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A Doll's House Patriarchal Quotes

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The above quote is from a conversation between Nora and Helmer. At this point in the play we already found out that Nora borrowed money from a man called Krogstad, who also happens to work for Nora’s husband, Helmer. The situation is difficult because Nora never disclosed to her husband that she borrowed money. Furthermore, by her own admission the reason behind her actions was love. Helmer has fallen ill and she was convinced by doctors that the only way to save his life is to take him abroad, she believes that they must go to Italy where Helmer would recover. After their return Helmer gets a promotion at the bank where he works, and now Krogstad is one of his subordinates. This man, Krogstad has a checkered past, and it is well known that …show more content…

Helmer doesn’t talk to her as if she was her equal, instead as if she was a child. He practically tells her to go to another room and play, practice her dance so he can show her off during the party they are planning to attend. With that he deems their discussion concluded. I believe the above quote enforces patriarchal ideologies. Tyson states that “patriarchy continually exerts forces that undermine women’s self-confidence and assertiveness, then points to the absence of these qualities as proof that women are naturally, and therefore correctly, self-effacing and submissive” (87). Nora complains that in her early life she was treated as a living doll by her father and after her marriage to Helmer she continued receiving the same treatment. Her job is to be what patriarchy defines as “good girl”, which means that she is modest and submissive, besides other obedient qualities, and most of all the “good girl” is consumed by worrying about the needs of her husband and family, and she has no needs of her own. Consequently, Helmer dismisses Nora’s pleading for Krogstad, he dismisses her “now you must go and play through the Tarantella and practice with your tambourine” basically be a good girl and do your job, which I have described above. The way I see it Helmer’s treatment of Nora, and the

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Nora finally seeks indaendance from Helmer "you're not the man to help me with that, I ust do that alone". Nora experiences somewhat of an enlightenment reflecting on how she has been treated in life: "he called me his doll-child... I went rom Daddy's hands to yours". Helmer is blind to how his controlling behaviour has had the oppiste effect and has forced Nora from him.

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After fulfilling the duty as a hero, it is hard to look past the good and realize the wrong that has been caused. Nora exemplifies this when she gets the money from Krogtsad to save Torvalds life. She believes that she is making Torvald happy because she has saved his life, but doesn’t realize that she is hurting both him and Krogstad because she is lying to them both. Nora has to forged her father’s signature and lie to Torvald about where the money came from just so she could be looked at as an epic hero. In result of this action bad things come Nora’s way.

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Nora is a married woman and has children to take care of. She really has little freedom because of the way Torvald treats her. She is not even I feel as if deep down she knows she is not free and wants something more in her life then to be a entertaining puppet for Torvald. She realizes at the end of the story that Torvald is not good to her because of the way he acted when she told him about forging the signature. When Torvald called her a criminal and other harsh words she realized that she had no true love from Torvald and wanted to be free from him.

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In act one, the audience learns about the secret which Nora has been hiding from Torvald: that Nora has obtained a loan from Krogstad due to their financial situation and inability to pay for their trip to Italy to save Torvald’s life. When Krogstad

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Nora on the surface seems to be the epitome of a 19th-century wife, but the audience quickly realizes that she defies gender expectations with the forged loan and eventually with her separation from Helmer. Helmer not only fits perfectly into his masculine role but blindly

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Nora has spent all her life doing what her husband had told her. She has three kids that are looked after by the nursery, Anne-Marie. She didn’t want to spend more times with her kids, her opinion that they may grow and learn by themselves. Not only that, her attitude is more like a child in the house, because she could ask for

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The ideas of married woman of feeling forced into constricting and demeaning standards are often dismissed. Many will brush off these worries. Others will simply not understand the dissatisfied feelings of women that reach out in the name of their marriage. Despite the endless works by “experts”, a woman’s role is not to only seek fulfillment as wives and mothers. In Henrik Ibsen’s, “A Doll’s House”, we see Nora Helmer realize that being stuck in a restrictive and belittling relationship is not something she will tolerate, and we see her break free from the strings society has insensitively tied around her limbs and gingerly placed in the hands of Torvald Helmer.

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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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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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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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Throughout Denmark during the late nineteenth-century, the typical marriage was represented with the male dominance because women were looked down upon with no rights or thoughts for themselves. Torvald, the father figure in the play, represents the male dominant figure during the nineteenth-century. Throughout the play, the patriarchal symbolism that Ibsen emphasizes throughout the marriage of Nora and Torvald gives the reader a better understanding as to why Ibsen would put certain symbols to represent a typical marriage. In A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen portrays male-controlled symbolism throughout the play in order to emphasize the standard family structure of the late nineteenth-century. A Doll 's House is a play in the eyes of social

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Nora is portrayed as powerless and confines herself through patriarchal expectations,

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Nora takes pride in thinking of herself as the perfect housewife and mother. She, just as every other wife, plays often with her children and attends formal parties on her husband’s arm. She is told

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First, Nora is treated like a child by her husband Torvald. Torvald had nicknames for Nora like squirrel or skylark that was often accompanied by demenors like sweet or little. At the end of the play, Nora tells her husband that he treated her like a weak, fragile doll just like her father. Nora’s feelings about Torvald’s attitude is evident in the quote from Nora and Torvald’s conversation ”I was your little songbird just as before- your doll whom henceforth you would take particular care to protect from the world because she was so weak and fragile. ”(Pg.

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During act III, Nora asked to speak to Torvald after her performance of the tarantella dance. The following conversation demonstrated her quest for autonomy and freedom, as well as Torvald’s inadequate responses to her arguments and demands; it also showed how deeply connected her unhappy situation is with society’s regulation of the relationship between the sexes. She asserts that she is “...first and foremost a human being”, and her strong conviction that her womanhood, and the expectations associated with it, are secondary, strengthens her resolve to make a radical choice: A break with both husband and, with necessity due to her legal position, her children (Ibsen, 184). During her conversation with Torvald, she proclaims, “I have other sacred duties... The duties to myself (Ibsen, 184).”

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