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Gender Struggle Over Ideological Power In A Doll's House

1129 Words5 Pages

A wife who sacrifices everything that she likes, wants, aspire and dislikes in order of maintain the image of the perfect family.
One of the crucial moments of the plot is when Torvald found the letter that Krogstad left on the letterbox. After reading the content of the letter, Torvald refers to Nora as “she who was my pride and my joy- a hypocrite, a liar-worse- a criminal. Oh, the unfathomable hideousness of it all! Ugh! Ugh!” (Ibsen, p. 39) Nora was ready to come out with everything in order to feel free from a burden that she has carry away for too long. But Torvald, was just concern on how to keep the secret, this can be appreciate when he established: “I must try to pacify him in one way or another- the matter must be hushed up, cost what it may-. As for you and me, we must make no outward change in our way or life- no outward change, you understand.” (Ibsen, …show more content…

As presented at the Canadian Social Science Vol.5 No.1 (2009) Gender Struggle over Ideological Power in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, the author portrait the imaginary of the “ideal household” which was really a cover up for the struggle of ideological power between the men and the women. The article of the Canadian Social Science Vol. 5 No. 1 (2009) establish the fact that “Ibsen’s A Doll’s House focuses on social and ideological aspects, through how women are perceived, especially in the context of social values and duties of both men and women as reflected through marriage.” This point was presented through the play not only with Nora’s character but also with Mrs. Linden’s. All of the male characters in A Doll’s House were presented in a dominant and power position over the females, being able to use that position to control and manipulate their relationships with the females characters. We saw that with Nora’s and Mrs. Linden’s characters interactions with Torvald, Krogstad, Dr. Rank and Nora’s

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Torvald tells her that Nora has a duty as a mother and a wife but Nora tells him that “she is an individual”, showing that she is finally putting herself on par with Torvald, and no longer allowing Torvald to control her, but instead she is trying to gain independence and liberation from social norms in order to break free from the “Doll’s House.” She tells him that she must leave him, because “for eight years [she’d] been living with a stranger”, emphasising how there was never any proper communication and mutual understanding between them, and hence no proper marriage, as she didn’t actually know what his true character was like up until that night, as she was convinced all along that Torvald would be the man to take everything upon

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