Significance of Old Plays in Our World Today - Essay Example

In Ibsen’s A Doll House, the focus was on women’s capability to be independent of their husbands. It is true that women should first understand and know who they are before they can accept and understand other people, most especially their husband and their kids. As the ending shows Nora leaving her narcissistic husband, it shows us how women struggle to be independent and to be understood by society. Mrs. Linde attempted to free Nora earlier in the story when she insisted that Nora’s husband find the truth about what Nora did. If her husband found out about it sooner, the sooner she would be able to see his faults.

In Shakespeare’s Othello, the theme of manliness through acts that show strength and courage, such as being a soldier, opens us up to the world of a man’s insecurities. Othello was a great warrior but he only pursued this greatness because he wanted to make a name for himself, so he can become a man. But when there is no more need for war, he became obsessed with not becoming a man he became jealous of everything and everyone that comes close to his wife. This becomes his downfall. In this play, women are treated like objects as we can see Desdemona being treated like a trophy wife. She is only important to Othello because she was his. It shows that he became jealous not because of love, even if there may be love, but because Desdemona was supposed to be his. This emphasizes the objectification of women.

In Glaspell’s Trifle, it is stressed that women need freedom from a marriage that treats them like insignificant objects. The play shows how women can see through facts and hard evidence, like how Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter understood the life Mrs. Wright had with her husband. Women tend to become more observant than men, but because of society’s pressure that they are second to men, they hide this trait, similar to the women hiding the bird from the men.

The issues tackling women, feminism, and independence have always been significant because women struggled for equality. The three plays show us that women are treated as second citizens or even as insignificant objects of affection, similar to dolls or trophies. And as always, women have always wanted to break this perspective by doing what they can, and that is leaving or killing men’s point of view of them by being independent and showing that they can do whatever they want to without men’s help.