Hedda Tesman is in my opinion the antagonist of “Hedda Gabler.” She is the husband of Gerorge Tesman, and comes from a very powerfully wealthy family. One thing I like about Hedda is she is like a walking confessional. People come to her and tell their secrets and get advice. For example the conversation between Mrs. Elvsted and Hedda in Act I.…
Hester Prynne is a Good Mother to Pearl in The Scarlet Letter A mother’s role is to love and care for her children. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book The Scarlet Letter , Hester is a wonderful mother. First, Hester has provided Pearl with many different physical needs. Second, Hester teaches academic and life lessons to Pearl. Lastly, Hester never abandoned Pearl even with the fact she had to raise a child all own her own.…
3.3.5 TST Both Judge Brack and Stanley are very oppressive and antagonistic characters in their respective stories. Ibsen and Williams placed these characters in their stories for a very important reason nonetheless. In a Streetcar named desire, the character of Stanley assists in the audience’s ability to see the overall theme of the play: this being that one cannot use fantasy to cover up reality. Stanley helps to develop this theme because he is the “reality” that Blanche has to deal with in her life.…
Throughout history, women have been expected to fit into a cookie cutter mold designed by men. It should come as no surprise that in Ibsen's "A Doll's House" it is no different. While reading the story of Nora, Torvald's wife, it is obvious that she is expected to act, dress, and even dance a certain way. There are many examples of symbolism and metaphors throughout this play. The symbolism in the name of the play, the Christmas tree, her costume and dance, and even in the news of their dear friend who is dying.…
In Hedda Gabler the author Henrik Ibsen produces a quite fascinating character. From the outside it would seem that Hedda has all the potential to lead a happy life having just married a man of her choice with good prospects who completely adores her. However, it is made clear very early in the book that Hedda is not satisfied. Hedda does not reveal this dissatisfaction but rather acts as if she is happy. This constant theme of dishonesty runs throughout Hedda’s interactions with practically everyone.…
Hester Prynne, from Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter", is a considerate and deliberate woman, whose personality shines through her society. One of our first encounters with Ms. Prynne is her standing on the scaffold with her three month old baby, being publicly shamed for adultery, but refusing to name the father (Hawthorne, p. 58). By the end of her jail sentence, she knew that what she did was a sin to her religion. She chose to stay in her hometown, at the "scene of her guilt" (p. 68), and live in a small, secluded cottage, making her living by sewing things for poor people. As years went on, and people became accustomed to Hester and her scarlet letter, she began caring less and less about what people in her society thought about…
A true contemporary of the modern era, Hester Prynne was cast into the 17th century Puritan America in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne as a foreigner of the times. Immediately speculated as an adulteress for bearing a child with no known father in the community, Hester Prynne is expelled from society. Hester, although ridiculed and alienated, emerges as the representative of the new female image. She defies the status quo as a proponent of feminism and individuality, a product of her rebellious spirit, self-reliance, and strong mind.…
“It 's not the lie that bothers me, it the insult of my intelligence that I find offensive.” Everyone was taught when they were little that lying is bad and the truth will get you further in life. In some aspects lying can get you out of trouble now, but that lie that you will tell will come back to get you in the future. Each play has a character that lies just to prove a point, to prove that they are strong. The Children 's Hour, Trifles and A Doll House all have one common theme; each play has various different lies.…
In both works of literature the husbands use gender as leverage for control over their wives. The husbands of both novels create households where the women have no rights and must do as their husbands say. This mindset weakens a women’s moral and breaks her as a person till she is nothing but a hollow person living in fear and regret. The men use this brain washing to take control of their wives and see them as objects instead of the love of their lives. In A Doll’s House Torvald is infatuated with Nora when their “love” must appear to be a secret.…
Nora Helmer could be argued to be the “Doll” in the play “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen. She was spoiled by her father while growing up and now by her husband Torvald which, at first leads Nora to have a lack of reality and a sense of immaturity with childish tendencies and a lack of understanding the law. We watch how Nora slowly begins to learn how to think like an adult and become independent as the play unfolds. Her interactions with the members of the cast proves how much of an unrealistic view Nora has on her actions. Nora was sheltered her entire life and which can only lead to the question if she will be able to fend for herself and learn what it is to be a responsible adult.…
Many individuals would agree that men and women are not treated as equals. Over the existence of the human race women have been seen as the weakest link, and men have always been expected to be the family’s provider. The setting of A Doll House by Henrik Ibsen takes place during Christmas time in a Victorian middle class household belonging to Torvald and Nora Helmer, their three children, their nurse Anne-Marie, and their maid Helene. In the beginning of the play Nora is asking Torvald for money for Christmas shopping and goes on to talk about how Torvald will be making so much more money with his new position at the bank. Towards the end of the play Nora’s untruth over the forgery of her late father’s signatures on important documents comes…
Hedda has a complex urge to dominate and undermine all others around her in order for her to achieve some sort of self-gratification. The entitlement, dominance, and complexity of Hedda Gabler reveal an unfamiliar female character that pushes the male and female relationship in theater beyond the comfort zone of eighteen hundreds playwriting. Eighteen hundred’s literature and playwriting often featured the docile housewife, there to serve her male counterpart as well as be for the most part a secondary character to the overall story. The female character usually is timid and comforting to the people in her home. The first turn that Ibsen takes on this role with his character Hedda Gabler is that Hedda is neither timid nor comforting; Hedda separates herself by being snide and condescending to the people around her.…
In Henrik Ibsen’s play, Hedda Gabler, the title character states that more than anything in life, she wants control over another human being; this desire reveals Hedda’s challenge of the mandate promulgated by patriarchy that control is the purview of males, not of females. Hedda Gabler challenges the patriarchal paradigm of control in three specific ways; her pure love of control is verified throughout the novel as she plots the lives of the people surrounding her. It is also demonstrated by her superior attitude that determines the technique in which she treats the people around her, and through her horrific reaction to her loss of complete control that ultimately leads to her suicide. Similarly to the description of the stereotypical male monopolized quality of control, Hedda seemingly thrives through the ability of manipulating other people when in reality her need for control stems from her loss of regulation in her own life. Hedda Gabler challenges the patriarchal mandate that control is in the purview of only men through her lust for domination over other people.…
The women in the play are dressed in long gowns, which is a direct characteristic of the Victorian time period. Through Hedda Gabler’s character, the audience is given a physically conventional woman, but Hedda’s attitude goes against the housewife stereotype. This is blatantly revealed when Tesman asks how Hedda will kill time now that they are nearly poor and Hedda replies, “General Gabler’s pistols,” (Davis 579). A lady in…
How does deception develop the relationships of the characters in A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen? In the play A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen portrays Nora Helmer and Torvald Helmer as a happy 19th-century couple. They have three young children as well as a nice home "furnished inexpensively, but with taste (147)"; Torvald had also just received a promotion at the bank. As the play progresses the audience learns that their marriage is not so happy and perfect at all.…