Essay 2corregido - Analysis of gender in A doll\'s house by Ibsen. PDF

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Analysis of gender in A doll's house by Ibsen. ...

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GENDER ASSUMPTIONS CHALLENGED IN A DOLL’S HOUSE

‘Helmer: Before all else you are a wife and a mother. Nora: I don’t believe that any longer. I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being just as you are – or, at all events, that I must try and become one.’ 1

A Doll’s House, as Ibsen himself said, expresses the idea of how a ‘woman cannot be herself in modern society. It is an exclusively male society, with laws made by men and with prosecutors and judges who assess feminine conduct from a masculine standpoint’ 2. Nineteenth century society placed women at home, taking on the role of ‘mother’ and ‘wife’, while men were supposed to think, act, work and control family life:

Feminine gender was constructed around an elaboration of ‘natural’ maternal and nurturing instinct into the guardianship at home of morality generally, and sexual purity in particular. Complementary masculinity then fell into place as ‘naturally’ fit for the marketplace and its struggles: self—interested, aggressive, competitive and with a strong procreative instinct suited to the founding of dynasties 3.

1 Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House, ed. by Philip Smith (New York: Dover Thrift Editions, 1992), p. 68. 2 Henrik Ibsen quoted in Richard Eyre, 'Ibsen: The man who knew the soul of women', The Telegraph, (2015), in [accessed 16 March 2016]. 3 Patricia Ingham, Language of Gender and Class: Transformation in the Victorian Novel (Routledge, 2002), p. 22. STUDENT ID:51552320 | 1

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GENDER ASSSUMPTIONS CHALLENGED IN A DOLL’S HOUSE

Within this context, ‘A Doll’s House presents itself as an analysis of how gender and gender subordination is produced,4 and remains controversial as it shows a model of a liberated woman in a time where she was supposed to be as the woman I described before. In this essay, I will discuss the subject of gender in Enrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. I will examine the difference between the first two acts and the third act in order to explain the development of the characters according to the gender assumptions of the time. I will specifically focus on Nora Helmer and her relationship with Torvald and society.

On the one hand, I would like to discuss the understanding of gender in the first two acts of the play. Within these acts, we can clearly understand how society worked at that time according to the gender theme. We could argue that the relationship between Nora and Torvald is similar to that between a father and a daughter. An example of this is the conversation in which Nora denies having eaten the macaroons. In this scene we can clearly understand the fatherdaughter relationship: ‘Helmer: Hasn’t Miss Sweet Tooth been breaking rules in town today? […] Nora: No, Torvald, I assure you, really. Helmer: There, there, of course I was only joking.’ ( DH, p. 4). Moreover, he constantly refers to her as a skylark or a squirrel. Indeed, those nicknames ‘function as repressive code. […] Skylark, squirrel and elf-child are Helmer’s images of Nora as he wants her to be, and she coquettishly accepts her role as skylark and squirrel in the seductive masquerade in which Helmer wants to keep her.’ 5 Rekdal refers to 4 Unni Langås, 'Challenging Gender Norms: Ibsen's Nora revisited', NIKK Magasin, No. 3, (2005), 4-6, p. 4, in [accessed 9 March 2016]. 5 Anne Marie Rekdal, 'The female jouissance: An analysis of Ibsen's Et dukkehjem', ProQuest Direct Complete, 74.2, (2002), 149-180 (p. 155), in

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GENDER ASSSUMPTIONS CHALLENGED IN A DOLL’S HOUSE

their relationship as a masquerade, in which both of them pretend to be something they are not, clinging to social conventions of the time. Actually, Torvald treats Nora as a non-human being, and thus, in this way confirms the doll metaphor that persists throughout the play. As we see in this conversation, ‘I will do everything I can think of to please you, Torvald! I will sing for you, dace for you’ (DH, p.28), women were supposed to do what their husbands said and were discouraged in having their own thoughts or ideas. Indeed, ‘as man and authority, Torvald Helmer rules the marital relation linked to the imaginary order.’ (Rekdal, p. 156) Therefore, he is the authority at home and he is the one that has the control over the relationship, he is the powerful one. ‘He stays in control and explains things to Nora, the child who cannot handle money, and he flirts with her in a fatherly-authoritarian, physical manner by tugging her ear’ (Rekdal, p. 155). As I said before, Nora is just a child in the eyes of Torvald and society, as well as in her own eyes. She is considered incapable of handling important issues and inferior because of the fact that she is a woman. We can see in different conversations throughout the play that Nora is subordinate to her husband and she is also active in allowing this to happen; ‘I should not think of going against your wishes’ ( DH, p. 4). In fact, in her efforts to help him, Nora had to invest financially and be resourceful. However, she was afraid of her husband discovering what she had done, as it would destroy his idea of her and their “happiness”; ‘How painful and humiliating it would be for Torvald, with his manly independence, to know that he owned me anything!’ ( DH, p. 12). I highlight ‘manly’ as a key word in this quotation as men were supposed to be independent, powerful, and were not supposed to depend on a woman.

[accessed 13 March 2016].

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GENDER ASSSUMPTIONS CHALLENGED IN A DOLL’S HOUSE

On the other hand, at the end of the third act, Nora realizes men have manipulated her since she was born, first her father, and now her husband; ‘I was simply transferred from Papa’s hands to yours’ ( DH, p. 66), Nora said, ‘I have existed merely to perform tricks for you.’ ( DH, p. 66). She does not have her own identity but an imposed one, not only by her father or her husband, but also by society. ‘A woman should not have to choose between being a woman and being a human being, but women must often make this choice in literature and in the culture at large’ 6. In Nora’s case, she chooses to be a human being, as you can appreciate in the quote at the beginning of the essay. She wonderfully explains the situation she has been living in with a metaphor that threads through the whole play: ‘I’ve been your doll wife, just as at home I was Papa’s doll child; and here the children have been my dolls’ ( DH, p. 67). She realizes what the problem is and decides to go away from it to develop not as a woman, mother, wife or daughter, but as a human being. As Nora said, she needs to focus on the duties to herself, as an individual. As Toril Moi pointed out ‘Nora does not claim her humanity before she has explicitly rejected three other identities: the doll, the wife, and the mother.’ (Toril Moi quoted in Øvrebø, p. 7 ). In this way, ‘she is voicing the most basic of feminist principles: that women no less than men possess a moral and intellectual nature and have not only a right but a duty to develop it’ 7. Nora realizes that she has always been a doll,

6 Turid Øvrebø, 'Ibsen's Nora: 'First and foremost a human being'', NIKK Magasin, No. 3, (2005), 7-9, pp. 8, in [accessed 9 March 2016]. 7 Joan Templeton, ' The Doll House Backlash: Criticism, Feminism, and Ibsen', PMLA, 104.1, (1989), 28-40, p. 32 in [accessed 11 March 2016].

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GENDER ASSSUMPTIONS CHALLENGED IN A DOLL’S HOUSE

something to ‘play’ with, to manipulate. She no longer wants to be treated in that way, she is a human being, as well as Torvald, as well as anyone else.

In conclusion, I have analyzed how characters and their relationships change throughout the play, focusing on Nora and her change at the end of act three. Watching how she acts and grows could be understood as the liberation of the cultural assumptions that the patriarchic society impose on women. Actually, Nora is understood as a key character in global feminism, and ‘that Nora's exit from her dollhouse has long been the principal international symbol for women's issues’ (Templeton, p. 28). However, ‘the problem portrayed in the play is about women’s rights, as human’s rights’8, and Ibsen himself argued that his intention was mainly the description of human identity, not just women’s. Nevertheless, that does not mean it cannot be understood as ‘the need of every woman for self-discovery and acting based on the truth even though that truth is opposed to the social acceptance and for fighting against social conventions in the search of the truth’ (Ghafourinia, p. 428).

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Primary readings:

8 Fatemeh Ghafourinia and Leila Baradaran Jamili, 'The Women’s Right in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House', Journal of Novel Applied Sciences, 3.5, (2014), 424-429 (p. 428), in [accessed 12 March 2016].

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GENDER ASSSUMPTIONS CHALLENGED IN A DOLL’S HOUSE

Ibsen, Henrik, A Doll's House, ed. by Philip Smith (New York: Dover Thrift Editions, 1992)

-

Langås, Unni, 'Challenging Gender Norms: Ibsen's Nora revisited', NIKK Magasin,

No.

3,

(2005),

4-6,

in

[accessed 9 March 2016]

-

Øvrebø, Turid, 'Ibsen's Nora: 'First and foremost a human being'', NIKK Magasin,

No.

3,

(2005),

7-9,

in

[accessed 9 March 2016]

-

Rekdal, Anne Marie, 'The female jouissance: An analysis of Ibsen's Et dukkehjem', ProQuest Direct Complete, 74.2, (2002), 149-180, in [accessed 13 March 2016]

-

Templeton, Joan, ' The Doll House Backlash: Criticism, Feminism, and Ibsen',

PMLA,

104.1,

(1989),

28-40,

in

[accessed 11 March 2016]

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GENDER ASSSUMPTIONS CHALLENGED IN A DOLL’S HOUSE

Secondary readings:

-

Eyre, Richard, 'Ibsen: The man who knew the soul of women', The Telegraph,

(2015),

in

[accessed 16 March 2016]

-

Ghafourinia, Fatemeh and Baradaran Jamili, Leila, 'The Women’s Right in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House', Journal of Novel Applied Sciences, 3.5, (2014), 424-429, in [accessed 12 March 2016]

-

Ingham, Patricia, Language of Gender and Class: Transformation in the Victorian Novel (Routledge, 2002)

-

Solomon, Alisa, Re-Dressing the Canon: Essays on Theatre and Gender (London: Routledge, 2003)

WORD COUNT: 1653

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