In Henrik Ibsen's A Doll House, Torvald Helmer treats his wife Nora as though she were a child. For example, he comments on what a spendthrift she is and how she cannot understand the importance of not incurring any debts (Ibsen 554). But Nora also plays along in her role as child. In response to Torvald's comments, for example, she begs for money with the promise that she'll ôhang the bills in pretty gilt paper on the Christmas treeö (Ibsen 555). But, of course, Nora wants the money to repay a loan she took out to finance a vacation necessary for Torvald's health.
When Torvald discovers that Nora forged her father's signature to get the money for the loan, he turns on her. He laments that now he'll be ôswept down miserably into the depths on account of a featherbrained womanö (Ibsen 574). Torvald is not interested in why Nora did what she did or what the true nature of her character is. He's only interested in how her image reflects upon him. Or, to be more accurate, he's only interested in how his image is reflected in her. If she appears to people to be a poor character, he is afraid they will think the same of him.
Caryl Churchill demonstrates the same husband-wife relationship in Cloud Nine by casting a man in the role of Betty. This casting decision shows that Betty is really a projection of her husband's idea of womanhood. As she states in the play, ôI am a man's creation as you see, And what men want is what I want to beö (Churchill 826).
ôCloud Nineö and ôThe Homecomingö
In Harold Pinter's ôThe Homecoming,ö the four main male characters view women as either saints or whores or both. Seemingly, women can also be both at the same time. For example, Max describes his late wife Jessie as a woman ôwith a will of iron, a heart of gold and a mindö (Pinter 776) but Teddy's wife Ruth is ôa stinking pox-ridden slutö (Pinter 775). For these men, therefore, women are either saints or sinners, and the men seem i...