Personal Liberty In A Doll's House And The Father

Personal Liberty in A Doll’s House and The Father

Ibsen and Strindberg were influential playwrights of the late 19th century. Contrasting the earlier romanticized dramas, Ibsen and Strindberg’s respective plays, A Doll’s House and The Father, depicted traditional middle-class life. The plays explored the relationship between gender and unequal power in marriages of their time period. While both plays were written in the late 19th century, the playwrights had different approaches in presenting characters’ situations and attitudes in challenging the patriarchal dominated culture. An examination of the ways that Nora, the protagonist of A Doll’s House, and Laura, the protagonist of The Father, struggle for personal liberty show the progressive viewpoints of each author on gender roles in a marriage.

The protagonists of both plays are oppressed by their husband and stripped of personal liberties in their oppressive, male dominated society. Nora, in A Doll’s House, is often referred possessively, like an object, by Torvald her husband, with names like “my little lark”, and “my squirrel” (145). The use of names for Nora emphasizes that he does not see her as an equal. Furthermore, the costume and dance for the New Year’s party further objectivizes Nora, emphasizing the delusion in Torvald that Nora’s identity is for him to mold for his fantasies. In The Father, the Captain and Laura have conflicting plans on how their daughter should be raised. According to Scandinavian laws of that time period, women have no right to interfere with the husband’s plan in determining the faith of the daughter. The Captain displays his authority over Laura when he says, “According to the law as it now stands, children are brought up in their father’s fait...

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...ationship with their plays, by exploring the idea of patriarchy and disproportional power in a marriage. The Doll’s House questions gender roles, specifically motherhood. Marriage to Torvald was no different than living with a stranger. By walking out of her relationship for her own liberty, Nora sends a message that the rights of a woman are often wronged, and women should not be expected to conform to society’s expectation of duty. The Father questions patriarchy by illustrating the struggle between husband and wife. In an exaggerated approach, the play reveals that both husband and wife are equally vital in a marriage. Both plays show the power and potential held by woman in their struggle for personal liberty. By depicting realistic situations and the wives’ reactions, both playwrights offer their progressive commentary of gender roles and power in marriages.