Feminism and Ibsen's A Doll's House

Definition of Feminism Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women.(1) In addition, feminism seeks to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment. A feminist is a "person whose beliefs and behavior are based on feminism."(2) Feminist literature As it is obvious from its name, feminist literarue is concerned with the issues of feminism and it is attached to any literary work which is concerned with women and their quest of equality. It is only through such media that women believed a change was possible in the way they were perceived in society. Not all feminist literature has been written by women, but also by men who understood women beyond the roles they were expected to fit into, and delved into their psyche to understand their needs and desires. Some works may be fictional, while others may be non fictional.(3)

Feminism did not produce only fiction but also non-fiction in order to strengthen and assure the importance of women for there academic, cultural, and historical contributions.(4) Much of the early period of feminist literary scholarship was given over to the rediscovery and reclamation of texts written by women. Studies like Dale Spender's Mothers of the Novel (1986) and Jane Spencer's The Rise of the Woman Novelist (1986) were ground-breaking in their insistence that women have always been writing. Commensurate with this growth in scholarly interest, various presses began the task of reissuing long-out-of-print texts.(5)

One major characteristic of feminist literature is that women are, most of the time, featured as the protagonist who faces the

society and its traditions in order to achieve their own decitions.

Though a daughter, a mother, a sister, or a wife, any piece of feminist literature first deals with a woman as a woman. The identity of the woman in these literary works is identified by here actions and roles in society. Most of these works do not have a happy ending in order to assure the fact that equality between men and women is not a baved road for any one to walk on.(6)

Feminist Drama Feminist theater has emerged as a direct result of the feminist movement. Too often theater that is specifically feminist in its intent is categorized as being exclusively by and for women. This label is superficial and rooted in the stereotypical misconceptions placed upon the feminist movement. Furthermore, feminist theater is generally defined within the broader context of women's theater, even though feminist performing companies are often concerned with issues that are more political and social in nature. Women's theater also deals with such issues, but their goal is geared more towards entertainment rather than social change. Feminist theater historian Meredith Flynn states: "feminist theater needs to be examined within its own political context so that its innovations and contributions to the development of theater may be better understood and appreciated" . At the Foot of the Mountain provides an excellent example.(7) Theatre has the power to persuade and because women were void of political power, the theatre looked more and more attractive as a place to raise feminist awareness.233 Theatre gave women rhetorical power, and being a rhetor was a difficult thing to reconcile with being a woman given the prevalence of traditional gender roles.234 Using the theatre, women found a medium through which to communicate that ensured their security, safety, and above all reinforced their confidence in sharing their experiences.(8)

Elizabeth Carys early seventeenth-century drama, The Tragedy of Mariam, for example, offers several alternative models of female heroism. Mariam, the tragic heroine, is shown to be at her strongest and yet her most vulnerable through her eloquent use of language: her opening line, How oft have I with public voice run on : is an immediate sign of both danger and inspiration. In the end she dies a victim of Herod and his patriarchal world, despite her perceived chastity and the sweet tune of her final speech like that of a fair dying swan. Mariams sister-in-law, Salome, by contrast, asks passionately why men should have the privilege of being able to divorce an unworthy partner, while that right is barrd from women. Her question, Are men than we in greater grace with Heaven?, sounds sympathetically egalitarian, but the line which follows, Or cannot women hate as well as men?, strikes a more aggressive tone.(9) Feminism in a Doll's House When Henrik Ibsens A Dolls House was first published in 1879, it was a coming of age play that dealt with the lives and anxieties of the bourgeoisie women in Victorian Norway. Feminism is the dominant theme, as Ibsen investigated the tragedy of being born as a bourgeoisie female in a society ruled by a patriarchal law. If examined more closely, one can find traces of Marxist Ideology and other schools of thought. The first thing that I am going to start with is shedding light on the feminist attributes that this play is throbbing with and try to see it with the eyes of feminist writers like Simone de Beauvoir, Michel Foucault and other feminist writers. The feminist school of thought has brought revolutionary ideas by exposing masculine stereotypes, revaluating womens roles in society, studying womens cultural and historical background, studying female literature, and criticizing social sexist values.(10)

The revolutionary spirit and the emergence of modernism influenced Ibsens choice to focus on an unlikely hero, a housewife, in his attack on middle-class values. Quickly becoming the talk of parlors across Europe, the play succeeded in its attempt to provoke discussion. In fact, it is the numerous ways that the play can be read and interpreted that make the play so interesting. Each new generation has had a different way of interpreting the book, from seeing it as feminist critique to taking it as a

Hegelian allegory of the spirits historical evolution. This richness is another sign of its greatness.(11)

The character of Nora Helmer is a great portrayal of women who live in a society that is dominated by men. In which the male controles the female and treat her as a mere dole. Nora is that doll that live in a doll's house. It can be argued that the character of Nora and some other characters in A Doll's House are an image of "the second sex" or the "other" as discussed by Simone de Beauvoir in her well-known essay, The Second Sex. De Beauvoir argues that throughout history, woman has been viewed as a hindrance or a prison. Aristotle also said, The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities. We should regard the female nature as afflicted with a natural defectiveness. Woman is always depicted as secondary to man. She does not exist as an entity by herself but as the Other.

Nora is seen by her husband as merely a "little skylark", a "song bird", a "squirrel", a scatterbrain, or as a "doll". He plays with her exactly as a child plays with her doll. Nora has always been regarded by her father as the other. Then she became an adult and moved to her husband's house; he treated her as a possession not as a human. This is clear in Nora's statement: When I lived at home with Daddy, he fed me all his opinions, until they became my opinions. Or if they didnt, I kept quiet about it because I knew he wouldnt have liked it. He used to call me his doll-child, and he played with me the way I used to play with my dolls. And when Daddy handed me over to you. You arranged everything according to your taste, and I adapted my taste to yours Now, looking back, I feel as if Ive lived a beggars lifefrom hand to mouth.(12)

Towards the end of the play, Nora realizes that it is time that she regained her status as being the One after a long time of submission, which established her role as the Other. Nora has been taught not to take but to receive. She has gained only what her husband and father have been willing to grant her. In this sense, Noras domestic life in such a patriarchal society is just a reflection of the middle class women of her time that De Beauvoir depicted vividly in her essay. They live dispersed among

the males, attached through residence, housework, economic condition, and social standing to certain menfathers or husbandsmore firmly than they are to other women. If they belong to the bourgeoisie, they feel solidarity with men of that class, not with proletarian women. Noras biggest fear is her husband hearing that she had forged her fathers signature to get the loan, which she needed to travel to Italy. Her motives were absolutely selfless because that trip saved her sick husbands life. Nora knew that the revelation would have put her husbands reputation at stake, but she felt deep inside that her husband would sacrifice his reputation to defend her as soon as he came to know that she did that to save his life. That feeling tormented her to the extent that she contemplated suicide. She is not worth her husbands nobility! She is not even good enough to be a mother! Didnt her husband tell her that all young criminals have had dishonest mothers because its usually the mothers responsibility? Despite her great sacrifice driven by her love for her husband, Nora agrees that she is a bad influence on her children. She even decides to isolate herself from her kids and let the nursemaid take care of them fully. We can hear her saying to herself, Corrupt my children. Poison my home. Its not true. It could never be true. This proves to us that Nora is very pleased with her role as the Other.(13)

Yet, the doll house is shattered as well as Noras illusion. The doll finally recognizes that her role has been nothing but the Other. She is aware that it is she who agreed to the definition of the One and the Other. Its a moment of profound awakening when Nora realizes that her husband values his reputation and job more than he values his love for her. Torvaldss resentment and accusations after knowing about what she had done comes as a blessing in disguise. We hear Torvald telling her, For all these years, for eight years now, youve been my pride and joy, and now I find youre a hypocrite and a liar, and worse, worse than thata criminal! The whole thing is an abyss of ugliness! You ought to be ashamed. Simone de Beauvoir says that if the woman seems to be the inessential which never becomes the essential, it is because she herself fails to bring about the change. But here we tell De Beauvoir that Nora is willing to bring about the change. The harsh reality smacks her in the face; a wave of disillusionment wakes her up. She decides bravely to abandon her family to escape the restrictive confines of the patriarchal society she lives in. She is resolved to go out into the world and gain real experience. She is

determined to think out everything for herself and be able to make her own decisions. I believe that before anything else, Im a human being, just as much of as you areor at least Im going to try to turn myself into one, Nora tells Torvald in a moment of self-realization. This has been the womans quest throughout history. Nora Helmer in A Dolls House triumphs over all obstacles and finally recognizes her duty towards herself which had always been neglected. Yet, many more women still continue to shatter the collars of gender anxiety and enslavement placed by the masculine world around their necks.(14)

Works Cited
1/ Definition of feminism noun from Cambridge Dictionary Online: Free English Dictionary and Thesaurus". dictionary.cambridge.org. http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/feminism. Retrieved 16 March 2012 2/ Houghton Mifflin, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition. . 2006 3/ Feminist Literature, http://www.buzzle.com/articles/feminist-literature.html. Retrieved 16 March 2012

4/ Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements, Isobel Grundy; The feminist companion to literature in English: women writers from the Middle Ages to the present; New Haven; Yale University Press; 1990; p. vii-x 5 /Sandra M. Gilbert, Paperbacks: From Our Mothers' Libraries: women who created the novel, New York Times, May 4, 1986 6/ Feminist Literature, http://www.buzzle.com/articles/feminist-literature.html. Retrieved
16 March 2012 7/ Sandra M. Bemis, The Difficulties Facing Feminist Theater: The Survival of At the Foot of the Mountain . Volume 1, 1987

8/ Erin L. DeLaMater , Feminine Fall-Out Feminist Theatre in mid 20th Century America, Spring 2010 Honors Thesis 9/ Gill Pain, Susan Sellers; A History of Feminist Literary Criticism; New York; Cambridge University Press; 2007; p39 10/ A Doll's House - A Discourse on Feminism, http://wiaam-majorcriticaltheories.blogspot.com/2010/08/when-henrik-ibsens-dolls-hous e-was.html, Retrieved 16 March 2012 11/ About a Doll's House, http://www.gradesaver.com, Retrieved 16 March 2012 12/ A Doll's House - A Discourse on Feminism, http://wiaam-majorcriticaltheories.blogspot.com/2010/08/when-henrik-ibsens-dolls-hous e-was.html, Retrieved 16 March 2012 13/ The Same 14/ The Same