Women’s roles in the home in 19th century Europe are the same as to the roles that were seen in the play A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen. Nora represents the roles that women had in the home and the rights that they had in the 19th century. There are not a lot of rights for women, and they have roles at home that they are to follow; like taking care of the kids or making sure the husband is also taken care of. Women are not seen to be equal to men. Nora stays at home and has a nurse that will take care of her kids. Nora is not to spend or have a bunch of money hidden from her husband like she does because the men are the source of income for the home and they expect to know where the money is going. They are to follow the rules that the men find to be acceptable. Nora works in the home and sometimes helps the children learn the right morals in life if the nurse is not already done so. Alana Barton states in her research, “Wives and mothers took responsibility for the domestic management of the family and ‘spiritual leadership’ in the home power in the household lay with men although this was contingent on the willing compliance of wives and children” (90). Torvald is the head of the home and expects Nora to follow his rules and tell him everything he needs to know. The women of the play A Doll’s House, represent the women of the 19th century, the life that they had, and how they were expected to live.
Nora is expected to be married to Torvald to have a happy life and a source of income. Nora had to follow the rule that Torvald wanted and she had to ask him for money or else she would have none to spend. Torvald has many names for Nora like “squirrel” and “spendthrift” (Ibsen 229). The names that Torvald calls Nora shows that he ...
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Balls, formal dinners, and social gatherings dominate people’s view of the nineteenth century. Upper-class women lived a life of splendor and grandeur, and the white, gentle hands of those women hardly lifted to do any work. Most would strive to attain such a life because of its outward appearance; however, masked behind the smiles and parties, suppression ran high. Men dominated their households, and they repressed their wives. Life did not live up to the expectation of many women as they struggled against the controlling and authoritative male figures in their lives.
Throughout the classical and postclassical eras, it is evident that women have always held a certain label whether it be positive or negative. This was evident throughout various regions such as the Middle East, Africa, Americas, and Europe. The time period from 1750-1914 was also an era of industrialization, in places especially like Europe. New machinery and a grand-scale labor force was required to allow the country to prosper as much as possible. From 1750 to 1914, the status of women in Western Euope changed through an increase in employment opportunities and through the earning of women’s rights, however, female labor in designated households was invariably evident.
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19th-Century Women Works Cited Missing Women in the nineteenth century, for the most part, had to follow the common role presented to them by society. This role can be summed up by what historians call the “cult of domesticity”. The McGuffey Readers does a successful job at illustrating the women’s role in society. Women that took part in the overland trail, as described in “Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey” had to try to follow these roles while facing many challenges that made it very difficult to do so. One of the most common expectations for women is that they are responsible for doing the chore of cleaning, whether it is cleaning the house, doing the laundry.
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“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.
During the time in which Henrik Isben's play, A Doll?s House, took place society frowned upon women asserting themselves. Women were supposed to play a role in which they supported their husbands, took care of their children, and made sure everything was perfect around the house. Nora is portrayed as a doll throughout the play until she realizes the truth about the world she lives in, and cuts herself free.
Throughout the early 1800s, British women most often were relegated to a subordinate role in society by their institutionalized obligations, laws, and the more powerfully entrenched males. In that time, a young woman’s role was close to a life of servitude and slavery. Women were often controlled by the men in their lives, whether it was a father, brother or the eventual husband. Marriage during this time was often a gamble; one could either be in it for the right reasons, such as love, or for the wrong reasons, such as advancing social status. In 19th century Britain, laws were enacted to further suppress women and reflected the societal belief that women were supposed to do two things: marry and have children.