rossetti & ibsen themes + quotes Flashcards
goblin market, from the antique, maude clare, winter & a doll's house
societal expectations for women
goblin market: expectation to remain ‘pure’, dependency on others, self sacrifice:
* “we must not look at goblin men, we must not buy their fruits”
* for there is no friend like a sister
* “eat me, drink me, love me”
from the antique: women marginalised in victorian society
* “doubly blank in a woman’s lot”
a doll’s house : domesticity, submissiveness, self sacrifice
* “before all else, you are a wife and a mother”
* “i’ve been your doll-wife”
* “i’ve existed merely to perform tricks for you”
desire
goblin market: lizzie’s temptation, desire for liberation, consequences of desire
* “She stretched her gleaming neck / Like a rush-imbedded swan”
* “Their offers should not charm us,
Their evil gifts would harm us.”
* “She drooped as a lily in the drought, / When the goblin fruit had worked its will.”
a doll’s house: torvald’s idealised ‘dollwife’, nora’s desire for freedom, consequences of nora’s desire
* “I have been your doll-wife”
* “I cannot remain with you any longer.”
* Nora: “I have other duties just as sacred. Duties to myself.”
marriage and power dynamics
maude clare: subversive power dynamics
* “Here’s my half of the golden chain
You wore about your neck”
a doll’s house: torvald patronises nora, she is submissive to him
* “ “A songbird must have a clean beak to sing with. Otherwise, she’ll start twittering out of tune.”
individual freedom
winter: my secret: presents idea of hiding true self as a form of power
* “only, my secret’s mine, and i won’t tell”
a doll’s house: nora leaving shows self-discovery and independence
* “I cannot remain with you any longer.”
sacrifice
goblin market: lizzie’s sacrifice to save laura
* “eat me, drink me, love me”
* “for there is no friend like a sister”
a doll’s house: mrs linde sacrifices her personal happiness, nora sacrifices her reputation
* “I was forced to sacrifice my love for the sake of my family.”
* “no man would sacrifice his honor for the one he loves.
Nora: It is a thing hundreds of thousands of women have done.”
deception
goblin market: societal temptations and illusions
* “Their offers should not charm us,
Their evil gifts would harm us.”
a doll’s house: illusion of happiness, as a facade in nora and torvald’s relationship
* “Our home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll-wife.”
