Henrik Ibsen A Doll's House Gender Analysis

A Doll’s House, a play written by Henrik Ibsen was an interesting read and practically a glimpse of how women were treated in the 19th century. Ibsen’s play portrayed women whose inner nature was strongly in conflict with the role the 19th century woman was called on to perform in the society (Ibsen, 2017). The daily life of women in the 19th century was that of many obligations and fewer choices, women were always being controlled by men, first by their father, brother, uncle and then their husbands. For instance, Father’s would not educate their daughters or they would rather get a special kind of education such as those in sewing, catering or housekeeping in order to prepare them as “Dolls in the house”; with the sole idea that they would eventually become properties of another man, therefore, there

In the beginning of the play, Nora thought and acted like the woman in her era remaining true to her marriage, with her only identity being her father’s daughter and a wife to Torvald; this is very evident in one of her dialogues with Torvald where she stated “I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. It's your fault that I have made nothing of my life’’ (Ibsen, 2008). On the contrary, the treasured marriage vows of the olden days have become nothing but a promise made to be broken as more women leave their marriages due to irreconcilable differences or at the slightest abuse be it mentally, verbally or