The Doll's House Gender Roles

In Henrik Ibsen’s play The Doll’s House, gender and societal roles provided a prominent set of obsolete values that confined women, during the 19th century. During the Victorian Era, expectations from society required women to be submissive to their husbands. Ibsen uses stereotypical values based on the idea of superiority of the husband role over the wife role, male dominance in financial and domestic situations, and the societal duties for a wife The superiority of man over woman is a emphasized though Torvald’s use of degrading names of endearment instead of her actual name, Nora; “My little song-bird must never do that again. A song-bird must have a clean beak to chirp with-no false notes!” (Ibsen 35) and continues to call her names, “Is