The Roles of Women in A Doll’s House and Antigone

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“R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Find out what it means to me,” (Respect, Aretha Franklin), shows how women want respect even though they are thought as inferior in society. In both plays, Antigone by Sophocles and A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, the women are put into unusual situations. Antigone is a strong-willed, young woman who has to choose between man’s laws and God’s laws when it comes to burying her deceased brother, Polynices. She, of course, chooses to bury her brother going against Creon, and is therefore sentenced to death. Nora, from A Doll’s House, is an independent, young woman who had to take a loan out in order to save her husband’s life. She had to forge her father’s signature on the loan in order to save him the trouble since he, too, was sick. Now she is fighting to keep the loan a secret as Krogstad is threatening to reveal what she has done to Torvald, her husband. Sophocles and Ibsen offer glimpses into the limitations placed on the women when it comes to their individual rights, capabilities, and their relationships with men.

Women’s individual rights are typically more restricted than the men’s do to the fact that they are thought of as lesser in society. Creon shows that he is a strong believer in that women are inferior and should submit to men when he finds out that she buried her brother. “Stop wasting time. Take them in. From now on they’ll act like women. Tie them up, no more running loose,” (34). Creon believes that women do not have the right to roam freely as men do. He believes that all women should be restricted of their rights and forced to do as told. In A Doll's House, it is made clear that women do not reserve the rights that men do when it comes to taking out a loan. "Why, a wife can't borrow without her...

... middle of paper ...

...o serve men, even before God.

As thoroughly explained, women are thought to be weak and insignificant compared to men. Many people, including women, consider females to be unable to care for themselves; therefore, they need a man to take care of them in order for them to survive in the world. Nora and Antigone are just two examples of the many women who have been wronged in this way, but they are also examples showing how strong women can be; therefore, disproving the thought to be fact that all women are weak.

Works Cited

Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll's House. World Literature: An Anthology of Great Short

Stories, Poetry, and Drama. Columbus, Ohio: McGraw Hill Glencoe, 2004.

140-202. Print.

Sophocles. Antigone. World Literature: A Anthology of Great Short Stories,

Poetry, and Drama. Columbus, Ohio: McGraw Hill Glencoe, 2004. 14-57. Print.

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