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The dramatic character of nora from a doll house
The dramatic character of nora from a doll house
Development of Nora's character in "A Doll House
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Various works of literature as well as films attest to the fact that society is hinged on perfection. The means by which individuals achieve this false sense of perfection may be horrendous and immoral, yet they are inevitable. Deceit is necessary in order to fulfill personal desires and conform to societal ideals. Henrik Ibsen’s play, A Doll’s House, George Cukor’s film, Gaslight and Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, “A Tell-Tale Heart”, all explore the concept of deceit and the role it plays in the lives of individuals and society alike. The issues which instigate deceptive tactics, along with the different modes in which deceit is used and ultimately the consequences thereof are further revealed in each material of study. Essentially, society’s dislike of non-conformity results in the use of deceptive actions.
Dishonesty and trickery are automatic methods of coping with overwhelming pressures and desires. In the play, A Doll’s House, as well as the film, Gaslight and the short story, “A Tell-Tale Heart”, various characters respond to adverse situations deceitfully. Concepts of perfection presented by society instigate beguiling decisions. In an attempt to adhere to the expectations associated with the role of women in society, Nora Helmer, the protagonist of A Doll’s House, succumbs to deceitful measures. The sole role of women in society is constantly revealed to be that of a wife, mother and essentially the subservient counterpart of the husband. In an attempt to uphold this stereotype in her own home, Nora deceitfully conceals certain truths from her husband, Torvald Helmer. Nora is involved in the criminal act of forgery which is considered to be a renegade action for men and women alike. Although Nora admits that she “signed...
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...re!” (4) at the officers as though they are aware of his inner turmoil. The narrator’s inability to accept his insanity causes him to “admit the deed” (4) in a very obtrusive manner. Ultimately, the consequences of deceit are extensive and predictable.
Falsehood enables individuals to achieve personal goals and follow society’s perceptions. The reasoning behind deceit is to be acceptable by society’s standards and to also fulfill selfish desires. Deception is enacted in various forms which inevitably result in negative consequences that are viable and understandable. Essentially, deception is a necessary aspect of humanity which cannot be overlooked; it is required for conformity purposes as well as for personal gains. It is clear that in spite of the necessity of deception, the actions which support such motives influence the manifestation of adverse ramifications.
For many centuries, the art of deception has been a powerful tool for achieving goals, and it has spawned the ancient debate of the ends justifying the means. In the tragedy Philoctetes by Sophocles and in Hesiod's Theogony, there are many instances of deception, particularly on the part of men in the texts. For each of them, the deceit is justified as a means of building and maintaining a reputation or obtaining power. Ultimately, however, the use of deception results in putting the men in positions of further vulnerability.
In Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll House, Ibsen tells a story of a wife and mother who not only has been wronged by society, but by her beloved father and husband because of her gender. Nora left her father’s house as a naïve daughter only to be passed to the hands of her husband forcing her to be naïve wife and mother, or so her husband thinks. When Nora’s husband, Torvald becomes deathly ill, she takes matters into her own hands and illegally is granted a loan that will give her the means to save her husband’s life. Her well guarded secret is later is used against her, to exort Torvald, who was clueless that his wife was or could be anything more than he made her. However, Nora has many unrecognized dimensions “Besides being lovable, Nora is selfish, frivolous, seductive, unprincipled, and deceitful” (Rosenberg and Templeton 894). Nora is a dynamic character because her father and her husband treat her as a child and do not allow her to have her own thoughts and opinions, as the play progresses she breaks free from the chains of her gender expectation to explore the world around her.
In Edgar Allen Poe’s classic short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” an impression of apprehension is established through the fear-induced monologue of an unknown narrator. Right from the beginning of this short story, Poe prepares the reader for a horrific tale by way of the narrator admitting to the audience that he has, “made up my mind to take the life of the old man” (41). The narrator not only admits to this heinous crime, he proclaims that he had done so out of complete ‘sanity’ and proceeds to inform the audience, “and observe how healthily --how calmly I can tell you the whole story” (41), as he feels this will justify his atrocious crime. The narrator’s assurance of sanity is swiftly demolished as their mania takes control of the way they explain their actions. This obvious foreshadowing forces the audience to surpass the dreadful details and look for the remarkable facets of Poe’s short story allowing the setting of the
When initially asked about the morality of lying, it is easy for one to condemn it for being wrong or even corrupt. However, those asked are generally guilty of the crime on a daily basis. Lying is, unfortunately, a normal aspect of everyday life. In the essay “The Ways We Lie,” author Stephanie Ericsson makes note of the most common types of lies along with their consequences. By ordering the categories from least to most severe, she expresses the idea that lies enshroud our daily lives to the extent that we can no longer between fact and fiction. To fully bring this argument into perspective, Ericsson utilizes metaphor, rhetorical questions, and allusion.
In the article “Is Lying Bad for Us”, Richard Gunderman persuades his readers the effect of lying can have on our daily lives. He expresses strong opinions towards being honest and how lying has negative consequences on not only our mental health but
This paper will discuss the facts about lying and point of view of different philosophers on the act of lying. Lying is the act when a person provides a false statement or it also refers to the untruthfulness of the person (dictionary.com). The reasoning for lying may differ according to the situation. It may also depend on the characteristic of the person lying. Different philosophers have different opinion on lying and based on their theory and arguments, lying can be either good or bad based on the situation.
Lying is simply an act of not telling the truth, and this definition of lying will be used in future sections of this paper. There are three groups of lies t...
In “The Ways We Lie,” by Stephanie Ericsson, she defines various types of lying and uses quotations at the beginning of each description as a rhetorical strategy. Throughout the reading she uses similar references or discussion points at the beginning and ending of each paragraph. Most believe lying is wrong, however, I believe lying is acceptable in some situations and not others when Stephanie Ericsson is asked, “how was your day.” In “The Ways We Lie,” she lies to protect her husband’s feelings, therefore, I think people lie because they are afraid of the consequences that come with telling the truth.
Traditionally, it is agreed that any and every form of telling the truth is always the best thing to do. In the essays of Stephen L Carter and Stephanie Ericsson, this ideal is not exactly true. It is expressed in "The Insufficiency of Honesty" as well as "The Ways We Lie" that honesty is hard to come by and that there is more to it than believed. The authors convey their views by first defining what the concept is, picking it apart, and then use common occurrences for examples of the points they had made.
Falsehood could be a useful evil in politic, because, apparently, by means of falsehood, the risk of social turmoil could be efficiently minimized or even eliminated. Thus, the ultimate good of the whole,
The enforcement of specific gender roles by societal standards in 19th century married life proved to be suffocating. Women were objects to perform those duties for which their gender was thought to have been created: to remain complacent, readily accept any chore and complete it “gracefully” (Ibsen 213). Contrarily, men were the absolute monarchs over their respective homes and all that dwelled within. In Henrik Ibsen’s play, A Doll’s House, Nora is subjected to moral degradation through her familial role, the consistent patronization of her husband and her own assumed subordinance. Ibsen belittles the role of the housewife through means of stage direction, diminutive pet names and through Nora’s interaction with her morally ultimate husband, Torvald. Nora parades the façade of being naïve and frivolous, deteriorating her character from being a seemingly ignorant child-wife to a desperate woman in order to preserve her illusion of the security of home and ironically her own sanity. A Doll’s House ‘s depiction of the entrapment of the average 19th century housewife and the societal pressures placed upon her displays a woman’s gradual descent into madness. Ibsen illustrates this descent through Torvald’s progressive infantilization of Nora and the pressure on Nora to adhere to societal norms. Nora is a woman pressured by 19th century societal standards and their oppressive nature result in the gradual degradation of her character that destroys all semblances of family and identity.Nora’s role in her family is initially portrayed as being background, often “laughing quietly and happily to herself” (Ibsen 148) because of her isolation in not only space, but also person. Ibsen’s character rarely ventures from the main set of the drawi...
In the play A Doll House, by Henrik Ibsen, Nora and Torvald’s marriage seems to have been torn apart by Krogstad’s extortion plot, but in reality their marriage would have ended even without the events in the play. Torvald’s obsession with his public appearance will eventually cause him to break the marriage. Nora’s need for an identity will ultimately cause her to leave Torvald, even without Krogstad’s plot. Lastly, the amount of deception and dishonesty between Torvald and Nora would have resulted in the same conclusion sooner or later. In this essay, I will argue that Nora and Torvald’s relationship would have ended even without Krogstad’s extortion plot.
“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 women and others during this time period. Torvald Helmer starts off the story with a new job as a bank manager. He has a wife, Nora, who does not have a job in the workforce since that was the man's role.
In these next few paragraphs, I will attempt to give an accurate depiction of passive deception, focusing on how it applies to the field of healthcare, and its problems. Passive deception, in essence, is the act of withholding information from another person to whom it concerns or could concern. In his essay, “Sexual Morality and the Concept of Using Another Person,” Mappes simplifies passive deception to “the simple withholding of information” (173). The counterpart to this, is active deception, which occurs when a deceiver lies outrightly. The key difference between these two is the action, or lack thereof, of the deceiver.
Throughout the play, the relationships between all of it’s characters can either be seen as manipulative, deceitful, or just downright fake. Nora uses Torvald for money while keeping little secrets from him like eating macaroons behind his back, Torvald uses Nora for entrainment pleasure, and Christine uses Nora to gain a job at Torvald’s bank which causes Krogstad to lose his job. This leads to the main conflict of the story, it revolves around Nora’s forgery of the loan document she gave to Krogstad. This is a crime in a legal and moral sense; legal being that Nora had committed forgery, and moral being that she kept it secret from Torvald. Because Krogstad lost his job, he threatens to expose Nora’s secret. This conflict causes a chain reaction of manipulation as Nora attempts to do everything in her power to prevent Krogstad from exposing her. Knowing about Krogstad’s history with Christine, Nora uses her to persuade Krogstad out of his decision. The cycle of lies, deceit, and manipulation is symbolic to that of a dollhouse because even though everything in the Helmer household and the relationships of the characters seemed to be perfect at the beginning of the play, it is all