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Humanism In Torvald In A Doll's House

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Torvald During the Victorian Era Henrik Ibsen believes to be a humanist as he said: "I don 't consider myself a feminist, I consider myself a humanist." In his famous play A Doll 's House he portrays the society of the Victorian era as it is, sexist. Moreover, Ibsen also conveys an image of a woman being trapped in her house, as the play 's name suggests, and not only that, Ibsen also demonstrates how we are shaped by society and in this case how culture and the norms shape Nora. In A Doll 's House, Henrik Ibsen uses the direct and indirect characterization of Torvald Helmer to reveal how gender roles shape our actions. As Ibsen demonstrated through the play money plays an important part in the characterization of Torvald to show how gender roles shape our actions. Torvald clearly shows his dominance when apparently he depicts all females as frivolous spendthrifts, "That is like a woman! […] you know what I think about that. No debt, no borrowing”(Ibsen,13). Through this passage, Ibsen shows the reader the dominance that men possessed during the Victorian era, not only that, but also the fact that women were subject to "obeying" their husbands. When Helmer also asks Nora, "Bought, did you say? All these things? Has Madam Extravagant been …show more content…

There are many characterizations of Torvald and how his gender roles shape us, shown by Ibsen. Torvald has a huge role in A Doll 's House, and Ibsen portrays him as he should be in the Victorian era, sexist, dominant and powerful because they handle the family 's wealth. Ibsen also characterizes Torvald as caring in some manner because even though he doesn 't show too much affection at the end of the day, he does care about Nora. Furthermore, society would see it as abnormal to have Nora be more liberal or Torvald for that matter, so that is one of the reasons why Torvald did not give Nora more freedom. Moreover, Ibsen used the direct and indirect characterization of Torvald how gender roles in the Victorian era shaped

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