Essay
Model answer comparing Ibsen/Rossetti.
- Module
- Drama and poetry pre-1900
- Institution
- OCR
Marked as 29/30. Could use the context, quotes and question for your own independent revision, as well as looking over a high level 6 answer.
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Ibsen/Rossetti Timed Essay:‘Romantic love is a delusion, inhibiting the free development of the individual’.
In Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’, we see the relationship between Nora and Torvald, and how it
crumbles by the end. In this sense, with a more independent Nora at the end of the play, and
the end of her relationship with Torvald, it appears that their romantic love was delusional,
and did restrict her independence and development. However, when we look closer, taking
into account the relationship between Krogstad and Mrs Linde, and the oppressive nature of
Victorian society, it seems that there is another factor inhibiting Nora’s independence.
Similarly, in some of Rossetti’s poems such as ‘Goblin Market’, ‘From the Antique’, ‘Sœur
Louise de la miséricorde’ and ‘Maude Clare’, we see that many women cannot progress to
their true potential due to various factors, but Christina Rossetti also shows us that other
forms of love can be much more beneficial.
Firstly, it is important to look at Nora’s relationship with Torvald. At the beginning of the
play, Torvald refers to Nora with several different pet names, often referring to birds and
nature. She is his “songbird” and his “squanderbird”, and all these pet names that Torvald
refers to Nora as emphasise her beauty, fragility, and dependence on him. He talks of how his
‘squanderbird’ cannot look after money, and he talks condescendingly to her, as if she were a
child. At this point in the play, Nora seems to very much conform with the idea of the ‘Angel
in the House’, who was subservient and respectful of her husband, and who lived a very
domestic life with the principal function of looking after her husband and her children. As
John Ruskin explains, the woman was supposed to be a “refuge for her menfolk”, and this
perfectly captures the role cast onto Nora. Sheila O’Malley has described Nora as “a woman
who loved her cage”, and at the beginning, this does appear to be true. However, when Nora
casts off the shackles off her debt and role as Torvald’s wife and decides to act for herself
rather than what the society demands of her, we see that she does not want to live in
Torvald’s birdcage anymore, but to ‘spread her wings’ and live independently. By the end of
the play, the modern audience does feel that Nora and Torvald’s relationship was toxic and
delusional, but there is the question as to whether it failed because romantic love is simply a
delusion, or as there may have never been any love at all- just lust and the desire for stability.
Nevertheless, Rossetti may have argued that the failings in Nora and Torvald’s relationship
are somewhat due to romantic love, as she demonstrates in her poetry and her own life that
other forms of love are much more powerful and important, such as sisterly or religious love.
Christina Rossetti was engaged three times, but she never married, as she felt her love of God
was more important. For example, in her engagement with James Collinson, she eventually
rejected him on religious grounds, as he did not share her Anglo-Catholic beliefs. Therefore,
we could argue that she hints at the unimportance of romantic love through her poem ‘Goblin
Market’, where she chooses Laura to be her sister’s saviour, rather than Lizzie having a
‘knight in shining armour’ who rescues her. In Goblin Market, Lizzie succumbs to the
temptation of the goblin fruit, (which in some interpretations has a sexual connotation)
causing her to enter a serious illness and nearly die, until Laura saves her through her love,
courage and self-sacrifice. This presents Laura as a Christ-like figure, and echoes Christ’s
crucifixion, when he sacrificed himself to atone for the sins of the world. Given Rossetti’s
strong Anglo-Catholic beliefs, it is likely that Laura is intended to reflect Christ and
demonstrate the importance of faith and kindness. Furthermore, if we continue with a more
sexual reading of the poem (which was unlikely to have been Rossetti’s intentions), we could
connect the sins and temptation of Lizzie to Rossetti’s work with fallen women, which
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