A Dolls House | Analysis | Female Gender

A Dolls House Analysis female person GenderHenrik Ibsens A Dolls House presents to us Nora, the doll, who is caught up in a constricting marriage to Torvald, who represents the conjunction of 19th century Europe by means of his narrow mindedness and hard and fast rules. In this golf-club, wo workforce atomic number 18 a contain bunch and do not squander m twain opportunities to express or be themselves When they are little girls in pigtails, they live by their starts rules and stand by the rightfulness in the house. They get unify and go to their spousal homes . here they have to live under the thumb of their husbands and meekly take on whatever is thr have got at them.On the another(prenominal) hand, we have Mariama Bs So long a letter, which is set in Post-colonialist Senegal. Here we have Ramatoulaye, a model housewife living under her husbands crown and putting her family before self. She writes a long letter to her best booster dose Aissatou which details the events later on her husbands death and also provides a flashback of her and her friends lives over the while they have matured from girls to wo workforce to mothers. An unmistakable hint of feminism is perhaps what makes the brisk a strong megaphone for the oppressed char woman in Africa. The African woman is oppressed by her culture and by virtue of her position. Aissatou is however a rebel and goes against the societal norms and Ramatoulaye gradually realizes she cannot get wind to her culture for untold.Throughout both(prenominal)(prenominal) of the works that I have studied, both the characters of Nora and Ramatoulaye are similar in the fact that both their characters develop throughout the novels. This represents the emergence of the feminine in both the works. In this essay, I will be analyzing how the writers present women and the problems that they submit in two different societies in two different part of the world.Ibsen was very concerned a round the position of women in the caller that he lived in .he looked at his mother and the other women he was associated with as models to study. He thought that women had a right to amplify their own distinctiveness, save in reality, their ply was habitually self-sacrificial. The concept of gender- equality did not outlive and women were regarded inferior, either in relation to their husbands or the social order, as is sheer from Torvalds dismay of his employees thinking he has been influenced in a decision about Krogstads job by his wife.It was not tolerable for women to conduct business or control their own capital. It was considered necessary that they had the authorization of the man who owned them husband, fellow or father before they engaged in any action involving money. Furthermore, they were not cultured for responsibility. Nora falls victim to both the injustices, by winning out a loan without the endorsement of her husband or father and by believing, out of unawareness of the world around her, that she could get remote with forging a signature.In a way, single or leave women like Mrs. Linde had more room to breathe than married ones, in that they realise their own money and did not have to hand it over to the alpha male of the family .They also did not have to depend on their husbands for anything. just now even so, the careers open to women were constrained and hardly paid passable. They could either endure clerks, t apiece or house-keep. Whats more, womens work was grindingly dreary, and likely to leave an intelligent woman like Mrs. Linde disgruntled.Women often got into another trap Marriage. Yes, marriage was a solicit in itself. They could disassociate, further it carried a communal stigma not scarcely for the woman, but also for her spouse and family. Hence, few women even weighed it as an option. Torvald preferred to a certain extent to have a make entrust marriage, for the sake of appearances, rather than an annulment or an amicable separ ation. When he discovers the law about the money, he tells Nora. It must be hushed up. Whatever it costs. As for you and me, we must go on as if nothing had changed between us. In public. This is clearly demonstrative of the fact that Torvalds regard for his public image is much greater then his regard for Noras happiness, who is clearly in an unhappy alliance. He should let Nora get a divorce from him rather than being in a playhouse marriage.The characters of Nora, Mrs. Linde and the Nurse all have to sacrifice something or the other to be accepted, or even to survive. Nora not only sacrifices herself in borrowing money to save Torvald, but she loses the children she undoubtedly loves when she decides to pursue her own identity. Mrs. Linde loses the true love of her life, Krogstad, and is forced to say I do to a chap she does not love in order to prop up her needy relatives. The Nurse gives up her own child to look after other peoples in order to survive financially. Besides, she sees herself blessed to get her secondary job, given that she has committed the sin of having a child out of wedlock. In the society where Ibsen as raised women who had illegitimate babies were stigmatized, while the men prudent often escaped scorn.Hence, A Dolls house presents a pitiable epitome in terms of the treatment and position of women in the European society of the 19th century.On the other end of the line we have So long a letter, which is a novel written in westbound Africa, most probably Senegal. This book details the lives of two women, Ramatoulaye and Aissatou, who are pathetic through life with nothing but each others support. They are both caught in the kindred situation as they are both victims of their husbands marrying other women and hence engaged in bigamy.This novella shows us two sides of the same society The post/colonialism Senegal is a hugely patriarchal society, where the men are dictated at the crux of family life. They are the sole breadwinners i n each households. They put the food on the table and are the only etymon of income in any family.The women however, cut a sorry figure. The only function they seem to perform or the only utility they seem to have is to have babies for their husbands. The only single-valued function they play is that of prostituting for their husbands. Pardon my strong language, but it would seem that women were placed in that society only to satisfy the men and have sex with them. The only course that their lives could take was to get married and have children as soon as they finished their naturalize. That is, if they were lucky enough to go to school. Senegal is a chiefly Islamic country and sharia law was followed.Sharia law prohibits girls who have reached maturity to go to school to avoid any contact with the outside world .Basically they could not go school, as it would guess getting to meet people from the outside and also socialize with men other than their own fathers or brothers. How ever, Ramatoulaye does have the opportunity to go to school fortunately. This is one of the factors that influenced the way she looked at life compared to the older women of her time..Also the society was in a way hypocritical, because the men could do anything they wanted and go scot- free but the women would be criticized for doing the same. In fact, both the husbands of Aissatou and Ramatoulaye commit bigamy with women half their ages. However, the women were looked down upon if they married a second time unless they were widows. Also, Islam prevents divorce, unless the husband chooses to divorce his wife. The woman has no right to divorce her husband because, according to sharia law, they had the sole role of up set ashoreing the children. The man was only supposed to bring in the money. Hence, the religion of Senegal also played a restricting role and was in a way responsible for the treatment of women as stand for in So long a letter.In the above give-and-take I have analyz ed both A Dolls House and So long a letter by looking at instances which look at the way in which women were treated in the respective societies in which the books are set in. It is to be noted that A Dolls House and So long a letter were not only written in different countries, but also during different time spans. However, these two books both paint a gloomy picture of the way in which women were placed in society and treated by the people around them notwithstanding being written almost a century apart. Another marked attribute of both the works is the fact that the women protagonists rise up through the rubble of their lives somewhat like the mythical Phoenix. This is also relevant in the modern context because nowadays women have risen up to be equals to men in all spheres of life.Aditya Arun