Feminism In Henrik Ibsen's A Doll

In the nineteenth century, women were still seen as lesser and treated unequally. Women were also treated as possessions, and they had no power over themselves in society. In the late nineteenth century, however, feminism began to flourish. It grew so much, that there is now feminist criticism which is “the assumption that Western culture is fundamentally patriarchal, creating an imbalance of power that marginalizes women and their work” (Dobie 104). Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, clearly shows that men disempower women with their dominance, control and power, but her suppressed identity also leads a woman to discover her own independence. In her house, Nora is treated like a doll by her husband, Torvald: he controls her and sees her as less …show more content…
Nora is “proud and happy” for her successfulness in taking out the loan (Ibsen 217). She craves to be independent, to be more than a doll in a playpen. Nora, due to the society she lives in and the oppression has always submitted to her husband and “is always secondary or nonexistent,” meaning she is never able to put herself first (Dobie 107). Toward the end of the play, Nora begins to realize that her husband’s pride and honor is more important to him “her unconscious growth towards maturity is accompanied by self-delusive dreams of Torvald, the chivalrous knight-errant” (Bradbrook 282). When Nora tells Torvald that she is leaving him and the children, he tells her she has wifely and motherly duties. However, after being oppressed by society, her husband and other male characters for so long, Nor stands up for herself. She tells Torvald, “I don’t believe in that anymore. I believe that, before all else; I’m a human being” (Ibsen 274). Nora comes to realize that she does not need to put up with societies views of a woman because they do not make her happy. “Nora’s fate is to embrace an unknown future-to carry the bright flame of her vitality into the dark” (Bradbrook 286). Nora is free to live her life independently with no one to tell her what to do, how to think or who to