Intro and points

Question 1

Opening Statement

Answer 1

1) Marriage, often idealized as a harmonious union, can also be a space rife with power struggles, secrets, and individual discontent, as depicted in both Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Carol Ann Duffy’s poem Mrs. Faust.

Question 2

Ibsen point

Answer 2

Text 1 is Doll’s House (1879), by Henrik Ibsen. It is a groundbreaking play set in patriarchal 19th-century Norway where societal expectations bind women to their roles as dutiful wives and mothers. The play explores Nora Helmer’s journey toward self-realization as she confronts the stifling realities of her marriage to Torvald.

Question 3

duffy point

Answer 3

On the other hand, Text 2 is Duffy’s Mrs. Faust, from her 1999 collection The World’s Wife. It offers a contemporary feminist critique of marriage through the lens of Mrs. Faust, the wife of the legendary scholar who sold his soul to the devil. The poem satirizes modern materialism and explores themes of disconnection and moral decay within a marital relationship.

Question 4

thesis

Answer 4

Both texts, though distinct in form and era, critique the institution of marriage, exposing the underlying inequalities and disillusionment through contrasting narrative structures and literary techniques, including dramatic irony, symbolism, and allusion