Theme Of Identity In A Doll House

The struggle of discovering one’s self or identity is a theme that runs strongly in both Cloudstreet written By Tim Winton in 1991 and A Doll’s House written by Henrik Ibsen in 1879. This essay will analyse how Winton and Ibsen create the theme of identity. How both writers use symbols, metaphors, similes, structure, dialogue and characters to create the imagery that depicts what the authors want their readers to see allowing the reader to decode the message they are trying to relay.

Cloudstreet is centred around two families living together in a house on Cloudstreet. The Pickles and the Lambs both have unique experiences, different outlooks on life and beliefs in God. However all people within the families are battling through what seems to be a life time of tragic events. Due to these events they have found themselves lost and on a quest to find themselves.

A Doll 's House is centred on Nora and her ‘doll like’ life. Nora 's loss of identity not only represents herself but all women of the era in which this play was written. The context of which this book was written women were not seen as independent entities. “They are either possessions of their father’s or husbands" (Parker, 2003)

David Brooks once said “You have to surrender to something outside yourself to

The symbols in Cloudstreet start negative and through the progression of the characters quest to find their identity they become positive. In A Doll 's House Ibsen does the opposite to get his theme across. An example of this can be Trovald as a symbol and Dolly as a symbol. In the beginning Torvald symbolizes the men of that era: great, mighty, powerful and family. However at the end of the novel he has his power leaving him vulnerable. Ibsen however depicts that hope is not lost though for Torvald finding his identity finishing the play with a sense of a spiritually awaking happening for