What Is The Difference Between The Awakening And A Doll's House

Many obligations and little to no choice. This was the life of women in the 1800’s. Expected to always make sure their kids and husbands were happy before all else. They were the keepers of the house in charge of everything yet controlled nothing. For generations before and up to the the mid 1900’s women accepted these ideals without questioning them. However, in the late 1800’s, two writers created female characters that began to break conformity to go experience lives through their own choices rather than by what society expected. In “A Doll House” by Henrik Ibsen,and The Awakening by Kate Chopin Nora demonstrates how she is stronger than Edna through her relationship with her husband and by how she chooses to cope with society's views on
Rather than looking at her as an equal partner in the relationship, or at least pretending to, Leonce shows concern that she may not be keeping the appearance he so desires of her. Once Edna begins to become more socially aware she does not feel so inferior to her spouse and chooses to challenge him on things as trivial as going in for the night. Soon following Leonce’s demand that she go inside “she settled herself more securely in the hammock. She perceived that her will had blazed up, stubborn and resistant. She could not at that moment have done other than denied and resisted. She wondered if her husband had ever spoken to her like that before, and if she had submitted to his command. Of course she had; she remembered that she had. But she could not realize why or how she should have yielded, feeling as she then did” (42). Instead of just acknowledging the fact that leonce did not have any respect for her, she stood up for herself. Edna displayed the hate that was beginning to grow inside of
A new race of beings must have sprung up, leaving only you and me as past relics”(51). By asking these questions, Edna begins to demonstrate her desire to be with Robert, someone who is not her husband. She refers to her relationship with robert of something of “past relics” indicating that Edna wishes to be with him rather than Leonce. This is the beginning to a major betrayal of her husband due to her desire for another man. Nora, however, discovers herself through acts of love not despise. The reason she has any obligation at all to Krogstad is due to how Torvald was very sick and Nora needed money for the medical attention he needed.In Act 1, Nora tells Ms. Linde that after New Year’s she will be “Free. To be free, absolutely free. To spend time playing with the children. To have a clean, beautiful house, the way Torvald likes it”. In this moment, Nora originally desires to be the traditional housewife that Torvald deserves. She wishes to be debt free so that the secret of her doing a shameful thing never reaches the ears of Torvald. Nora is completely loyal to her husband and wishes there be nothing that upsets him. She begins to reflect on her life as the play progresses.