The Doll’s House is a modern short story because it uses subtle characterization rather than a face paced plot. In the story she described two sets of sisters and in detail how they act towards each other. For instance “The Kelvey’s never failed to understand each other.” Mansfield describes another set of sisters in the short story as well, the three Burnell sisters. The eldest sister in the Burnell family was bossy and rude. Over the entire story you draw the conclusion from reading in between the lines that Mansfield brings more attention to the two sets of sister relationships rather than the plot. A second reason this is a modern short story is the emphasis Mansfield keeps putting on the little lamp in the dollhouse itself. From further
In the novel The Sisters Brothers, we learn a lot about the two brothers Eli and Charlie. Their violent history as professional killers as a job leads the readers to believe that killing is a part of them, and nothing will ever change that. In my opinion, I think Charlie would have the hardest time adjusting to living in a peaceful environment, and “’removed from all earthly dangers and horror” rather than Eli having a hard time. From what I know by reading the book, I’ve learned that Charlie Sister is more actively violent than his brother Eli. I believe this is true because in the book during the early beginnings of the story line, their commander they’ve been working with for such a long time gave the brothers a task, and Eli was more hesitant “What if Warms not there? ‘He’ll be there’ ‘What if he’s not?’ ‘God damnit he will be’ ” (Dewitt. 10). As this quote proves that Eli Sisters was more hesitant towards their task to kill Hermann makes me believe that deep down inside Eli wants to change the way they live, and Charlie would have more of a hard time. You could tell that Eli was more eager to find Warm, while Eli contemplated the “what ifs” scenarios. The possibility of Charlie being front man instead of Eli can play a part on why Eli is more resistant than Charlie. Also, the personality that Eli portrays is more of a caring, soft, tender heart but those personality traits can be misleading because Eli still participates in the acts of killing. Secondly, I believe Eli and Charlie cannot remove themselves from the life style they grew up in because; they’ve made many enemies along the way. Hypothetically speaking what if they do successfully open up their shop, and one of the customers they get happen to be an enemy, o...
middle of paper ... ... Actually, what the husband means is that he wants his wife to remain like a doll and any type of strenuous work may flaw her image in the dollhouse. In the end, Nora wishes to step out of her classy dollhouse and become her own person, whereas Mrs. Wright, who was secluded, impecunious, and without outside resources felt her only option was murder. All and all, Glaspell’s and Ibsen’s use of the bird cage, dead bird, and dollhouse allows the reader to identify with women of the nineteenth century and the roles they played.
BIOGRAPHY: According to the entry « Eudora Welty » found on Wikipedia, Eudora Alice Welty was an American author and photographer, well-known for working on the South American theme. She began higher education at the University of Wisconsin, then went to New York, where she studied at Columbia University until 1931. Unable to find a job on the East Coast because of unemployment due to the Great Depression, she went back to her her native city Jackson, Mississippi. She started to publish short stories in magazines from 1936 and rapidly acquired notoriety as a short story writer, managing to carefully describe the culture and the racial issues of the South. Each publication of her short stories collections was considered as a literary event. In 1956, her novel The Pounder Heart, adapted by Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov, achieved great success on Broadway. In 1975, her enchanting novel The Robber Bridegroom became a musical. In 1973, Eudora Welty received the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Optimist’s Daughter. Three years earlier, she published a collection of photographs that she had taken herself in the years 1930 and 1940, One Time, one Place: Mississippi in the Depression: a work intending to depict the harsh living conditions in Mississippi during the Great Depression. In 1984, at the request of Harvard University Press, she put on paper a lecture that she gave the year before to the students: the work became a bestseller. She died of pneumonia in 2001.
“A Doll House.” Literature: A Portable Anthology. Ed. Janet E. Gardner, Beverly Lawn, Jack Ridl, and Peter Schakel. Third edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013. 850-908. Print.
“Miss Brill” by Katherine Mansfield tells a story of a lonely, English lady in France. Miss Brill is a quiet person who believes herself to be important. The whole afternoon at the gardens, Miss Brill does not converse with anyone, nor does anyone show any inclination to talk with her. She merely watches others and listens to their conversations. This provides her with a sense of companionship; she feels as if she is a part of other people’s lives. Miss Brill is also slightly self-conceited. She believes that she is so important that people would notice if she ever missed a Sunday at the park. It does not occur to her that other people may not want her to be there.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on A Doll’s House”. SparkNotes LLC. 2002. SparkNotes.com. 20 Mar 2011. http://Sparknotes.com/lit/dollhouse/themes.html.
In conclusion, The Dolls House shows the shift in society at the time. Society was changing all around the world and that is shown through the characters in the play. Nora represents the women empowerment and the capability to make decision and to leave a man. Mrs. Linde shows the rights and difference in treatment for a widowed woman. Torvald shows us how women were seen and treated during this time frame. The whole play shows how characters changed with the outside society.
Women in the 19th century were not treated much better than property. A woman had absolutely no rights. She was not her own person, she was the person that everybody else expected her to be. Women did not have any power over the man in a public or private setting They were treated as property and were supposed to do as the man said. Also, women were not allowed to have jobs, and expected to keep to the house and raise the children. While today it is harder to comprehend the treatment of women in the 19th century Henrik Ibsen does an amazing job portraying this in his drama, A Doll House, with one of the main characters Nora.
Elizabeth Gaskell's Nineteenth Century novel, Mary Barton, is an example of social realism in its depiction of the inhumanities suffered by the impoverished weavers of Manchester, England.
“A Doll House” is no more about women’s rights than Shakespeare’s Richard II is about the divine right of kings, or Ghosts about syphilis. . . . Its theme is the need of every individual to find out the kind of person he or she is and to strive to become that person.” (Bloom 28) Ibsen portays this behavior in A Doll House through one of the main characters, Nora Helmer, by setting the scene in Norway in 1872. In the late 1800s, women did not play an important role in society at all. Their job was mainly to cook, clean, sew, take care of the children, and keep the house in order. They were treated as a material possession rather than a human being that could think and act for themselves and looked upon as a decorative member of the household. Women were robbed of their true identity and at the end of the play, Nora leaves everything behind to go out into the world to seek her identity.
Ibsen writes his play A Doll House to explain the life of a housewife and her struggles with her own actions. Ibsen examines the emptiness in the lives of Nora and Torvald as they lived a dream in a Doll House. Both awaken and realize this emptiness and so now Torvald struggles to make amends as he hopes to get Nora back possibly and then to restore a new happiness in their lives. Ibsen examines this conflict as a rock that breaks the image of this perfect life and reveals all the imperfections in the lives of those around.
In its historical context A Doll’s House was a radical play which forced its audience to question the gender roles which are constructed by society and make them think about how their own lives are a performance for Victorian society.
Those of you who have just read A Doll's House for the first time will, I suspect, have little trouble forming an initial sense of what it is about, and, if past experience is any guide, many of you will quickly reach a consensus that the major thrust of this play has something to do with gender relations in modern society and offers us, in the actions of the heroine, a vision of the need for a new-found freedom for women (or a woman) amid a suffocating society governed wholly by unsympathetic and insensitive men.
“A Doll’s House” gives the reader a firsthand view at how gender roles affected the characters actions and interactions throughout the play. The play helps to portray the different struggles women faced during the 19th century with gender roles, and how the roles affected their relationships with men as well as society. It also helps to show the luxury of being a male during this time and how their higher status socially over women affected their relationships with woman and others during this time period.
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll's House. Trans. William Archer. Boston: Walter H. Baker & Co., 1890. Gleeditions. Web. 12 April 2014