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A Doll's House Essay
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A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen Essay about gender and power. GRADE B (Stuvia says this is 2 pages, but the 2nd page is really only one sentence)
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Preview Page:“Men may seem more powerful than women, but the reality is very different”
In light of this statement, consider ways in which Henrik Ibsen explore power and gender in
A Doll’s House.
Within A Doll’s House Ibsen explores power and gender mostly through the characterisation of Nora
and Torvald. Nora Helmer is introduced as a character subjugated to the wills and desires of her
husband; she is merely an object which Torvald, possesses. At the conclusion of the play however,
she has become sufficiently independent to arrive at her decision to leave the children, her husband
and what life she had behind. A significant transition of power has occurred, and this is one of the
major themes that Ibsen raises in his dramatic text.
Ibsen uses stage directions within A Doll’s House to convey the nature of Nora and Torvald’s
relationship and the power dynamics between them. Nora seemingly practices her sexuality to coax
Torvald into giving her money, as she “plays with his coat-buttons; not looking at him” and “slowly
stroking the back of his head” whilst exhorting Torvald for money. This portrays Nora’s sexual
influence over Torvald’s decisions and being able to exhort money off him, which almost parallels to
prostitution, an industry much larger in the nineteenth century that demonstrated the subjugation
of women yet also portrayed the power women held over men’s carnal desires. Arguably, Torvald
represses Nora’s sexuality through Ibsen’s motif of the tarantella dance. He demands her to “stop”
as she has “forgotten everything” he taught her. Brittany Wright highlights “Torvald’s insistence that
Nora’s depravity undermines his authority” which suggests a “need for female sexuality to be
repressed in order to safeguard the dominance of men”. This repression of a woman’s sexuality, that
men so lust after, emphasises the irony in the supremacy of the patriarchy and the toxic coveting
nature that it possesses.
Additionally, Ibsen uses the motif of macaroons within A Doll’s House to symbolise Nora’s rebellion
against Torvald’s wishes. Torvald is concerned that the macaroons will “spoil [Nora’s] teeth” which
further emphasises the possessive nature of a patriarchal society, as it presents Torvald’s solicitude
for superficial femininity and his influence over it. However, Nora’s act of childish rebellion is a
subtle image of Nora’s capability of resistance and her willingness to deceive Helmer, and she even
indulges in this resistance as she “pops a macaroon” into both Dr Rank’s and Mrs Linde’s mouths,
tempting them to follow her lead, which could arguably parallel to Eve and the forbidden fruit in
Genesis 3:6. Nora even states that after eating the macaroons that she is “really, really happy”,
indicating her enjoyment in rebelling her authority figure. Additionally, Helmer and Nora are both
victims of social convention and standards when regarding gender. However, Nora is powerful
enough to not only see her husbands and her subservience to petty social values but powerful
enough to break away from them by leaving her apparent duties as a mother and a wife to seek
education and better understanding of the world around her, a brave and powerful decision of the
new-woman that Torvald would be too panic-stricken to take due to the backlash in reputation.
In conclusion, Ibsen successfully displays the power of female sexuality and the patriarchal
constraints which act upon this within society, as well as the shifting in power dynamics throughout
the play. However, despite Nora’s powerful and liberating decision at the end of the play, the
unknown of her brave new world of female liberation is reflected in Mrs Linde’s fortune, in which
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