A Dolls House Essay

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Throughout our history as human beings men and women were always distinguished as men being the superior and women being inferior. One of the major themes of the play A Doll’s House by Ibsen were the roles of men and women, how they act in society. This portrayed through the characters Torvald, the husband and Nora, the wife. Two major examples in act one supports this theme. First example is the way Torvald calls Nora. The second example is when Nora takes out a loan. These examples show theme the role of men and women and how they behave during that time of the play.
The way Torvald is calling Nora displays the role of men and women. In the start of act one, we see that Torvald constantly calls Nora with names other than her own, like squirrel, skylark, and spendthrift. These names in Torvald’s eyes represent Nora and her behavior. Nora does not show any negative reaction to any of these names. This shows that Torvald is the dominant and superior one and that Nora is the inferior one.
A second example is when Nora secretly takes out a loan which displays the role of women. During act one, we find out that Nora secretly takes out a loan to “save her husband’s life”. The loan was so that Nora and Torvald were able travel and have a vacation. Nora had to commit forgery to get this loan because at that time period women were not able to take out loans on their own. Nora needs to keep this a secret because Torvald will not accept the fact that he was saved by his own wife

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