Critics Flashcards
Men and women playing roles
Kristen E. Shepard Barr
‘Ibsen shows how both men and women unconsciously play roles they seem expected to play: the obedient wife, the authoritative husband
Ibsen’s refusal of femisim
Kristen E Shepard Barr
‘a speech that can be explained by his fear of being affiliated with any one particular group’
Defence of the men in the play
Kristen E Shepard Barr
‘Far from being villains, the male characters in the play are, like Nora, simply replicating patterns of behaviour that have persisted throughout most of history’
Torvalds emasculation in the final scene
Kristen E Shepard Barr
‘ Torvald switches roles to become the stereotypically hysterical female’
Nora’s transformation into a new woman
Kristen E Shepard Barr
‘It is not sudden and shocking, but the logical result of a series of hints that have been carefully placed in the text since the opening scene’
Translation (A dolls home)
Kristen E Shepard Barr
’ this then means that the ‘idea of a girl playing with dolls has spread beyond the neat confines of a little house, to pervade the real home’
‘The tragedy is that Nora is living as a doll in her own home and passing that role on, unithkingly, to her own children.’
Torvald as a victim to society
John Hathaway
‘ Torvald is far more of a doll than Nora… He doesn’t see how he is even more entrapped through the gender role he unwillingly adopts as a man than Nora is as a woman’
Nora manipulating her hubby
John Hathaway
‘Nora understands her husband’s rigid adherence to his masculine role, and uses this to her advantage’
Nora using her roles to her advantage
John Hathaway
‘She happily applies the same terms of dehumanization to herself that Torvals uses to apparently demean and belittle her, to help persuade him’
Translation (The Doll House)
John Hathaway
This new translation ‘shifts the focus from Nora alone to the way in which Torvald… and indeed, the whole of nineteenth- century Norwegian society- is presented as a doll’
Nora is trapped in the domestic sphere
Britany wright
Nora is a ‘caged bird’
‘trapped, restricted and unable to act on its natural impulses of pursuing flight’
‘Symbol of female entrapment’
Torvald only concerned with Noras aesthetic
Britany Wright
Torvald’s concern that the Macaroons will ‘spoil her teeth’ -
‘ Presenting this concern for her as purely aesthetic’ reinforces the importace of ‘superficial femininity and beauty within their marriage.’
Tranatella as a metaphor
Brittany Wright
‘the dance of the tarantella is used by Ibsen as a motif for female sexuality and repression’
Ranky
Britany Wright
‘Dr Rank’s syphilis serving as a brutal and physical reminder of the consequences of sin’
General
Britany Wright
‘ADH relies on the use of symbols and motifs to communicate instrumental messages to the audience relating gender roles and social class’
