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The Woman Warrior Henrik Ibsen Analysis

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A Comparison of A Doll’s House and The Woman Warrior There are numerous works that have inspired women to change the world around them as they knew it. A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen and The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston have both impacted women’s perspectives all over the world. The challenges that female protagonists took throughout both piece is immaculate, and their changes are significant to their plots. The struggle for the equality of women amongst men is depicted with details in both works. Because of the books’ powerful female characters, calls for revolution of women were widespread and on the rise. The Woman Warrior and A Doll’s House compare because their authors made female characters throughout both works challenge the norms of society through feminism, identity, and sexism.
First and foremost, Ibsen tackles women 's rights as a matter of importance in A Doll’s House, but it was not intentional. He successfully created the dramatic argument that continues to this day; that of feminism. “Ibsen’s work and its uses demonstrate the full range of lived experience that defined modern rebellion and it reminds us that theatre and drama played a central role in making that rebellion visible and available to a wide …show more content…

Nora is oppressed by a variety of "tyrannical social conventions." Ibsen in his A Doll 's House depicts the role of women as subordinate in order to emphasize their role in a masculine society. “A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws flamed by men with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view” (Forward 1). Nora is oppressed by the manipulation of her husband, which was seen as a very typical relationship in that society. Due to her husband being a man that is overly concerned about his reputation, it causes him to overlook her feelings and not consider her

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Awesome Title in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” by Adrienne Rich The feminist movement has grown and spread in the past decade. Women all over the world are standing up for basic rights, such as education, that all people, regardless of gender can enjoy. This movement is not a new one, though. Women from times past had already started paving the way towards some of the rights women have today.

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For a play in 1879 feminism was a huge aspect in everyone’s lives, especially within a marriage. In A Doll’s House, written by Henrik Ibsen, showcased Nora a character in the play to be heavily influenced by

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However both woman had endured abuse and are victims of a male dominated society. Nora the wife of a banker and a mother of three children seem to have it all. Her family lives in a fancy well-furnished home and they seems to well of financially, and her husband loved her very much. However the reader soon find out that he is an egotistical controlling man that sees Nora as an absent minds child.

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Most critics around the world believe the play led to increase awareness on the need for women’s rights in all continents, on the other hand some critics opine that the play depicted women as inferior creatures and dolls who have no personality of their own. Nora Helmer the main character strives to achieve the perfect concepts of life set by the society and her husband. Nora is trapped in her home where her Torvald has built a wonderful life for his ‘doll wife’. Nora’s transformation comes when she discovers the role in doll house imposed on her by the society and her husband and she is desperate to free herself in order to discover her identity.

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Nora’s defiance may have resulted in criticism from society, but Ibsen importantly commented on the terrible treatment of woman in relationships and the world. Ibsen created A Doll’s House in a time where women were treated unjustly and poorly. While the play might seem slightly irrelevant now, it still has a place in the world today. Women can borrow money and leave their husbands; however, society still puts tremendous pressure on women to fulfill sacred vows. The expectation to assure her husband’s happiness and to prioritize everyone else before herself is still an issue that many woman face today.

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1338 Words | 6 Pages

Since the dawn of time, a person 's gender has been an essential component of determining what roles each gender is to assume in life. Woman have frequently been viewed as the submissive or weaker gender, only to be useful in the home, who are not capable of making it in a man 's world, who are not allowed the same rights and privileges as their male counterparts. Men, on the other hand, have always been viewed as the dominant or stronger gender, the one who’s job it is to be the provider, the one who makes all the important decisions for his family. In Henrik Ibsen 's A Doll 's House, these assumed gender positions are upheld to the highest degree throughout the majority of the play, and not dismantled until the pivotal ending when Nora makes her stance on this lifestyle very clear.

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1172 Words | 5 Pages

It is mentioned in act 3 (pg.) when Nora says, “I’ve been your wife-doll here just as at home I was Papa’s doll-child.” She states that she was always objectified by her father and husband she was never being treated as a human being. There were always expectations set out for Nora to fulfill as women were given a submissive role in the society. Society’s expectations never stop towards women as they were judged in terms of purity and domesticity.

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1283 Words | 6 Pages

The reader becomes very aware of the situation Nora is faced with as Ibsen challenges us to think about the societal times women were a part of during the late 1800’s. As Unni Langas states in her article describing gender within the play, “..this drama is not so much about Nora’s struggle to find herself as a human being, as it is about her shocking experience of being treated as a woman..” (Langas, 2005). This gives the reader an insight into Nora Helmer’s character. She is evidently perceived as the Doll trapped in the Doll house, as she is viewed as an entertainer rather than her own person in the eyes of her husband and children.

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Most of the women were act passively as they are expected to not to go outside their houses and child bearing and child rearing was their main role in family and they do not actively participate in society. In the words of Marianne Sturman, “In A Doll’s House, he especially probed the problems of the social passivity assigned to women in a male-oriented society” (Cliffnotes: Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler, 51). It was the time when men and women had been following the age-long traditions, as they were assigned specific roles to play. The question, whether A Doll’s House is a feminist play or not, depends on Ibsen’s relationship to feminism. Gail Finny writes,

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In Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, appearances prove to be deceptive veneers that disguise the reality of situations and characters. Ibsen’s play is set in 19th century Norway, when women’s rights were restricted and social appearance such as financial success and middle class respectability were more important than equality and true identity. Ibsen also uses realism and naturalism, portraying the Helmer’s Marriage through authentic relationships, which are relatable to the audience. In A Doll’s House, Nora represents 19th century women entrapped by society to fulfill wifely and motherly obligations, unable to articulate or express their own feelings and desires.

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Their only importance was to cook, clean birth babies and support their husbands quietly. It was socially accepted that women were to be totally subordinate to the men in there family. Women in this time period did not have her own identity, she was under the ruling of her husband. In the drama A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, The character Nora Helmer uses her relationships with her husband and friends to show characteristics of Feminism in her true identity during

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A Doll 's House", is a play by Henrik Ibsen. “A Doll 's House” by Henrik Ibsen represents the first signs of the rise of feminism. The play reflects his social, economic and political views of women 's setting free in his time. In this play, Ibsen makes many hints about the roles of society and how the female gender was treated at the time. Feminism is a social

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759 Words | 4 Pages

Her existential choice seems to be forced upon her by society, but in adopting her husband‘s and society’s language, so often used to contain in control women, she now speaks of her duties towards herself, even sacred ones. In a radical refusal to stick to inherited notions of women’s role in family and society, Nora rejects the other identities available to her, both as a doll and as self-sacrificing wife and mother, and of her husband’s pet names for

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1384 Words | 6 Pages

Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House is a play set in 19th century Norway, when women’s rights were restricted and social appearance was more important than equality and true identity. In A Doll’s House, Nora represents 19th century women entrapped by society to fulfill wifely and motherly obligations, unable to articulate or express their own feelings and desires. Ibsen uses Nora’s characterization, developed through her interactions with others as well as her personal deliberations and independent actions, language and structure in order to portray Nora’s movement from dependence to independence, gaining sovereignty from the control of her selfish husband, deceitful marriage and the strict social guidelines of morality in 19th century Norway. Initially, Nora appears to be a dependent, naïve, and childlike character; yet, as the play unfolds, she appears to be a strong, independent woman who is willing to make sacrifices for those she cares about as well as herself.

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Henrik Ibsen has written many significant plays about women in the 19th century. One of his most significant works is “Ghosts”. The play “Ghosts” talks about women and the idea of “duty”. The play talks about the idea of the “duty” of women as mothers and wives. The play also talks about how society in the 19th century are the ones that identifies the meaning of “duty” therefore they put women in a mold that they have to follow.

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