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Society in the doll's house
Symbolism In A Doll's House
Society in the doll's house
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"A Doll's House" Henrik Ibsen
HELMER:Go then [Seizes her arm]. But first you shall see your children for the last time!
NORA: Let me got! I will not see them! I cannot!
HELMER:(draws her over to the doorleft) You shall see them. (Opens the door and says softly) Look there they are asleep peacefull and carefree. Tomorow they wake up and call for their mother, they will be - motherless.
NORA: [trembling] Motherless!
HELMER: As you once were.
NORA: Motherless! [struggles with herself, lets her traveling bag fall, and says.] Oh it is a sin against myself, but I cannot leave them. [Half sinks down by the door.]
HELMER: [joyfully, but softly] Nora!
[curtain closes]
Ibsen's play upset German directors so much that they forced him to write an alternate ending. Ibsen called the changed ending a "barbaric act of violence towards the play".
The play was an outrage described by furious Victorian newspapers as "..an open drain" and "a toilet" and met by protestors in several cities. "A Doll's House" was the Passion of the Christ or Fahrenheit 911 of its time. Loaded with brutal attacks and angry symbolism towards its middle class audience there is no wonder that this play caused so much controversy.
Ibsen's audience was the new industrial revolution middle class. Prior to Ibsen's time the theatre was only a place for the aristocratic classes. Ibsen wrote for the middle class by choosing issues and language that would appeal to and offend them.
The new middle class values included hard work, sexual morality, education, thrift and a prudent marriage. Appearance was extremely important and a happy healthy idealized life was demanded by a middle class man and his family.
Furthermore, the most sacred duties (and the only duties) that women were able to take up were maternity, and submission to her husband.
The most obvious way that Ibsen draws class parallels is through character relationships. Christine Linde is more independent than Norah she has been forced to make her own way through life. She practices little to none of the Victorian middle class values (she is a widow, no children, no money).
Norah is the opposite,. She has everything that Victorian society approves. However, Christine is the woman who knows what truth is, She knows what is right and she is the voice of reason who believes that truth is key to any marriage.
Through these characters in this play Ibsen is attacking the lifestyle and ideals of his audience.
Nora, with the best of intentions, has caught herself and her family in a legal trap caused by her disregard of the law, when she forges her father’s signature on a bond. In her conversation she first discusses with Mrs. Linde “Yes, a wonderful thing!--But it is so terrible, Christine; it mustn't happen, not for all the world.” (II.66). The reader finds out later that the wonderful thing is also her romantic imaginings of her husband, Torvald, standing up and taking the blame for her actions shielding her from the consequences if what she has done ever comes to light.
Many people admire Ibsen for portraying Hedda and Nora as women who are able to take action and escape the conventional roles expected of them. Ibsen uses the role of motherhood to display battles women must fight involving their desires to be independent individuals and the directions that society expects their lives to go in.... ... middle of paper ... ... Finney, Gail.
Ibsen created an environment for women to question the society they lived in. Nora and Hedda, two feminists living in a masculine household bereft of happiness, desired to evade their unhappy life at home under the guidance of a man. Eventually, both women escaped from their husband’s grasp, but Hedda resorted to suicide in order to leave. Nora agreed with Lois Wyse by showing her strengths with pride to everybody, while Hedda hid her strengths like a coward by killing herself. Ibsen used numerous literary elements and techniques to enhance his writing and to help characterize the two protagonists.
From the time A Doll's House was performed for first time (1879) till now, there have been all sorts of interpretation and critics about its message. According to Mr. Mayer's files critics considered that the A Doll's House message was that "a marriage was not sacrosanct, that a man's authority in his home should not go unchallenged". Another similar critics' interpretat...
Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler portrays the societal roles of gender and sex through Hedda as a character trying to break the status quo of gender relations within the Victorian era. The social conditions and principles that Ibsen presents in Hedda Gabler are of crucial importance as they “constitute the molding and tempering forces which dictate the behavior of all the play's characters” with each character part of a “tightly woven social fabric” (Kildahl). Hedda is an example of perverted femininity in a depraved society intent on sacrificing to its own self-interest and the freedom and individual expression of its members. It portrays Nineteenth Century unequal relationship problems between the sexes, with men being the independent factor and women being the dependent factor. Many of the other female characters are represented as “proper ladies” while also demonstrating their own more surreptitious holdings of power through manipulation. Hedda Gabler is all about control and individualism through language and manipulation and through this play Ibsen shows how each gender acquires that or is denied.
Those of you who have just read A Doll's House for the first time will, I suspect, have little trouble forming an initial sense of what it is about, and, if past experience is any guide, many of you will quickly reach a consensus that the major thrust of this play has something to do with gender relations in modern society and offers us, in the actions of the heroine, a vision of the need for a new-found freedom for women (or a woman) amid a suffocating society governed wholly by unsympathetic and insensitive men.
...The play demonstrates this in the following lines: Helmer: Before anything else, you’re a wife and mother. Nora: I don’t believe that any more. I believe that before anything else, I’m a human being, just as much a one as you are … or at least I’m going to turn myself into one … I want to think everything out for myself and make my own decisions. Nora must be true to herself in order to participate in society in a meaningful manner. Her relationship with her children has been marred by her relationships with her father and husband; she treats her children as dolls, and they are apt to grow up in the same manner, with the same inability to be true to themselves. By the end of the play, Nora realizes that she cannot properly fulfill her duties as a mother until she learns how to become a person first. In this sense, her abandonment of her children is an act of mercy.
...th century were put down and seen of as lesser then men. They didn’t get any fair chances and had control of absolutely nothing in their life. The roles of women ranged from mother to wife, and went not far beyond. There was no way to gain any independence. Despite, the inferiority of Mrs. Linde, she defied the stereotypical ideas of women of her time and learned to be prosperous on her own. She even got a job, which was practically impossible for women of her time. In the end Ibsen’s portrayal of Mrs. Linde was extremely significant, she became a role of feminist movements for all people of her time. Ibsen was one of the first men to understand and feel that society was corrupt and women deserve to be treated equal. This play became extremely controversial to all, but in the end portrayed the ideas that would rewrite the role of a woman in any portion of life.
“A Doll’s House” gives the reader a firsthand view at how gender roles affected the characters actions and interactions throughout the play. The play helps to portray the different struggles women faced during the 19th century with gender roles, and how the roles affected their relationships with men as well as society. It also helps to show the luxury of being a male during this time and how their higher status socially over women affected their relationships with woman and others during this time period.
At the end, the fact that a middle-class family is portrayed makes the entire series of events relatable to a modern audience and is effective in evoking a reaction and truly portrays the genre. The symbolism used shows the fatal flaw of the tragic heroine, the issues in society Ibsen wanted to be tackled and the death of an individual as well as the death of a family, therefore, conveying the key components of a modern domestic tragedy.
and do things themselves. One of the women gets her own job and the other leaves her daughter for adoption. Thus showing they are making their own decisions in life. This is unheard of in the 1800's and shows Ibsen trying to have a society in which women do have an identity in society and can be heard. Throughout the play, a women is shown doing her own thinking and not listening to what men have to say even though that is not how it used to be. Ibsen creates this new society in which anyone, no matter the gender, should be able to make their own decisions about life and how to live it.
In its historical context A Doll’s House was a radical play which forced its audience to question the gender roles which are constructed by society and make them think about how their own lives are a performance for Victorian society.
Those of you who have just read A Doll's House for the first time will, I suspect, have little trouble forming an initial sense of what it is about, and, if past experience is any guide, many of you will quickly reach a consensus that the major thrust of this play has something to do with gender relations in modern society and offers us, in the actions of the heroine, a vision of the need for a new-found freedom for women (or a woman) amid a suffocating society governed wholly by unsympathetic and insensitive men.
drive to be a real woman; this is another characteristic that many women display. Nora’s
...ecting feministic views about women’s independence; although Ibsen was most likely presenting reality, not advocating change. Once again what conclusions modern feminists may draw from the play are shaped by their context.