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Nora's Stereotypes

565 Words3 Pages

The play A Doll's House, written in 1879 is about a woman named Nora Helmer navigating her way between her own life, marriage, and the anxiety of debts. Although Nora was able to choose herself over being a caregiver and wife it is still very stereotypical. Throughout this play, the three main women, Nora Helmer, Kristine Lind, and Anne-Marie fall victim to the social conventions of the time. Women in this time were portrayed as unintelligent and irresponsible and Nora was no exception. Throughout the play she is seen as careless with money, being called a “Spendthrift” by her husband. When Nora was talking about money carelessly her husband responded “That is like a woman” showing that it wasn't just Nora that was portrayed as irresponsible, all women were harmed by this stereotype. Nora was also dependent on men her whole life to provide for her. First, she was dependent on her father for money and when he died she was dependent on her husband. Nora even told Mrs. Lind she …show more content…

In the very beginning of the play when the characters are introduced she is introduced right after Torvald Himmler as “Nora, his wife” even though she is arguably the main character of the play. Torvald also talks down on Nora to show his superiority, calling her names like “poor little girl” and “featherhead,” while Nora does nothing to defend herself because she wants to be the perfect wife, and standing up for herself could sabotage her role as that. Torvald has ownership over Nora, calling her “All the beauty that is mine? All my very own?” (Act 3) and when Nora rejected Torvald he said “Am I not your husband?” because in being her husband it was assumed that he should have total control over her. He even made rules for Nora, like restricting candy. Nora had snuck a macaroon and Torvald said “Hasn't Miss sweet tooth been breaking rules in town today” (Act 1) further showing that women were living in a man's

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558 Words | 3 Pages

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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1319 Words | 6 Pages

This brings in to question whether or not it is acceptable for a woman to simply walk away from a marriage, involving three children, and not attempt to work things out. Nora realizes she and the life she has been living has been a complete construct of the way society expects her to be. Nora is Torvald’s doll and her life has not amounted to anything more than making sure he and the world around her is happy. The result of the inequalities she is faced with results in Nora being completely unhappy. Torvald fails to recognize everything that Nora does to ensure his happiness.

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1418 Words | 6 Pages

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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1136 Words | 5 Pages

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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767 Words | 4 Pages

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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2066 Words | 9 Pages

A Doll House” is a three-act play in prose written by Henrik Ibsen in 1879. A Doll House is is about a woman named Nora Helmer. She is the wife of Torvald Helmer and the mother of his children. Eight years prior to the play Nora illegal takes out a loan without telling Torvald. During the play, Nora’s life turns upside down as pays the price for her decision.

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1029 Words | 5 Pages

Nora is a character that will do everything that somebody tells her, she is kind of submissive regarding what Torvald says. She has to mention him at least once while she’s talking about anything, but she does have some petty forms of rebellion, like the macaroons. A larger way of her rebelling would be when she pays for the trip so that Torvald can get better. She is viewed as a child by Mrs. Linde, Christine, and is treated like one by Torvald and it seems almost like they look down on her because she is a woman and she is completely dependent on her husband. Her character, at this point, has no backbone; she is completely captivated by this life in which she perceives as

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1133 Words | 5 Pages

Sexism shows us the difference between feelings and actions between all the characters in the novel ‘A Dolls House’. People like Trovald and Krogstad have been always sexist. They have oppressed women in many different ways to satisfy them and the appearance in front of society. Nora is oppressed in such way where she has been preserved like a child.

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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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1532 Words | 7 Pages

In A Doll 's House, Nora spends the majority of her time on stage as a doll: a colourless, passive character with little to no actual personality. Her entire life is a concept of norms of society in that era in order to meet the expectations of others. Until she realises that her life is a lie, and that she lives in a dream world. Within this World, Nora doesn’t feel the need to take life as seriously as everyone around her, an approach to life that eventually led to almost all of the plot’s twists.

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1464 Words | 6 Pages

Throughout A Doll’s House, Henrick Ibsen gives emphasis to male-controlled symbolism in order to emphasize the standard family structure of the late nineteenth-century. Torvald, the central male character, perfectly depicts the typical male dominance through his actions of control and dominance in the relationship with Nora Helmer. The names he gives her throughout the play: skylark, little squirrel, little spendthrift, etc. shows his looking down to Nora. He gives her no respect and like all typical marriages in nineteenth-century Denmark, he gives Nora no means to have any control in the marriage. The title A Doll’s House in itself generates the whole definition of the play, giving symbolism to Nora and how she is “trapped” in her own home and being ordered by Torvald in everything she says and does.

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828 Words | 4 Pages

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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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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1026 Words | 5 Pages

Nora’s ability to use simple math and being calm about her fate brings out her masculinity, which in turn shows how Nora breaks free of the conventional Victorian label that women only duty is to raise children and do housework, and that she is capable of performing male-exclusive work alongside with female-exclusive

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958 Words | 4 Pages

Ibsen’s play A Doll 's House, written in 1879, examines the importance of social class and the expectations that follow. A Doll’s House tells the story of married couple, Torvald and Nora Helmer who strive to fulfill social expectation. However, the ending is known to be a shock for some, as roles reverse and Nora comes to realize that she has been mistreated like a doll throughout the whole marriage. Throughout A Dolls House by Henrik Ibsen, doll 's and the dolls house are symbolic of how Nora is a submissive wife controlled and dominated by Torvald, and both are repressed by societal standards.

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