Critics Flashcards
Alisa Solomon
Nora performs all the roles expected of her as a woman, however at the end of the Play Nora has to create a new role for herself. She says that Ibsen ‘reveals the artificiality of the well-made Play, and the artificiality of the well-made woman’
Joan Templeton, ‘Ibsen’s Women’
She explored Ibsen’s personal papers and uncovered Ibsen’s relationships with feminist thinkers- his wife, his mother-in-law and the actresses who created his Characters, and notes ‘The power of A Doll’s House lies not beyond but in its feminism’
Marxist Critisms
Critical of Helmer as a member of the bourgeoise, as a banker and former lawyer, coercing others to produce that wealth.
Nora as a bourgeois wife is central to the Play. She goes off the become an individual, and we assume that she will become a part of the petite bourgeoise- earning sufficient money and still under the structure that controls society.- however she will never receive enough money to enjoy the personal growth that Helmer experiences.
Butler
Our gender is not something we are, but something we do. Gendered behaviours has been considered by society for many years as a ‘natural’ thing.
We can see both Nora and Helmer experiencing this Gender performativity.
The motif of birds
The image of birds is a symbol of intrigue in terms of feminist literary criticism.
This representation of Nora’s entrapment through this motif creates intertextual links to other text’s exploration of femininity and the rights of the woman- e.g in Wollstonecraft’s ‘Vindication of the Rights of Woman’
