Relationships and Roles During the period 1879 to 1916 - Essay Example

Relationships and Roles During the period 1879 to 1916 The period between 1879 and 1916 in which "A doll's house" and "Trifles" were written, is significant in the contemporary literature because it was a period of dominance of men over women. Consequently, women also had feeling of unrest and struggled for their liberty and equality in the society. As literature is a mirror of the values of the society, many writers produced works which reveal the hypocritical values of society and men's desire to suppress women. Among such writers, Henrick Ibsen and Susan Glaspell are two prominent names whose plays significantly impacted not only the people of that period but also paved the way for women's equality and freedom from men's dominance at later stage. When the play "A Doll's House" was performed for the first time in Copenhagen in 1879, it revoked severe criticism from the society as it was against the society's values and attacked men's dominance over women (Templeton 142). Similarly, the play "Trifles" by Susan Glaspell was written, at the time when, like other educated women at this time, Glaspell "grew restless with the numerous restrictions on women and became inspired by the avant-garde social, political, and cultural movements happening in the United States and Europe" (McMichael, et al. 1108). At the time when "A Doll's House" was written by Henrick Ibsen, the role of women was limited to bringing up children, supporting their husbands and keeping their house clean and comfortable. Society disliked women who wanted to step out for their authority and freedom. Politics, decision making and work was left for men and they had authority over women because women had little role in business, politics or social activities. In this setup; freedom, liberty and equality of women were regarded as a bad thing which the society frowned upon. Ibsen's portrayal of the society emphasizes how middle-class life is limiting, brutal, and unforgiving. He cleverly exposed these hypocritical norms and faults of society and suggested the outcomes of this suppression of womenfolk which compelled Nora to secede from the society's values and decided to leave her husband and children just to live a life of her own: "There is another task I must undertake first. I must try and educate myself--you are not the man to help me in that. I must do that for myself. And that is why I am going to leave you now (Act III). This clearly indicates the relationship between husband and wife. In this play, the relationship and role of characters are characterized by the desire of dominance and authority. In the first act, we see Torvald trying to dominate over Nora by dictating her not to be extravagant and spendthrift. Then we come across ill fate of Nora when her husband is nearly on death bed and needs to be taken to Italy for treatment. Nora's compulsion is exploited by Nils Krogstad who extracts a bond from her, which later in the play, he uses for threatening her and ultimately ruins her whole life. The role of Nils Krogstad demonstrates hypostatical values of society and a lust for power with mala fide intention. His relationship with Nora exposes faults of society and the law which have nothing to do with humanistic aspect of Nora's sufferings and to save her husband's life. The best presentation of the relationships and roles is given by Henrick in the last act of "A Doll's House" when we find Nora in dejected situation with Torvald. Nora tells her husband that her husband and father were alike in that both of them used her to amuse and play with her and never thought of herself in context of her own imaginations and desires. In "Trifles" we find women struggling for their identification being unduly treated by their husbands. Minnie is sick of her husband and comes up to the point to strangle him just because he had strangled the Canary. This story begins with Martha leaving her home and accompanying Mrs. Peters to the Wright farm. There they find Minnie strangled her husband. The sympathetic women tried to discover the reason as why Minnie killed her husband and they discovered many reasons out there. Foster killed her husband by looking "through" a messy kitchen, a battered old chair, a broken stove, a worn out skirt, a quilt with sloppy stitching, and finally a throttled canary, the women see a pattern of psychological abuse (at minimum) and loneliness that drove her to murder. The tragic account of Minnie moves Martha and Mrs. Peters were and they attempt to protect her by hiding the canary and fixing the quilt. On the other hand, the men "cannot meaningfully interpret this farm wife's world" (Kolodny, 1980, p. 461), indicated by their repeated belittling of the very clues they seek as "women's trifles." Thus the story ends after Martha surreptitiously has fixed the quilt stitching and pocketed the dead canary, thereby erasing crucial signs of Minnie's motive. In Trifles, we learn that Minnie Wright's domineering husband has destroyed his wife's sense of self, just as he has literally killed her canary. Sensitive to the constraints of being women in a patriarchal society, it is the wives of the sheriff and a neighbor who piece together the evidence and conclude that Minnie Wright had finally had enough. When Wright choked Minnie's bird, she strangled him (Raub 29). Conclusion The analytical study of both the plays "A Doll's House" and "Trifles" reveals that at that particular time, the society was dominated by men and women were suppressed and bereft of their basic need to have their say in the daily life. As evident from "A Doll's House" we see Nora struggling to pay off her debts which she had taken just for treatment of her husband. The irony of this situation is that when her husband becomes aware of that load, he gets infuriated and asks Nora to leave the house. Thus, Nora finds no way of her life. Similarly, Minnie has been sick of her husband and ultimately kills her husband. The roles and relationships in both these plays revolve around the relationship of husband and wife and these relations are strained because husbands wanted to have supremacy in household while the women wanted self recognition. Works Cited McMichael, George, James S. Leonard, Bill Lyne, Anne-Marie Mallon, Verner D. Mitchell. "Susan Glaspell, 1876-1948." Anthology of American Literature, Eighth Edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2004. 1108-1109. " ( 1916). "Trifles." In The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Tradition in English, compiled by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, 1st edition, 1139- 1399. New York: Norton, 1985. " (Raub 29) Kolodny, A. (1980). A map of rereading: Or, gender and the interpretation of literary texts. New Literary History, 11,451-467. Read More