Victorian Gender Roles

Ditzy, sneaky, boring, and needy are all ways that many Wrtiters chose to portray women were portrayed in literature prior to the 21st centuryin the Victorian era. Men were often portrayed in a an opposite manner as heroic, strong, independent, and smart. Many of the female characters were wives who did and would supported anything their husbands said or were just minor characters. They had little to no voice and were often pushed aside and belittled so the male characters could speak their mind and make a larger impact. The male characters were often the main character and they had the stereotypical traits the male character would have. All of this is due to the limited rights women and the thought that women should be the homemaker and men …show more content…
When it was exposed to Torvald that Nora had taken out a loan, he was livid and frustrated because it made him seem like less of a man. In the 19th and 20th century Victorian era it was taboo for a woman to handle money and work which Nora did. A Doll’s House demonstrates that the Victorian era gender roles created stress and tension in the lives of Torvald and Nora in that the expectation that the woman’s place in the home is purely domestic and the man’s place is the head of the house and bread earner caused the two to treated each other differently than most couples would. Gender roles where highly important prior to the 21st century and established that women were home makers and men were bread earners as well as established how each gender was to act and be treated. In the Victorian era.Prior to the 21st century, Women like Nora were expected to remain in the home to care for their children or if they had a job, they performed domestic tasks similar tasks to what they would do in their own homesof what they did in their …show more content…
The perception that women aren’t equal and have less value creates a harmful environment that can lead to abuse. In the final act of A Doll’s House, Torvald strikes Nora after getting in an altercation with her. He does not recognize that his action hurt her expected immediate forgiveness after physically and mentally assaulting her. In Nora’s closing speech to Torvald, she tells him that all her life she’s felt like a doll. He husband and her father have controlled every aspect of her life and she feels inhuman and irrelevant. She finally realized that the “normal” Victorian era gender role wasn’t for her and makes the bold decision to leave her husband and family in search for a different life that fulfills her need to “find