Henrik Ibsen Marrital Relationships

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Henrik Ibsen Marrital Relationships In Henrik Ibsen’s plays, A Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler he develops marital relationships between characters along with the plays plot. Having unique characteristics the different actors respond differently to the situations given to them. I will be analyzing these marital relationships between characters while comparing and contrasting these results between the three plays. The areas that I will be examining include gender roles, social influences and expectations, interpersonal dynamics and the context of motherhood. In A Doll’s House Ibsen focuses on the way women are seen, especially in the context of marriage and motherhood. This can be seen clearly by Torvalds narrow views of a women and her role as a “good” wife and mother. He explains to Nora that women are responsible for the morality of their children. He sees women as children and the helpless creatures that are detached from reality. Women are also the influential moral forces that are responsible for the purity of the world by their influence within the home. As a first impression Nora plays a very generous and open role. She seems to be very content in her surroundings and acts toward her husband in a very caring and loving way. She gives the impression that she is extremely dependent on her husband and would do nothing to hurt him. In the beginning of the play there are a few hints that contradict the true nature of how Nora really is deep down inside. There are a few instances in which Nora lies to her husband even before we ever find out about the big lie which is her marriage. She is confronted about eating some cookies she flat out lies to Torvald and tells him no. Another example is displayed when her hus... ... middle of paper ... ... says that Tesman was the nicest man towards her and he really went out of his way to treat her good. When comparing the two plays it becomes clear that their exists some similarities but mainly differences between the respective character roles. Both Nora and Hedda are independent individuals but only Hedda portrays this throughout the entire production. It takes till the end of “A Doll’s House” for Nora to actually come out of her shell and prove to the world that she is independent and nothing can stop her. The roles of the husbands are also very different between the two plays. One man is dominating and likes his wife to abide by his rules and the other man is just excited and happy that his woman is with him and not anyone else. These two plays explore the husband-wife relationships and portray two different scenarios with two completely different outcomes.

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