Feminism in the Victorian Era in A Doll's House

This paper was to explore feminism in the Victorian era as it is illustrated in Ibsen's A Doll's House. The writer reflected on contemporary norms and gender roles to gain insight into the even more limiting norms and gender roles of the Victorian era. Academic research from peer-reviewed journals and scholarly books on literary criticism were used to help understand the motivation of Nora to abandon her home, her security, the children she loves, and the husband she no longer loves. I discussed this project with my grandmother, who still remembers a time when women had little autonomy or chance for intellectual expression in their marriages. Her insights helped prepare me for Nora's predicament. All sacrifice and no reward lead Nora to the recognition that though she has loved her husband despite his oppression and objectification of her, he has no capacity to make similar sacrifices in the name of love for her.

During the Victorian Age, gender and marriage were primarily social constructions based on white male values, norms and beliefs. In Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, Nora is a married woman who initially believes her duty is to please first her father and then her husband. Though she is an intelligent, high-spirited woman, Nora suffers her father's control and manipulation as she later will the baby-talk and bullying of her husband Torvald. Though she is willing to sacrifice her own desires and expressions for these men, eventually Nora comes to re

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into a "doll" that has no capacity for self-expression or intellect. When she confronts Torvald with the hollow nature of their marriage, his contrite please for a second chance fall on deaf ears. Nora now understands she is the only one willing to sacrifice for her marriage but that will never achieve fulfillment for her. As Shafer (p. 62) maintains, "Nothing he says penetrates her devastating realization that the miracle she was waiting for in ecstasy and terror the proof that Torvald's love for her was capable of a sacrifice equal to hers for him has been nothing but illusion." Nora's efforts to hide her debt for her trip from Torvald help show the limitation and oppression in the roles of wife and mother in her era. She confides to Christine Linde that she will never be able to tell Torvald her secret. This will be true even when she is "no longer pretty" and Torvald "no longer loves me as he does now; when it no longer amuses him to see me dance and dress up and play the fool for him," (Ibsen, p. 105). Ibsen's play shows the artificial and limiting nature of gender roles and norms in the Victorian era. Marriage is nothing more than male oppression of females, oppression that limits Nora to being little more than a pret

Category: Literature - F