Written Task Dolls House

Outline Prescribed question: Power and privilege: â€Å"How and why is a social group represented in a particular way? Title of text for analysis: A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, Norway 1879. Task is related to course section: Part 3: Literature texts and context Task focus: This essay focuses on Ibsen’s way of representing women, it explains why does he represent them in that specific particular way and how the time, era and context he lived in affected this aim. It states that women are represented as capable and independent individuals because of Ibsen’s concern of society’s acceptance of this new role of women.It compares women showed in â€Å"A Doll’s House† with the actual women of that time. It uses examples and quotation from the text in order to prove Ibsen’s posture towards the topic, and to answer the question of how and why women are represented in that particular way. Written Task: Henrik IIbsen was a Norwegian playwright , very concerned of women and human rights in general. Because of his thoughts and worries he wrote a play, â€Å"A Doll’s House† in 1879, which took him to being one of the most important Norwegian drama playwright. In this play he expresses his thoughts of how unfair women were treated in those days.The typical female stereotype was the mother and wife that usually stayed at home and took care of the children and house cleaning, the ones that sacrificed their lives and their personal goals for what society expected women to be. Ibsen’s idea for the play was to show how this stereotype had to change by accepting women as equal individuals as men. For this he created different women characters that expressed how wrong it was to follow this stereotype because of society. Throughout the play we will see women breaking this ideal stereotype, proving men and society wrong.In this essay we will reveal the how and why were women represented in this particular way. We already know that Ibsen had concerns of how women were treated, this was because of the context and time he lived in. Through all his life he lived in a society that showed women as unequal individuals. For some reason this did not make sense to him. He did not understand why women had to be treated differently. This was one of the main reasons of why he wrote â€Å"A Doll’s House† referring to society as an actual Doll’s House, were women were manipulated and to make people reconsider women’s role in society.The characters he created all alluded to how women were treated in those days. For example, Nora, the principal character, at the beginning of the play, was shown as a submissive wife: the typical woman stereotype. As the story continues she starts showing a new hidden side of her, that showed she was not going to follow societies expectations any more. Ibsen creates a situation in which Nora has to sacrifice for her family, because of Torvaldâ€℠¢s (her husband) sickness, by breaking the stereotype she should follow. She asks for a loan and lies to Torvald; she tells him that her father gave her the money.In order to pay for the loan she had to secretly work. When Torvald finds out that she lied, he judges her and tells her that it’s unbearably wrong. Nora realizes that Torvald does not really love her but he always loved the fact that she was dependent of him, the moment she stopped being dependent because of trying to save his life, he couldn’t take it. This led Nora to leave him; she was tired of being treated like this, she knew she was capable of much more. â€Å"I have been performing tricks for you, Torvald†¦ It’s because of you I’ve made nothing of my life. Here we can see how determined Nora is of her capacities, she blames Torvald because of her failure in life. She also points out that she’s been â€Å"playing tricks† all her life, for Torvald and society, acting as expected. Ibsen also reveals how a woman at that time, was impaired to find out who she is, in this case, Nora, really was and all she was capable of doing, not only for herself but in benefit of her family. Through having to tell lies, to her husband about how she obtained the money when he was ill, and to Krogstad, about her father? signature, she comes to realize that she is a valuable and more than capable person, although her ways of doing things was not correct. Her final goal was so important to her, protecting her family, she knew she had to do whatever was necessary, even if that meant not being true to her husband or society. In the end, she realizes that it was more important to her husband his reputation, than what it had meant to Nora, all she had done for the love of her family, concluding to the raw truth that her husband didn? really love her: he loved what she represented before society, a loving, faithful wife that compelled to all his expectations. She knew that to love her children, she needed first to understand and love herself, a thought way beyond and ahead of time, for a woman in the late 1800? s. Another woman, having a different role in society, such as Nora? s friend, Christine Linde, a childless widow, that proves to be an individual capable of surviving on her own, in a society who thought that a respectable women should be married and dependent of her husband. She once had been a â€Å"doll† like Nora.She also shows that she is a resourceful woman. When Nora tells Christine what is happening with Krogstad, Christine tells Nora not to worry that she will help her dissuade Krogstad (and she does), because she was once in love with him, but didn’t marry him since she needed money to help her sick mother and family. She proves here that a woman can act on her own, not being manipulated by men as it usually occurred, but being able to influence a man for her own purposes or even to help a friend. Nora, like a lot other women definitely felt like a â€Å"doll† being â€Å"played† by men and society.We can conclude that in the play women are represented in a particular way, women that could be independent and totally capable individuals with the intention to prove men and society of those times wrong. Ibsen’s posture towards this subject is so definite in that women should be treated as equal, that we can understand why he represented women like this; it was just the way he wanted society to accept them. Maybe one of the few ways of expressing this kind of thoughts was by creating a fictional drama play that showed women, as he wanted them to be accepted by an equal society. Word Count: Outline 151 Written task 1000