What Are The Differences Between The Doll House And A Doll's House

“Trifles” by Susan Glaspell and “A Dollhouse” by Henrik Ibsen, are both very good plays which do an excellent job of bringing attention to the ways females in our society were once looked down upon by men. Despite the fact both works were written when the issue of sexual discrimination was pervasive in our society, both works are still relative today. Even though equality has improved greatly in our society since the time these works were written, the issue still exists in our country to a lesser degree but it is still a huge issue in a large part of the world. There are many lessons to learn from these two plays such as respecting women, humility, being assertive and challenging misconceptions. Although these plays have similarities, they

Specific similarities include domestic expectations, a woman’s intelligence level, the value of their opinions, and their comparative social standing when compared to men. Both works feature egotistical men who have a severely inflated view of their self-worth. However, in both plays, these same men quickly retreat when one of the female characters take a stand for themselves. Ironically, it is only after the women in each story are prompted act do they gain some respect from the other characters. In “A Dollhouse,” Nora is stuck in a marriage with a rich man that has no respect for her, looks at other women as sexual objects and is perhaps a bit disturbed. Nora’s husband Torvald, does not think his wife or any other woman for that matter, can have intelligent thoughts simply because she is a women (Mazur 17). The sad truth is he is ignorant to the fact that his marriage is sinking and he seems ambivalent to the whole situation. The play ends with Nora finally realizing the situation she is in and she decides to leave Torvald and get on with her life (Mazur

Their actions and words indicate they believe women are not capable of thinking intelligently. This is evidenced in “Trifles” when Mr. Hale makes the statement about women only worrying about mere trifles. It is also apparent in “A Dollhouse” when Torvalds thinks his wife is not capable of thinking with any complexity (Mazur 17). Another common attribute is the women both works finally get tired of feeling like second class citizens and stand up to disrespectful people in their lives (Mulry 294). Readers can feel the tension in each story as the women in both were so discontent with their situations they were willing to