Subservience of Women in the Play

Ibsen uses a variety of symbols and metaphors throughout the play. With reference to at least three symbols, explore how Ibsen uses these techniques to highlight the subservience of women in the play.

A dolls house was set in the Victorian era where it was mainly a patriarchal society where men were dominant and women or their wives had to serve the men and please them, depending on their needs. Societies expectations had played a major role where women are supposed to look presentable and appealing to their husbands, as well as obedient to their husbands so their reputation wouldn’t be damaged. Ibsen had used in his play a variety of symbols and metaphors that would portray how women were like in the Victorian era.

The symbolism of the plays title ‘A Dolls House’ plays a major role in highlighting the subservience of women in the play as it sets up the metaphor of the house being a dolls house. Its displayed in the quote “But our home has never been anything but a playroom, I’ve been your doll wife just as I used to be papas doll child” Usually when someone owns a doll house, there has to be an owner who controls all the dolls and items in the house. In this case it is Torvald who controls the household and his wife Nora. Due to the patriarchal society that the play was set in; society had an expectation of Torvald being dominant and manipulative where he had the power of controlling all the finance and even Nora’s life when it came to making decisions.

However, Nora had the capability of being in control but mostly controlling men, such as Dr Rank and her husband Torvald sexually and emotionally until Nora was able to get what she had desired.

The use of Nora’s sexuality and her manipulative skills had allowed the opportunity of Torvald into giving her some money without any hesitation which displayed how she was able to become dominant as she had gone against societies norms and was able to take control.

The Dolls house also symbolizes repression where Nora had been restricted from enjoying her life as she had been set some rules given by Torvald such as, she is not allowed to eat macaroons since they would make her fat and unattractive. This would’ve impacted Torvalds reputation outside the house as it was far more important for men to sustain their positive reputation.

The sudden burst out of Nora’s truth about how she realized that she was being treated like a doll by both her husband and her father, shows that she is actually smart and observant. Unlike societies expectations that women weren’t smart enough to realize the truth.

Throughout the whole play Torvald calls Nora with different pet names such as “little skylark” and “little bird”. The significance of the pet names is that Torvald is dehumanizing her as he had compared to her to animals rather than nicknames that people can call each other. Typically, birds are considered to be delicate animals that needs to be taken care of as they would not be able to survive alone in the wild. In this case Nora is considered to be the bird who is delicate and taken control of by Torvald where Nora is being oppressed and controlled. In the Victorian era women were admired but not respected and that’s how Torvald is treating Nora.

Birds at some point migrate from one place to another to live in better conditions, this foreshadowed the fact that Nora will leave the house and leaving everyone behind her to live