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Essay on a Doll's house by Ibsen (play)

Essay on A Doll’s House by Ibsen

By Georgina H Brandt

Cuba (1958- )

June 6, 2004

Word count: 697.

The play ” A Doll's House” received its name because the main character Nora refers to her home and life as places in which she plays with her children as dolls, in the same way her father and husband played with her as if she was a doll. In fact, she indicates this in Act III when she says: "When I was at home with papa, he called me his doll-child, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls." Later, she adds: “our home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll-wife, and here the children have been my dolls."

In “A Doll's House” Nora breaks away from her role of wife and mother imposed on her by society. In the 19th century, society frowned upon women asserting themselves; which Nora does at the end of the play by abandoning her husband and children for total independence, to find her true self and be able to understand the world. The role of women (imposed by society) was: to support their husbands by raising and educating the children, while converting the home into a comfortable abode for all members of the family. All decisions, especially those concerning

finances were left to the males, the breadwinners. Women, represented by the character Nora, were subservient to the men, yet judged equally by their laws, protected from the harshness of the world by their fathers and then their husbands, which deemed them ignorant of them and their consequences. Women were not allowed to borrow money without their husband's permission, but Nora does this by forging her father's signature to save her husband's life, she simply thinks she did nothing wrong because she did it for a good reason' (as she tells Krogstad at the end of Act I); in fact, she was totally unaware that this was a crime until Krogstad pointed it out to her. She deceives her husband into thinking she is pure or lacking evil, as he thinks is also his dollhouse. He calls her names of pets: my little lark', my squirrel', and fantasizes her as being carefree and childish. In ritual and in the theater, the black mask across the eyes of the lark, represent a hidden identity (Nora's double face). At the end of the play, the mask is also figuratively removed and Nora realizes her dollhouse' and therefore her marriage have been a delusion. Helmer says: "is that my squirrel rummaging around?" when she nibbles on macaroons; squirrels hide and bury food, as Nora hides the truth about borrowing money.

In Act III, Ibsen questions the institution of marriage, thru Nora's statement, by saying that they had never truly sat down to discuss anything serious. Her husband who had promised earlier to save her from any trouble that may occur in the future which he will bear on his broad shoulders', turns into a coward, fully preoccupied with his image and reputation alone, her motives of love which prompted her forgery in order to save his life, do not matter at all to him; and only that he will be considered an accomplice to such a crime is his ultimate torment and fear. Nora changes from an intelligent yet childish and naive woman into a strong willed, independent thinker.

She also points out that "when the whole thing was past, it was exactly as if nothing had happened. Exactly as before, I was your little sky-lark, your doll, which you would in the future treat with doubly gentle care, because it was so brittle and fragile." She leaves him and her children since she agrees with him that she is not fit for the task of motherhood, because: "There is another task I must undertake first. I must try and educate myself." The play is called “A Doll's House”, because Nora (representing all women) begins to realize that her actions of playing with the children and dressing them nicely as if they were her dolls in a dollhouse does not make her a suitable parent.

Bibliography

A Doll’s House, by H. Ibsen

Essay on Antigone, by Sophocles (play, sequel to Oedipus Rex)

By Georgina H. Brandt

Cuba (1958- )

August 28, 2002

Word count: 734.

Essay on Antigone, daughter of Oedipus Rex

Written by Sophocles- Greek playwright

In the Greek play Antigone, we are faced with a conflict between religious or moral law vs. state or human law, represented by the equally proud and stubborn Antigone (the rebel) and Creon (king or state ruler). Antigone considers god’s decrees and her own family duties towards her two brothers more important than any of man’s laws or decrees, even if such rules come from not only the most powerful ruler of Thebes in her time; but also from a man who is her own uncle. In Episode 1, Antigone and Ismene (her sister) have an argument about what they should do with the bodies of their two brothers: one (Eteocles) who is considered a hero and should be buried with all honors as declared by Creon’s law for fighting on the side of Thebes, and the other whose body (Polyneices) should be left to rot and be eaten by birds as the city’s traitor. Antigone knows the punishment for burial of the latter is stoning to death by the populace; nevertheless, she refuses to shrink from her religious and family duties, and proceeds to perform the proper dead rites upon his body (later in the play when the guard finds her and apprehends her) and gives him proper burial; Ismene, on the other hand, prefers to follow the rule of law without any deviations. Of course, Antigone would have been happier if she could have given them proper burial, without having to fear death by stoning from her own uncle and thereby broken family ties even farther (beyond the conflict of her two brothers and with her own sister), without having to defy the law by setting herself as a rebel against the good of the state, by committing suicide in the end in the cave in which Creon had imprisoned her (buried alive while the dead are left unburied, such irony), thereby leading to the suicide of her beloved Haemon (Creon’s only son). In lines 995-1004, Creon goes to seek the counsel of a blind priest (Teiresias) who tells him leaving the bodies to rot hastens the city’s doom thru a plague ordered by the gods due to his folly and misdirected pride, and also his lack of judgment. As the hatred of his people thickens, as warned by his son, and the suicide of his own son later, he decides to yield to reason, and curbs his pride, replaces his well-meant principles towards the benefit of his city with fear and dread for the gods; but the change comes too late, and faced with so much death he asks the gods to kill him by a crushing weight. Both Antigone and Creon are torn by pride, or hubris, this trait despised by the gods brings suffering, Antigone continues on her stubbornness till the end and denies herself happiness with Haemon because of it. Creon, on the other hand, is less stubborn and has a reversal of mind and action at the end, as was pointed out earlier. Both are plagued by lack of judgment, which leads them to their doom.

The conflict

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