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A Doll's House And Lysistrata Analysis

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The relationships between gender and power in A Doll’s House and Lysistrata

‘One is not born, but, rather becomes a woman’.

Lysistrata and A Doll’s House both present the disadvantaged position of women in their respective societies. The two plays present the relationship between gender and power and follow two women who go to extremes to become liberated from the restraints of their oppressive and dominating patriarchal society. Therefore, it is clear that both Nora and Lysistrata demonstrate the potential for women 's power and resistance in situations of male dominance in a hegemonic patriarchy. In order to prove this, it is important to look at the relationship between man and power, woman and power and the ways in which Nora and Lysistrata embody this power in the two plays. Both plays explore the power held in relationships, the power of desire and the power of individuals. Both plays highlight the inequality between man and woman and the power struggle between the two. The men in both plays manipulate their power in a very open way by asserting their masculinity whereas the women demonstrate their power in a more discrete way using their ideological strength. Despite being written around 2300 years after Lysistrata, A Doll’s House was still written at a time when women suffered injustice. Male dominance was normal in a patriarchal society, where women were seen as subservient to men and the roles in society were limited to household tasks and nurturing and

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