Ibsen's" a Doll’s House" and Gender Roles
Kelly Thompson
Gender Studies
Dr. Smith
6-18-09
Ibsen's" A Doll’s House" and Gender Roles
Introduction
It has been experienced from time immemorial that there has always lain a very big and noticeable gap in the roles that both women and men play in the everyday societal developments. The issue according to most of the renowned researches is more elusive to the women as they are the ones that are mostly faced by the double standards in the society and this could include very harsh challenges as far as economic and financial status is concerned. Some of the roles of women in the society and more typically, in the house-hold, were very much considered inferior as compared to that of the men who in addition, were given an upper hand in the decision making of the society. The thesis of this paper is to deftly analyze Henry Ibsen’s book, A Doll’s House in its portrayal of the roles of gender that existed in the nineteenth century, both in the household and the society as a whole, with more elaboration on the Victorian period .
Separate spheres ideology and how it contributed to this problem
This was one of the most popularly used ideologies and a metaphor of the late Victorian time which was basically used by the historians in their bid to deftly analyze the roles of women in the society. It generally meant that two spheres of life that existed between men and women as far as roles are concerned were very much separated from each other. The belief went ahead to assign the women and men some of the distinctively virtual and opposite functional attributes and characteristics that were very much regarded as legitimate. The two spheres were of the public and private life and it was posited that the husband’s role (this included all the men in general) were absolutely in charge of the public part of life while on the other hand, women (or more appropriately, all the women in general) had the role of taking care of the private life. It was according to these
Gender Studies
Dr. Smith
6-18-09
Ibsen's" A Doll’s House" and Gender Roles
Introduction
It has been experienced from time immemorial that there has always lain a very big and noticeable gap in the roles that both women and men play in the everyday societal developments. The issue according to most of the renowned researches is more elusive to the women as they are the ones that are mostly faced by the double standards in the society and this could include very harsh challenges as far as economic and financial status is concerned. Some of the roles of women in the society and more typically, in the house-hold, were very much considered inferior as compared to that of the men who in addition, were given an upper hand in the decision making of the society. The thesis of this paper is to deftly analyze Henry Ibsen’s book, A Doll’s House in its portrayal of the roles of gender that existed in the nineteenth century, both in the household and the society as a whole, with more elaboration on the Victorian period .
Separate spheres ideology and how it contributed to this problem
This was one of the most popularly used ideologies and a metaphor of the late Victorian time which was basically used by the historians in their bid to deftly analyze the roles of women in the society. It generally meant that two spheres of life that existed between men and women as far as roles are concerned were very much separated from each other. The belief went ahead to assign the women and men some of the distinctively virtual and opposite functional attributes and characteristics that were very much regarded as legitimate. The two spheres were of the public and private life and it was posited that the husband’s role (this included all the men in general) were absolutely in charge of the public part of life while on the other hand, women (or more appropriately, all the women in general) had the role of taking care of the private life. It was according to these