Stereotypes In A Doll's House

Throughout much of English language literature, gender and sex are equated with specific human traits. Strength is male and weakness is female. Men are stable and women are capricious. Logic is masculine and imagination is feminine. Often, a literary character can be identified as being male or female simply based on the character’s behavior or on the ways in which other characters respond to the character in question. “One of the most obvious issues that Ibsen brings to his audience is that of late nineteenth-century gender roles” (Parker). Ibsen uses stereotypical gender attributes in his characterization of Nora and Torvald throughout the body of A Doll House, and then abruptly reverses the stereotypes in the final moments of the play to

1106). In addition, Torvald “takes her by the ear,” thus establishing physical as well as emotional and financial control of Nora (Ibsen,). By accepting Torvald’s pet names and physical control, Nora exhibits her feminine weakness. An important, feminine weakness in the Victorian age is society’s requirement that men be responsible for the legal and financial affairs of women.“ Nora could not borrow any money without her husband’s consent. On the other hand, a husband could do whatever he pleased with property that was his wife’s before the marriage” (Parker,). The inability to enter into a contract forces artificial weakness on Nora; habitual weakness of this nature can lead to a woman believing that her weakness comes from the nature of her gender, and can cause her to forget that her weakness is imposed by society.Victorian society assumes that women are mentally and emotionally unstable, and that they are given to unpredictable or impulsive behavior. When Nora arrives home with her Christmas shopping and gives the delivery boy a generous tip, she is displaying the impulsivity of her gender (Ibsen). Interestingly, if a man gives the same amount for a tip, he is not characterized as impulsive in Victorian society but as generous and philanthropic.While creativity in running a household is valued in the Victorian age, imagination,flights of fancy, and illogic are undesirable traits that are associated with the feminine. As Nora’s personal drama begins to overwhelm her in the course of the story, Nora imagines seducing Dr. Rank then imagines taking her own life (Ibsen). Her imaginings are examples of her feminine instability. “Feminists and others have pointed out that Nora plays the role of coquette throughout to gain empowerment in a male-dominated world” (Otten) Related to emotional and mental instability is moral instability,