In Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, the works represent the unyielding social standards pressurized onto women and how they negatively affect the female protagonists. It is also shown how the women are able to triumph over the social standards and reach towards a life of greater satisfaction as individual women. While finding themselves, they also look for an outlet, an escape. The two women achieve the ultimate goal of absconding the pressures of society and domestic life by finding an escape route through abandonment, and death. Attempting to escape the conformist standards of society while trying to create an identity for oneself is a struggle faced in both Edna Pontellier’s and Nora Helmer’s lives. The two women find themselves to have very similar situations, an awakening of femininity, as well as a renaissance of independence, however; the two women handle the situation very differently. Nora and Edna both portray a grander pursuit for independence, and self-realization; both give the reader a possible outcome of which direction they may choose to take. Edna feels she has lost herself so inexplicably that there is merely no way out, while Nora has found herself and salvages her body and mind as her own. The women choose to conform to society’s expectations of women in the early twentieth century, however; Edna and Nora struggle with who they truly have become inside, until the conflict either consumes them or sets them free. Edna conforms by enduring her husband, Leonce Pontellier; caring for her children and home, and keeping her relationship with Robert discreet throughout the novel. While there is an obvious internal battle between romance, conformity, confusion, and unrealized raw passio... ... middle of paper ... ...alizes that not only can she accept herself, but no one else can, either, and her metamorphosis leaves her imprisoned. Nevertheless, both women realize that they have become something which only society expects of them, nothing that they have selected for themselves. They have become wives and mothers, instead of potentially single, and independent women, and their boxed-in world suffocates them. Their awakening is the product of a desperate thirst for oxygen. In both A Doll’s House and The Awakening, the eternal brawl for independence, entwined with the very first hints of femininity and acceptance of women as equals in a society where such a thing was deemed impossible. The two women find their escape routes in the only way they feel is the only way they can escape. Nora abandons her family to find herself, and Edna escapes by going into the ocean she arose from.
She desperately wanted a voice and independence. Edna’s realization of her situation occurred progressively. It was a journey in which she slowly discovered what she was lacking emotionally. Edna’s first major disappointment in the novel was after her husband, Leonce Pontellier, lashed out at her and criticized her as a mother after she insisted her child was not sick. This sparked a realization in Edna that made here realize she was unhappy with her marriage. This was a triggering event in her self discovery. This event sparked a change in her behavior. She began disobeying her husband and she began interacting inappropriately with for a married woman. Edna increasingly flirted with Robert LeBrun and almost instantly became attracted to him. These feelings only grew with each interaction. Moreover, when it was revealed to Edna that Robert would be leaving for Mexico she was deeply hurt not only because he didn’t tell her, but she was also losing his company. Although Edna’s and Robert’s relationship may have only appeared as friendship to others, they both secretly desired a romantic relationship. Edna was not sure why she was feeling the way she was “She could only realize that she herself-her present self-was in some way different from the other self. That she was seeing with different eyes and making the acquaintance of new conditions in herself that colored
Female companions are very important to the development of the main characters in Kate Chopin's The Awakening and in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll House. Mademoiselle Reisz and Madame Ratignolle, in The Awakening, and Kristine Linde, in A Doll House, help Edna Pontellier and Nora Helmer discover their inner selves.
The central theme of A Doll's House is secession from society. It is demonstrated by several of its characters breaking away from the social standards of their time and acting on their own terms. No one character demonstrates this better than Nora.
With a heart-full of advice and wisdom, Dinah maturates from a simple- minded young girl to a valiant independent individual. “For a moment I weighed the idea of keeping my secret and remaining a girl, the thought passes quickly. I could only be what I was. And that was a woman” (170). This act of puberty is not only her initiation into womanhood but the red tent as well. She is no longer just an observer of stories, she is one of them, part of their community now. On account of this event, Dinah’s sensuality begins to blossom and she is able to conceive the notion of true love.
Edna’s will to break out of the confinement of her family vs. Mr. Pontellier’s determinedness to keep Edna
Unlike the other women of Victorian society, Edna is unwilling to suppress her personal identity and desires for the benefit of her family. She begins “to realize her position in the universe as a human being and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her” (35). Edna’s recognition of herself as an individual as opposed to a submissive housewife is controversial because it’s unorthodox. When she commits suicide it’s because she cannot satisfy her desire to be an individual while society scorns her for not following the traditional expectations of women. Edna commits suicide because she has no other option. She wouldn’t be fulfilled by continuing to be a wife and a mother and returning to the lifestyle that she...
She brilliantly conveys this message by incorporating the theme of self-liberation in both stories, while contrasting the means by which each character achieves freedom. By creating two stories that both compare and contrast, the author presents the choice between two roads to freedom. How will women redefine the behaviors that are expected of them and liberate themselves from oppression? The challenge comes in breaking the cycle of revenge, choosing the freedom of forgiveness over the captivity of resentment, and crossing the border into true
The most prevalent and obvious gender issue present in the novella was that Edna challenged cultural norms and broke societal expectations in an attempt to define herself. Editors agree, “Edna Pontellier flouts social convention on almost every page…Edna consistently disregards her ‘duties’ to her husband, her children, and her ‘station’ in life” (Culley 120). Due to this, she did not uphold what was expected of her because she was trying to be superior, and women were expected to be subordinate to men. During that time, the women were viewed as possessions that men controlled. It was the woman’s job to clean the house, cook the meals, and take care of the children, yet Edna did none of these things. Her lifestyle was much different. She refused to listen to her husband as time progressed and continually pushed the boundaries of her role. For example, during that time period “the wife was bound to live with her husban...
In a Doll’ s House, a certain number of imprisonment effects are at hand. Characters such as Nora or Kristine, are condemned either by poverty or by the situation or even by the role that women were expected to play and accept in this very conventional society, regardless of the fact that they were, despite this, respected and considered as the “pillars'; of society.
Two main similarities of Edna and Nora are that they both have an awakening and are like caged birds without freedom; one main difference is that Edna lives in reality and Nora lives in a fantasy world. Other similarities are: each protagonist seems happy about her marriage in the beginning, is controlled by her husband, and has a secret. Despite all the similarities, the two protagonists differ in several ways: Edna does what she wants while Nora dreams about what she wants; Edna has a mind of her own while Nora seems to be a scattered brain wife; and Edna stops taking care of her children all together while Nora cares for the children on and off.
Henrik Ibsen paints a sad picture of the sacrificial role of women throughout all social economical classes in his play “A Doll House”. The story is set in the late 19th century and all minor female characters had to overcome adversity to the expense of love, family and self-realization, in order to lead a comfortable life. While the main female protagonist Nora struggles with her increasingly troubled marriage, she soon realizes, she needs to change her life to be happy as the play climaxes. Her journey to self-discovery is achieved by the threat of her past crime and her oppressing husband, Torvald and the society he represents. The minor female characters exemplifying Nora’s ultimate sacrifice.
...ce dependent, then independent. Each woman makes difficult decisions which she must live by, and each bear responsibilities which are to be accepted or discarded. Finally, each is aware that others, too, carry burdens and need to make their own choices. While other heroines and heroes are flat and are subject to fate and circumstance, Margaret, like Nora, exists in the consequences of human behavior.
Growing up in a society damaged by political harassment can make a person involuntary act in a certain way. When looking at society there should be a mass sum of understanding and experience. This should allow each person to profit the insight and skill of the society. In Marjane situation she doesn’t obey the rules. She’s a confident woman who refused to conform to demand roles expect of her. She discovers that she didn’t have a perfect idolized life growing up. However, those flawed lessons in her life constructed her to be the woman she is today. During her times of difficulty and insecurity she formulates open-mindedness, spiritual enlightenment and feminist qualities. Marjane creates a new, customary identity out of her experiences. Marjane is the person that she wants to be not conformed to be.
... presented A Doll’s House which follows with the feminist thought of that occasion. Due to social conformity, Nora can be portrayed as a radical feminist because she walks away from her own family as well as children in search of self-enhancement. Ibsen afterward describes Nora as a drastic feminist in order to help exemplify just how bad society’s restrictions on women were. A Doll’s House is an ideal instance of Ibsen’s book that show social conformity and corruption in society and the central character is rising alongside conformity. The book strengthens the reaction of the reader’s through the protagonist who’s is Nora, as well as her husband Torvald. Torvald handles Nora like an instrument rather than an individual to some extent. Finally, the role of the reliant character change when Ibsen shows Nora infringement from Torvald and society’s prospect of women.
A Doll House was a play written well ahead of its time. This play was written in a time when it was considered an outrage for a woman such as Nora not only to display a mind of her own, but also to leave her husband in order to obtain her freedom. This play relates to the Art Nouveau and Edwardian period because just as the furniture and clothing were considered decorative pieces, so were women. Women were expected only to tend to the husband's and children's needs. Women were not supposed to do anything without first consulting the husband and certainly never do anything without his prior knowledge and approval. Women were expected to be at home and always looking presentable for their husbands.