The Portrayal of a Womans Role in the Family and Society in the Play, A Dolls House by Henrik Ibsen - Essay Example

The portrayal of a woman’s role in the family and the society in the play, A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, is much different from the role of women in the family and in the society at present because women have undergone immense changes over the years in terms of her function in the family and in the society. Within the family, women today have acquired important roles such as being a co-provider for her family which differs greatly from the conventional role of the women during the 19th century. In the society, women have also gained key roles such as leaders of states and contributors in the development of various fields such as Science, Technology, the Arts, Music and other branches that are encompassed by the society. Nora’s character in Henrik Ibsen’s play depicts all of the conventional qualities expected of women during the 19th century. Women in the family were expected to stay at home, tend to the needs of her husband and children, keep the household in top shape and grant the wishes and commands of her husband which was the master of the house. Women back then were also forbidden to interfere with financial matters including loans and only a handful of females were allowed to work in offices. They were also not allowed to speak openly of their opinions because they were labeled as vulgar if they speak freely of what they have in mind, which was also evident in Ibsen’s play. In contrast to the present functions of women, the 19th century women who were expected to stay at home and not allowed to work had changed over the years due to the increasing needs of a family to subsist required the females to also get hold of a job. These working women were gradually accepted by the changing society and at present, women who support their families hand in hand with her husband are widely accepted and are no longer a controversial issue as it was in the 19th century. Ironically though, women today spend greater time in offices than they spend at home and with their families as opposed to women during the older times who barely went out of their homes and were only allowed to go out if they were permitted by their husbands. The aspect of today’s women as a co-provider of the family is in direct contrast to the portrayal of a 19th century woman in A Doll’s House wherein Nora’s husband, Torvald, acts as the sole provider for the family and firmly believes that the man should be the only provider in the family. In the play A Doll’s House, Nora mentioned that she was secretly working on some copywriting jobs which she was very careful to keep from her husband’s knowing because she knows that her husband would never approve nor support her in her job. This occurrence is clearly no applicable on our present time because a lot of men are very supportive of their wives’ careers and women today do not keep their chosen careers from their husbands and are also encouraged to voice out their opinions on family matters and other matters concerning the society. Women nowadays are also given the right to speak freely without asking for permission from their husbands. This right to express women’s opinions was catapulted when their right to suffrage or their right to vote was granted by the society dominated by men and later on yielded to remarkable changes in the society which gradually making a niche for women. The females are now carving their niches in different branches of the society. Some of these are on the fields of Science, Politics, Medicine, the Arts and other key components of the society. In the field of Science, women have proven to be indispensable in this field. To mention a few are Marie Curie, Lise Meitner and Barbara McClintock. Marie Curie was famous for discovering Radium which was significant in the studies on curing cancer. Lise Meitner was also well applauded by the scientific community on her discovery of nuclear fission and so was the case for Barbara McClintock whose works on the genetics of maize left an indelible mark in the study of Genetics. These women in Science had proven that the once labeled weaker sex can be equally capable in achieving breakthroughs as the opposite dominating sex. Breakthroughs by women were not only in the field of Science but on other fields as well. Women had also invaded the male dominated world of Politics. Some of the famous women in the political arena are Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, Golda Meir, Kim Campbell and Corazon Aquino among others. Indira Gandhi became the first woman prime minister of India while Benazir Bhutto became the prime minister of Pakistan and remarkably became the first woman prime minister of a Muslim country (Montagu 60), Kim Campbell became the prime minister of Canada and Golda Meir seated as the prime minister of Israel. From the Philippines, Corazon Aquino was first woman elected as the president and at present, the country is headed by yet another president woman, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Once more, these women made a leap for the female gender’s role in the society, achieving the position and responsibilities as head of the state which for a long time was only obtainable by males. Women also flourished in the Medical society, among the well-known women in Medicine are Doctor Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Clara Barton, Florence Nightingale, Doctor Aletta Jacobs and Elizabeth Blackwell. Doctor Anderson was the first woman who became a doctor in Britain while Florence Nightingale was a prime mover of modern nursing. Clara Barton notably became the president of the American Red Cross while Elizabeth Blackwell and Doctor Jacobs were the first female physicians in the United States and Holland respectively. These women were notable of their service during the war tending and caring for the then helpless soldiers who sadly thought of these remarkable women as helpless and weak creatures. The household in Henrik Ibsen’s play illustrates women as having no authority in handling the finances. Torvald had complete management of the household’s finances and always asks Nora on what she had spent the money he gave her. Contrary to today’s situation, women have the right to manage their own finances and are sometimes tasked by their husbands to manage the household’s finances. In the society, women had attained positions to manage not only household finances but also the financial concerns of the community. Some of the famous women bankers were Barbe Louise Nettine, Aldegond Pauli and Pietro Proli’s widow were the prominent few who were fortunate to handle such financial jobs which back in the 19th century were lucrative position allotted only for men. In other fields such as the Arts, Music and Literature, women also attained success. A number of females had prolific careers in the field of Arts and some of these were Properzia De’ Rossi, Frida Kahlo and Frances Anne Hopkins. Propezia De’ Rossi, an Italian, earned the title of being the first woman sculptor while Frida Kahlo and Frances Anne Hopkins both excelled in painting using oil and watercolor as their media. Frida Kahlo had influenced other female artists while Frances Anne Hopkins lucidly chronicled the sceneries she had seen using her illustrations and watercolor paintings. These women had made equally great influences on other artists as the men had achieved. In music, names such as Clara Schumann, Augusta Holmes and Ethel Smyth were known in the 19th century to spent great efforts to become recognized as serious composers and musicians. They had experienced and suffered being unaccepted by the public who had the notion that women are not as creative as men and should not be allowed to perform publicly but still they were gradually accepted in social functions. This endeavor by the female musicians and composers turned out fruitful for the next generations as female performers became equally and widely applauded by the audience as male performers were applauded. Afflicted by the same rejection were the women in literature but progressively accepted and surprisingly more well-read compared to literary works written by men. In A Doll’s House, Nora hid her writing skills from her husband contrary to the women writers these days who assume jobs in literary writing such as being famous novelists, poets and journalists. Renowned female writers include Harriet Beecher Stowe, George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Danielle Steele, Mary Higgins Clarke, Agatha Christie are only some of the women who had significant contributions in the literary field through the years and had gained the loyalty of a large number of readers male and female alike. These present day women who had painstakingly endured ordeals and rejections had raised disputes on the treatment of women as portrayed by Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House which continues until this day. In our day, women have the freedom to voice out their thoughts, make their own decisions, excel in their chosen professions and be treated as equals by the opposite gender. WORKS CITED Beachy , Robert, Beatrice Craig and Alastair Owens. Women, Business and Finance in Nineteenth-century Europe: Rethinking Separate Spheres. New York: Berg Publishers, 2006. Bell, Susan and Karen M. Offen. Women, the Family, and Freedom: The Debate in Documents. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. Bluestone, Natalie. Double Vision: Perspectives on Gender and the Visual Arts. Toronto: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1995. Cherry, Deborah and Janice Helland. Local/global: Women Artists in the Nineteenth Century. England: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2006. Hughes, Sarah and Brady Hughes. Women in World History. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1997. Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House. New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1992. Keir, Lucille et al. Medical Assisting: Essentials of Administrative and Clinical Competencies. Singapore: Thomson Delmar Learning, 2003. McGrayne , Sharon. Nobel Prize Women in Science: Their Lives, Struggles and Momentous Discoveries. Washington D.C.: Joseph Henry Press, 2001. Miles, Rosalind. The Female Form: Women Writers and the Conquest of the Novel. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987. Montagu, Ashley. The Natural Superiority of Women. New York: Rowman Altamira, 1999. Pendle, Karin. Women & Music: A History. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2001. Read More