A Doll's House Essay

Whether homemaker or Homewrecker, women are always associated with domestic matters. This concept holds particularly true in the Victorian era when women had to adhered to the high standard of both keeping their home and husband impeccable. The concept of what a woman should be during this time oscillated due to Queen Victoria’s power, as well as the increase in unmarried women.The consensus of the population that had a say in these debates, meaning men, decided women were for domestic matter, and a woman's role was to tend to her hearth, primarily her husband. The play A Doll’s House By Henrik Ibsen is in Europe during the Victorian era, and follows the character Nora’s struggles with an illegal loan she took out to save her husband, Torvald’s,

Torvald’s usage and choice of pet names swayed Nora to leave her family. “Is that my little lark twittering about?” (Ibsen 3). The use of the possessive “my” in addition to the comparison to an animal being used as Torvald’s way of expressing affection or approval towards Nora is a recurring theme throughout A Doll’s House. The objectification of Nora in these comments as an animal that belongs to Torvald is singularly abusive seeing as that it humiliating for a human to be degraded to the status of an owned animal. “If your little squirrel were to ask you for something very, very prettily- ?” (33) Nora’s uncomfortableness in this degradation is evident by this being the only time Nora displays any enthusiasm or encouragement for the pet names. Since her encouragement is only due to the fact that she was using it to attempt to manipulate Torvald. Stipulating Nora wouldn’t feel as humiliated by use of the terms in reference to her since it was her who was using them to gain power. “Nora! (Goes up to her and takes her playfully by the ear) The same little featherhead!” (4) Torvald throughout the play uses insults

“(speaking quickly) ‘You might give me money, Torvald. Only as much as you can afford; and then one of these days I will buy something with it… ‘-that is to say, if you were really to save out of the money I give you, and then really buy something for yourself. But if you spend it all on the housekeeping and any number of unnecessary things, then I merely have to pay up again.’” (5). In this exchange Nora voiced her preference towards what she desires for Christmas, and Torvald rebukes it. Nora’s quickened voice, and her quick assurance she doesn’t need a large amount of money alludes to her expecting Torvald rejecting her opinion. The implication of her fear is evident in her quickened voice and quick assurance. Those actions take away from the strength of her opinion, by lessening away the amount of money, and shortening the time it took to express her opinion. Those actions imply fear of the rebuke and consequently display her distaste for her opinions being considered less than Torvald’s. Her going out of her way to attempt to avoid the pain that could come from this rejection, implies that she doesn’t enjoy the abusive behavior. Torvald’s dismissal of Nora’s preferences in his explanation also alludes to abusive tendencies, in his dismissal, he calls Nora might wish to spend the money on as trivial, displaying how her desires