Saturday, May 4, 2013

Is female agency inherently dangerous in A Doll's House?

You are asking if female agency is "inherently dangerous" in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, but I would question who exactly finds Nora Helmer's actions seditious? Nora does in fact challenge the gender norms of the time, and in doing so she disrupts the standards of marriage in the Nineteenth Century. According to gender norms at the time, Nora is meant to be more of a reflection of her husband's wealth and status; she is supposed to be a proverbial Angel in the House, there to impart normative values to her children and serve as a doting refuge for her husband. She is not supposed to exhibit agency. So if we look at the play according to societal standards of the time, Nora's insistence on forging her own path is dangerous. But is it inherently dangerous? I question that. She only poses a threat to the moralistic values women were (and, in some cases, still are) forced to follow.

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