How Is A Doll's House Objectifying Women

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The Objectifying of Women to Promote the Patriarchy in A Doll’s House

When originally released and produced, Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, it forced an entire nation to reevaluate the standard of gender equality. Many accredit this work to aiding in the beginning of the Norwegian feminist movement, which began the same year the play was first seen by audiences. With its release, A Doll’s House had extreme polarizing effects on the audience members, causing some to rebel against the patriarchy and others to continue to cling to it with a vehement vigor. In this work, Ibsen addresses the question of objectification of women, and how it is degrading and demeaning towards women, through the way that both Torvald and Nora, herself, views Nora. …show more content…

Being raised in the Norwegian nineteenth century, Nora knows nothing other than taking what men give her and thanking them for it. Much of the dependence Nora has on Torvald comes from his ability to financially support her. It becomes apparent that Nora equates love and safety with wealth. Critics Kristen Brunnemer and Kristine Krapp compare Nora’s desires with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. According to Brunnemer, “At the bottom of the hierarchy's scale are physiological needs, such as the need for food, water, shelter, and air. The next level of Maslow's hierarchy, titled safety, consists of the need for financial resources, health, and security. According to Maslow, only after these two stages of need have been successfully satisfied can one progress to the next levels, which consist of the need for love and belonging, the need for esteem, and the need for self-actualization” (Krapp qtd in Brunnemer 2-3). Brunnemer further notes that Nora shows an extreme 'need for safety', noting her frugal behavior in order to return her and her family back to the financial state they had been in before she took out the loan (Brunnemer 3). Throughout the novel, Nora reveals her need for financial security and how she hopes to find this in Torvald, as shown by her dialogue in the play, but she also hopes to find the belonging, self-esteem, and love she …show more content…

To Torvald, like most men of this time period, his wife is merely another thing he can add to his collection. To him, Nora is not much more than an expensive decoration. Throughout the play, he is often focused on the amount of money Nora is spending or the appearance she has. His belittlement of Nora is exemplified when he states, “You can’t deny it, my dear little Nora…. It’s a sweet little spendthrift, but she uses up a deal of money. One would hardly believe how expensive such little persons are!” (Ibsen 9). Torvald focus’s heavily on how much money Nora costs him and rarely acknowledges her as a person. For Norway in the nineteenth century, Torvald would have been raised to believe that females were less than men and this bleeds over into his marriage to

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