‘Men may seem to be more powerful than women, but the reality is very
different.’
Both 19th Century writers Ibsen and Rossetti reflect on the power dynamics between men
and women in their works. Where Rossetti’s poetry often explores the power struggles of
Victorian women, confined by patriarchy, as a battle that is rarely won, Ibsen conveys his
female protagonists as being able to use their underestimation by men to attain secretly
powerful positions.
Rossetti manifests the helpless isolation and powerlessness felt by many women at the time
of the Femme Covert – by which they were stripped of most legal recognition – in much of
her poetry. ‘Shut Out’ and ‘From the Antique’ present “a dark assessment of the female lot”
(Gill), as one speaker is ‘quite alone’ and ‘blinded by tears’, due to the ‘shadowless figure’
that has taken her ‘garden’ from her, and the other ‘wish[es]’ she ‘were a man’ or nothing at
all to escape her ‘weary life’. The voices here convey an overwhelming feeling of
ostracization and disillusionment with the reality of being a 19 th Century woman – the
‘shadowless figure’ perhaps representing the unmatchable force of men, ridding women of
any possessions or power, and the second poem being completely unambiguous about the
‘doubly blank… female lot’ compared to that of men. One could subsequently argue that
“time and again in Rossetti’s poems, the female figure is depicted as entrapped… physically,
psychologically or both” (Avery), and that McGann’s statement that “her heroines
characteristically choose to stand alone” is too optimistic. Instead, the poet chooses to show
the unavoidable loneliness felt by women, as a result of their lack of personal control, by
forcing her characters into a solitary existence, rather than it being an act of bravery. Ibsen
also portrays a sense of isolation in ‘A Doll’s House’, but one that is felt equally by male and
female characters. Mrs Linde and Krogstad rekindle their relationship by mutually
expressing they are ‘shipwrecked’ and ‘need each other’. In fact, Mrs Linde is seen to wield
the power, not her male counterpart – her being the one to suggest their reuniting and
saving him from his own bitter nature, galvanising the end to his villainy against Nora and
perhaps making her the true heroine of the play. She also has far more freedom than
Rossetti’s speakers, being able to work and even taking the place of Krogstad – a man – at
Helmer’s bank. Although, it is acknowledged that her power stems from her status as a
‘widow’, subtlety suggesting that she can only have so much freedom as it is permitted by
the patriarchy.
Similarly, the poet and playwright both explore the idea that women, not having legal
power, use other means to gain control over men. In Rossetti’s poem ‘Winter: My Secret’,
the speaker teases the reader with her ‘secret’, which she ‘may say or you may guess’,
emphasising its importance to her by likening it to a ‘mask’ that keeps her ‘warm’ and using
an abundance of possessive pronouns: ‘my’ and ‘mine’. This aligns with Nora’s ‘secret’ that
she keeps from her husband and enjoys taunting Mrs Linde with, the fact that she ‘saved’
her ‘husband’ giving her great ‘pride’. Another similarity between these protagonists is the
clear enjoyment they get from manipulation, a key part of Nora’s persona being her use of
her femininity to manipulate Torvald, making him feel powerful to simultaneously control
him: ‘Christine is frightfully anxious to work under some clever man’, as well as Dr Rank.
Although this would have been particularly shocking to a Victorian audience, to both
modern and 19th century spectators it may make Nora partly unlikeable, especially due to Dr
