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A Doll's House Identity Essay

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Research question: Nora’s struggle to find her identity in the play A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s house is a play, which was written way ahead of its time. In the play Ibsen has highlighted that women’s right is a matter of importance. During that time women were considered a mere doll. A Doll’s house reflects the common society during that time period. Ibsen has tried to bring out the fact that during 19th century the role of a woman was to stay at home, raise her children and serve her husband. The same is expected by Nora Helmer, a character in A Doll’s House. She is portrayed as a victim of the 19th century woman. Michael Meyer has quoted, "The common denominator in many of Ibsen's dramas is his interest in individuals struggling for and authentic identity in the face of tyrannical social conventions. This conflict often results in his characters' being divided between a sense of duty to themselves and their responsibility to …show more content…
However, we realize the truth of their marriage as the play progresses. Nora realizes that her marriage was a phony one in the end of the play when Torvald refuses to understand her reason for mistake. For Torvald, Nora is only a docile and a loving wife. He shows his power over her by referring to her as “my little squirrel”, “spendthrift” or “my little lark”. According to him she is only a possession. He thinks that she is not an intelligent person nor can she think on her own. He never gives her an opportunity to voice her opinion as immediately he cuts her off by dropping the pet names and insults her that she is a women with comments like, "worries that you couldn't possibly help me with," or "Nora, Nora, just like a woman”. Torvald behaves like a typical husband in his society. He denied the right of Nora to act as she wishes or think on her on own will. He wanted her to play a dumb person and accept all his views in all

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