Archetypes In A Doll's House Essay

The traditional and Shakespearean tragedies place specific, undeniable roles upon its players. The tragic, heroic, and often titular character holds the role of the proverbial “good guy,” while his or her opponent is often presented as their inverted mirage image, the polar opposite in many factors ranging from their appearance, actions, and motives. To wit, the inverted persona of the protagonist,the antagonist, carries out the role best simplified by the moniker “the bad guy.” These distinctive character archetypes are fulfilled in their classic formula in many traditional and modern works, especially in regards to fables and children’s tales where the lines that separate good and evil are clearly defined. However, there are times when the

Gone is the clear cut world of black and white, replaced by a myriad of monochromatic hues which reflect the true nature of a real human being-- ambiguous. The true appeal of a morally ambiguous character does not stem from our ability to love or despise him or her, but rather to remain in a near constant state of satiation, which allows the reader to contentedly peruse through the work without experiencing an intense bias toward the character’s motives. In the case of Ibsen’s modern tragedy, A Doll House, Nora plays the leading role as the morally ambiguous housewife; her actions, which are contradictory in nature, bringing about contradictory reactions throughout the play as her plans to bring her family closer together result only in further driving them

In short, the duplicity of Nora’s nature accounts for her morally ambiguous which serve as a major source of conflict to her relationship and the play 's plot as a hole. It is her ambiguity that keeps the reader from defining Nora and choosing a definitive side in the conflict. That is to say, that many readers find it hard to support Nora and her feministic rise above the societally accepted views of the time period when the question of her subsequent turn from family and her children also comes into view. She remains in the proverbial grey area, hidden from the clear cut values of black and white-- good and evil. Furthermore, Nora’s ambiguous nature drives the conflicts in the play, acting as the source of tension between her and her husband, Dr. Rank, and Krogstad as her decision to overlook the laws in an effort to save her husband prove a perilous decision in regards to her way of life. The reader is left unable to properly define or side with Nora, the cumulative result therein being a work the reader has little choice but to watch the tragedy unfold in a similar manner to a child’s wild imagination taking control as they interact with A Doll