan helped her become an independent woman. In a conversation with Torvald, Nora explains her new state of mind: NORA. … In any case, I set you free from all your obligations. You are not to fell yourself bound in the slightest way, any more than I shall. There must be perfect freedom on both sides. See, here is your ring back. Give me mine… HELMER. Here it is. NORA. That’s right. Now it is all over… To-morrow, after I have left her, Christine will come and pack up my own things that I brought with me from home. I will have them sent after me. (1402) Nora decides to liberate Torvald and in the process liberate herself. Nora wanted Torvald to come to her rescue when things got tough, but because he did not, she realized that she wanted something different. It is really bold of Nora to give up her safe life as a wife and mother and go into the world as a “divorcee”. Also most women would be afraid to leave their children, but Nora is dedicating to situating herself within the world outside of Torvald’s home and that meant she had to make sacrifices. The truth Nora feared being revealed, once revealed, liberated her and gave her the power and strength to live life on her own terms and no one else’s. Traditional feminism would declare female dolls as a hindrance to female liberation and praise female doctors as a step in the right direction for female liberation. Modern feminism would acknowledge the power in both. Beneatha and Nora are examples where traditional and modern feminism blend. Beneatha would appear to be the more liberated woman being a medical school student, but she is controlled by older family members. On the other hand, Nora appears to be the least liberated woman being a homemaker; however, she liberates herself when she gives it all up to live life on her own terms at the end of the play. Beneatha and Nora’s liberation or lack thereof is tragic. The tragedy is that women do not have the power to live life on their terms.
In this essay I will be comparing two playwrights, A Raisin in the Sun and A Doll’s House, to one another. I will also compare the two to modern time and talk about whether or not over time our society has changed any. Each of these plays has a very interesting story line based in two very different time eras. Even though there is an 80 year time gap the two share similar problems and morals, things you could even find now in the year of 2016. In the following paragraphs I will go over the power of time and what we as a society have done to make a change.
As a result of Henrik Ibsen’s controversial play, A Doll’s House, published in 1879, many critics were outraged that Ibsen’s conclusion challenged gender roles within society. Due to certain exterior pressures, where men were in fear that their “traditional” male dominant marriages were being threatened, Ibsen drafted an alternative ending to appease their concerns. However, his original ending shed light on the idea of a woman becoming self-sufficient in a nineteenth century society. In Ibsen’s well-crafted play, the protagonist, Nora Helmer, is treated inferior in the eyes of her husband, Torvald. Ibsen depicts how gender inequalities amongst the two spouse’s incurred detrimental consequences
In “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell and “A Dollhouse” by Henrik Ibsen, the authors use symbolism to shed light on the way woman were once looked down upon by men. In both plays the woman face similar derisive attitudes from the men in their lives. Women are treated as property, looked down upon and only useful in matters pertaining to cooking, taking care of children, housework and sexual objects. The women’s marriages, socioeconomic and social status are completely different, but both women reach their emotional breaking point, and grow so discontent with their situations they are willing to take drastic actions.
Throughout the plays, the reader can visualize how men dismiss women as trivial and treat them like property, even though the lifestyles they are living in are very much in contrast. The playwrights, each in their own way, are addressing the issues that have negatively impacted the identity of women in society.
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.
In society, there has always been a gap between men and women. Women are generally expected to be homebodies, and seen as inferior to their husbands. The man is always correct, as he is more educated, and a woman must respect the man as they provide for the woman’s life. During the Victorian Era, women were very accommodating to fit the “house wife” stereotype. Women were to be a representation of love, purity and family; abandoning this stereotype would be seen as churlish living and a depredation of family status. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Henry Isben’s play A Doll's House depict women in the Victorian Era who were very much menial to their husbands. Nora Helmer, the protagonist in A Doll’s House and the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” both prove that living in complete inferiority to others is unhealthy as one must live for them self. However, attempts to obtain such desired freedom during the Victorian Era only end in complications.
First of all, Ibsen shows women’s struggle in Nora. In Act I, there’s part where Nora and Krogstad talks and he says,” When your husband was sick, you came to me for a loan of four thousand, eight hundred crowns.” (Page 1037) This was Nora’s and Krogstad’s secret. Nora didn’t tell anyone, even her husband Torvald. Because of this, she lies more to her husband and gets attack by Krogstand. She bares all the pains by herself and carries all the burdens alone.
We see his a very controlling and almost derivative man. Nora is seen by him as an object, a possession like being that is just another piece of the puzzle that makes up his life. We realise that Nora is only in Torvalds’s life, not because he loves her, but because it was strict tradition to do so in this time. He rejects Nora and pushes her away from him with his sarcastic and derogatory comments such as pet
“I have often wished that you might be threatened by some great danger, so that I might risk my life’s blood, and everything for your sake” (Ibsen 71). This statement shows just how much a husband loves his wife, so much he is willing to relinquish all that he has. In “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen, the reader is shown how just one action causes the main protagonist, Nora Helmer and her loving husband Torvald, to go from loving each other to eventually splitting up. After a careful analysis of the story, the reader is shown how Nora’s illicit action cause their feelings towards her and her husband to change, why they changed, and how it affected the story.
It sometimes takes a lifetime to change yourself, but changing in response to what other people want, without considering your own needs could be much more challenging. In a world without any flaws all people would be treated equally and with the same kind of respect. On the other hand, in the world we live in, almost all situations we find ourselves in have the potential to become a conflict. A Doll's House, a play by Henrik Ibsen, is an exceptional example of a conflict that exists as women are seen as possessions and not individuals by men. Ibsen uses the Christmas tree, macaroons, tarantella, and the doll’s house as symbols in A Doll’s House to express the flaws in a society that requires women to be the subservient and docile servants of men.
Literature normally touches on traditional gender stereotypes and the role of the society in building those gender biases. From earlier centuries, gender stereotyping is closely intertwined with every aspect of the social fabric. The play, A Doll 's House by Henrik Ibsen presents a critical reflection of marital norms of the nineteenth-century. This three-act play revolves around the need of every individual, particularly women, to discover oneself, and how they have to strive to establish their identities. This aesthetically shaped play depicts traditional gender roles and the subsequent social struggles that every woman encounter in a stereotyped society. Though, Nora fits rightly to the nineteenth century social norm of submissive housewife
Today women are being mistreated for just the gender roles and stereotypes that revolve in the human society. Depending on the time period and culture, women are expected to act in a certain way. Throughout history, many relationships can be found in different cultures regarding the way women were treated. In Ibsen’s A Doll’s house, Nora reflects the responsibilities and roles of Norwegian women during the late 1870s. Torvald, Nora’s husband, also shows the way men treated women and what roles they played in a marriage. Here, women are portrayed as dependent on men, they don’t have much freedom, and they are not allowed to have opinions. Women are taught to rely on men and be acquiescent to their husbands. Many stereotypes and gender roles found in A Doll’s House can also be observed in
In A Doll's House, Ibsen paints a bare picture of the sacrificial role held by women of different economic and financial standards in his society. The play's female characters demonstrate Nora's assertion that men refuse to sacrifice their integrity. In order to support her mother and two brothers, Mrs. Linde found it necessary to leave Krogstad. She left her true love, Krogstad, to marry a richer man. These are some of the sacrifices that women have to make to provide for there family. The nanny had to abandon her own child to support herself by working as Nora's children sitter. As she often told Nora, the nanny considers herself very fortunate to receive the job as the sitter, since she was a poor girl who was left astray. Isben concerns about women in society are brought up throughout the play. He believed that women had the right to develop their own individuality, but only if they made a sacrifice. Wo...
“Girls wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots because it is okay to be a boy; for a girl it is like promotion. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, according to you, because secretly you believe that being a girl is degrading” (McEwan 55-56). Throughout the history of literature women have been viewed as inferior to men, but as time has progressed the idealistic views of how women perceive themselves has changed. In earlier literature women took the role of being the “housewife” or the household caretaker for the family while the men provided for the family. Women were hardly mentioned in the workforce and always held a spot under their husband’s wing. Women were viewed as a calm and caring character in many stories, poems, and novels in the early time period of literature. During the early time period of literature, women who opposed the common role were often times put to shame or viewed as rebels. As literature progresses through the decades and centuries, very little, but noticeable change begins to appear in perspective to the common role of women. Women were more often seen as a main character in a story setting as the literary period advanced. Around the nineteenth century women were beginning to break away from the social norms of society. Society had created a subservient role for women, which did not allow women to stand up for what they believe in. As the role of women in literature evolves, so does their views on the workforce environment and their own independence. Throughout the history of the world, British, and American literature, women have evolved to become more independent, self-reliant, and have learned to emphasize their self-worth.
“A Doll House” by Ibsen exposes one of the main trials facing Nora and women of today that a lot of men tend to underestimate women. They assume that