Feminism In A Doll's House

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In the play A Doll House, written by Henrick Ibsen, many people see the main theme to be a feministic worldview, or a finding of one’s inner self through life’s struggles. Her husband’s request and the outlook of society on the roles of women in life bar Nora down throughout the story. During this time period, women were supposed to look after the children and take care of the house with hardly any freedoms and without ever contradicting their husbands or other men. Henrick Isben uses the diverse character that Nora is to illustrate the struggle women had to endure throughout the 17th-20th centuries and even still today. Although women were supposed to be immediately obedient to all men, particularly their husbands, Nora’s character is greatly altered as she finds her independence, ceases to worry about the opinion of society, and ultimately ends her relationship with her degrading husband. As the play progresses for the audience’s viewing, spectators are quickly pressed with Nora’s hard-pressed lifestyle and the struggles that she faces to find her independence. At the beginning of the play, Torvald, Nora’s husband, treats Nora like a child and it seems to the reader that he sees her as incapable of being independent. This is evident when Torvald, also named Helmer in the play, calls Nora his “little lark” and tells her “not to be a sulky squirrel” (1711). Torvald, in essence, is treating Nora as if she is a dog or …show more content…

Nora’s drastic changes cause her to go from an immature dependent woman who only sought out a man with money to make her happy, to an independent woman who finds her inner self and decides that her goals in life come from the “duties to herself” (1755). Nora is ultimately able to ignore the criticisms of society and leave her husband and find her independence from her own confidence and

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