LEC052017.DEEPTHI M.DRAFT2 : A FEMINIST ANALYSIS OF HENRIK IBSEN'S "A DOLL'S HOUSE"
Deepthi M
Dr Joseph Koyippally
LEC 5104
04 February 2021
A Feminist Analysis of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House
The play A Doll’s House written by
Henrik Ibsen, a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright and author is a great field for feminist criticism. Themes explored in feminism include
discrimination, stereotyping, objectification (especially sexual
objectification), oppression and patriarchy. Feminist critics have seen Ibsen
as a social realist and a revolutionary thinker. His play A Doll’s House primarily deals with the desire of a woman to establish her identity and
dignity in a society governed by man. It is about the disillusionment of a wife
and the way she has been dominated and how her basic right, her right to be
someone has been ruthlessly destroyed in the name of love by her husband. The
drama is about the real and a burning social issue of a revolution that had
become essential for the society to progress.
A Doll’s House represents
the social conflicts of 19th-century marriage norms. In Ibsen’s time, the wife
was treated like a servant. Ibsen protested against this passivity assigned to
women. He has brought out the protagonist Nora Helmer who lives in a
male-dominated society where the wife is treated like a doll in her own house.
Nora is introduced as a week, stupid, and dependent wife. As the drama unfolds,
and as Nora’s awareness of the truth about her life grows, her need for
rebellion escalates, culminating in her walking out on her husband and children
in search of her identity and independence. The very title of the play is about
the woman in it, which emphatically suggests the treatment of her as if she was
a lifeless doll. Nora is like Torvald’s doll—she decorates his home and pleases
him by being a dependent figure with whose emotions he can toy. At first
glance, we may feel that she lives in a home that seems peaceful while it is actually
oppressive. Nora is being forced to live a life structured and organized by the
male-dominated society in order to be acknowledged as an ideal woman. The norms
prescribed for her is male originated and are assigned to be followed in order
to be marked as an ideal daughter, mother and wife. It is like a puppet show where
the dramatist makes the doll dance according to its twists and turns.
Torvald believes that a
wife’s role is to beautify the home, not only through proper management of
domestic life but also through proper behaviour and appearance. He makes it
known that appearances are very important to him, and that Nora is like an
ornament or trophy that serves to beautify his home and his
reputation. Torvald amuses himself by manipulating his wife’s emotions. In
addition to being something like a doll to Torvald, Nora is also like a child
to him. By keeping Nora dependent upon and subservient to him, Torvald plays
the role of Nora’s second father. Torvald’s insistence on calling Nora by
affectionately diminutive names evokes her helplessness and her dependence on him.
The only time that Torvald calls Nora by her actual name is when he is scolding
her. When he is greeting or adoring her, however, he calls her by childish
animal nicknames such as “my little skylark” and “my squirrel.” By placing her
within such a system of names, Torvald not only asserts his power over Nora but
also dehumanizes her to a degree. This illustrates Simon de Beauvoir’s concept
of woman as “the Other”.
Another aspect of the
play that is to be noted from a feminist point of view is the economic
condition. A woman was not allowed to work even if she wants to work. She had
to depend upon her husband alone after marriage. Before marriage woman has to
depend upon father only. The work of earning money was assigned to man. Man is
the master and protector of his family. Torvald’s assertion that Nora’s lack of
understanding of money matters is the result of her gender (“Nora, my Nora,
that is just like a woman”)(Act1) reveals his prejudiced viewpoint on gender
roles. As the play progresses, Nora reveals that she is not just a “silly
girl,” as Torvald calls her. She understands the business details related to
the debt she incurred taking out a loan to preserve Torvald’s health indicates
that she is intelligent and possesses capacities beyond mere wifehood. Her
description of her years of secret labour undertaken to pay off her debt shows
her fierce determination and ambition. Additionally, the fact that she was
willing to break the law in order to ensure Torvald’s health shows her courage.
Nora has all the inherent talents for developing into a successful member of
the society, as much as her husband or any man.
Nora is a dynamic character because her character develops. Initially, she is being portrayed as a silly, childish woman, but as the play progresses, we see that she is intelligent, motivated, and strong-willed. Even in the very first act, she defies Torvald in small yet meaningful ways—by eating macaroons and then lying to him about it, for instance. She hence engages in minor rebellion against societal standards. Torvald’s severe and selfish reaction after learning of Nora’s deception and forgery is the final catalyst for Nora’s awakening. Nora’s forging to save his life is an illegal action, but she does it, for her love towards him. Nora lies because of Torvald’s unfair stereotypes about gender roles. If Torvald could accept his wife’s help and didn’t feel the need to have control over her every movement, Nora would not have to lie to him. She supposes that if one day this secret is revealed, Torvald will protect her. But, when she realizes that it is just a dream, an illusion and she is only a beautiful possession, nothing more than a toy in Torvald’s hands, Nora leaves her house by slamming of the door to the world of new possibilities. “I have been performing tricks for you, Torvald. That’s how I’ve survived. You wanted it like that”,(Act 3 ) she says during her climactic confrontation with him. Nora realizes that in addition to her literal dancing and singing tricks, she has been putting on a show throughout her marriage. She has pretended to be someone who she is not in order to fulfil the role that Torvald, her father, and society at large have expected of her. She is now going off to know her own responsibilities towards herself and to perform her duty towards herself. This kind of self-realization, which usually leads to a new beginning, is one of Ibsen’s main ideologies posed in his play. Nora opens her eyes and observes that her individuality and freedom have been taken in living with Torvald Helmer. She has discovered painfully that she has been treated as a nullity and that this must be changed. In such a society run by masculine laws with no emotions, Nora stops her flow of feeling and says “we have never sat down in earnest together to try and get at the bottom of anything” (Act III). This assertion is one of the key sentences in the Feminist approach since it expresses the moment of revelation when Nora notices that she has been treated as a second-hand creature and her indisputable rights have been ignored.
Torvald’s explanation
for refusing to take the blame—that a man can never sacrifice his integrity for
love—again reveals the depth of his gender bias. Nora’s response that “hundreds
of thousands of women have done just that”(Act III) underscores that the
actions of Mrs Linde and Nora, both of whom sacrificed themselves for their
loved ones. Nora’s belief that Torvald should take responsibility for her seems
justified since what she expects from Torvald is no more than what she has
already given him. The main focus given in this play is that man always find it
hard to accept the fact woman are equal to men within the family and social
life. Like Nora, many women fight daily with problem and suffering in their
married life but they never reveal their suffering and pain because of the fear
that their crying voice will be suppressed in this male society.
The play awakens woman
as an individual human being in society. Every character of female in the play
are attractive and focused with much attention in establishing their
self-identity. Kristine Linde is another major female
character in the play. She is a woman whose marriage was loveless and based on a need for financial security, and who doesn’t have any children.
She had to sacrifice her penniless love for her family. But, after the death of her husband
and mother, she arrives in town
in search of a job in order to earn money and survive independently. She finds
meaning and happiness in becoming independent. In this
way, she is a fairly modern woman. However, in other ways, she is more
traditional. She tells both Krogstad and Nora that she is miserable
without other people to take care of, thereby fitting into the traditional role
of women as caretakers and nurturers. Mrs Linde decides that she needs to care for
the man she truly loves to be true to herself and thereby become content. Hence the play also shows the way Ibsen’s
female characters do not absolutely fit into any of the main stereotypical
images of women in literature as the angel in the home or the madwoman in the
attic.
In short, the play
seeks to expose the injustice upon woman, which was inherent in the culture and the attitude of the male-dominated society of the late 19th century. It is basically a
demand for justice to women as well as humanity.
Works Cited
Abraham, M.H, and Harpham Geoffrey Galt.A Glossary
of Literary Terms, Cengage Learning India Private Limited,2012.
Azam, Azmi."Nora Helmer in Ibsen’s A Doll’s
House. A Feminist concerns in English Literature."Journal of English
Language and Literature, vol. (6), issue no. (1),2014.
www.academia.edu/6626153/Nora_Helmer_in_Ibsen_s_A_Doll_s_House_A_Feminist_concern_in_English_Literature
Accessed on 26 Jan2021
Finney, G. (I994). Ibsen and Feminism. The
Cambridge Companion to Ibsen (ed. J. McFarlane). New York: Cambridge
University Press.
www.worldcat.org/title/cambridge-companion-to-ibsen/oclc/27894720
Accessed on 27 Jan 2021
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House.
Gloucester: Dodo Press, 2005.
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