Minnie Wright and Nora -The Womens - Case Study Example

Minnie Wright and Nora: The Women’s Case Women in the Victorian period lived very different lives from women today. . During this period, women began to question their allotted place in society as more and more opportunities opened for them in the urban centers of the country, providing them with a means of supporting themselves and freeing themselves from the yoke of male domination. However, at the same time, these positions were not the equal rights positions of modern times, so it was often difficult to determine whether one wanted to sacrifice freedom for comfort or comfort for freedom. Rarely was it possible to attain both and often it was found, too late, that it was possible to attain neither. Many women were still constrained in their activities by the wishes of their male relatives, whether the dominant voice belonged to the father, the oldest brother or other guardian figure or the husband. These are the issues explored in Henrik Ibsen’s play “A Doll’s House” through the character of Nora and in Susan Glaspell’s short story “Trifles.” Comparing these two characters provides insight into the various constraints women had to deal with in their physical setting, their relationships and in their position in society. In both stories, the primary action takes place within the homes of the two female characters involved and each has much to say about the women who are trapped there. Nora’s house is presented in direct reflection of the play’s title. It is a doll’s house, perfectly decorated and arranged for the display of a happy family atmosphere without going to extremes of expense. This can be discerned from Nora’s careful selection of gifts for the upcoming holiday. She tells Torvold, “they [the gifts] are very plain, but anyway she [Emmy, their little girl] will soon break them in pieces” (Act 1). Gifts for the rest of the household include a new suit for Ivar and dress lengths for the maids, all highly practical and economical. Minnie’s house, in contrast, is introduced as two women and three men, none of them residents, enter into a gloomy farm kitchen. The house is set away from the road and far from the closest neighbor. This does not necessarily mean the house was a trap for the woman who lived in it, but Mrs. Hale tells Mrs. Peters that she stayed away because the house was gloomy and lonesome. As she mentions this, she reflects that it must have been that much harder for the woman who had to live there. This is made clear in the half-cleaned table, the bread sitting next to rather than inside the bread box and the haphazard work done on the last quilting piece Mrs. Wright was working on before the crime was discovered. Despite any personal attributes either of these women might have had, though, their husbands seem to take the stance that they are little more than space-markers, designed to provide for the perfect welfare and entertainment of the men. Throughout the first act of “Doll’s House”, there is not a single instance where Torvold treats Nora as an adult instead of as a child or a favorite plaything. He refers to her as a ‘lark’, a ‘little squirrel’ and ‘a little featherhead’, all before his tenth line. Other hints continue to be dropped regarding Nora’s spending habits throughout this first act, all of which are characterized on Torvold’s side in terms of an indulgent superior providing a brainless plaything with the tools to make it happy despite strong hints that Nora has been more industrious than her husband realizes in her attempts to pay off a debt taken for his benefit but without his knowledge. In “Trifles”, it seems almost a given within the community that Mr. Wright was not a kind man toward his wife. Mr. Hale makes the comment, “I thought maybe if I went to the house and talked about it [getting a telephone] before his wife, though I said to Harry that I didn’t know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John.” The drastic contrast between the sweet, outgoing and songbird quality of Minnie Foster revealed by the two women’s memories of her as compared to the withdrawn, silent and unsociable woman within her gloomy, silent house creates real tension as they begin to realize that this woman, having been constrained so long within a shell not of her own making, was ready to break. Both of these women seem to have had a strong streak in them, but both were trapped not only by their husbands, but by the society they lived in. Nora found it necessary to take out an illegal loan because women were not considered responsible enough for this sort of business dealing. She also worked out many alternative ways of earning the money to pay it back, as is pointed out by Torvold himself, “[you] shut yourself up every evening till long after midnight, making ornaments for the Christmas tree and all the other fine things that were to be a surprise to us … But there was precious little result, Nora” (Act 1). While Nora is a principle character in her play, permitted to act and speak for herself within the bounds of her role as wife and mother, Minnie is not permitted to appear at all within the story that directly bears on her fate. As Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters select some clean clothes to take to Mrs. Wright, they notice the shabby nature of the fabric and style and comment upon Mrs. Wright’s feeling uncomfortable participating in the activities of the town perhaps because she felt she wouldn’t be able to do her part. Although she has been removed from society through her marriage, Minnie Wright nevertheless manages to gain the sympathetic respect of the other women of her community once they fully understand the conditions of her life. Following their piecing together of what must have happened the day Mr. Wright was murdered, Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife, uncertainly offers the fact that the “law must punish crime,” Mrs. Hale asserts that keeping a vibrant, beautiful young woman in solitary confinement for years within a silent farmhouse was itself a crime. For both women, their final act within the play is to reject the boundaries they’ve been under. When Nora made the decision to encourage Torvald to open the letter from Krogstad regarding her illegal loan, it was because she needed to know her husband valued her addition to the household. When he reacted in anger, she realized she would either need to sacrifice her self-respect or sacrifice her happy home. In “Trifles”, the connection between the broken neck of the bird and the throttled death of Mr. Wright is not lost on the two women as they consider Mrs. Wright’s actions in murdering her husband to have been justified. In both of these plays, human nature is revealed in all its glory, illustrating how anger can cause us to behave unpredictably, particularly when one person feels it is his right to impose his will upon another in the name of love. Works Cited Ibsen, Henrik. The Doll’s House. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 1992. Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. (1916). November 18, 2008 Read More