LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 17:12 December 2017
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Renuga Devi, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
         Dr. S. Chelliah, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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A Doll’s House as a Feminist Play

Ishfaq Hussain Bhat

Abstract

Henrik Johan Ibsen (1828-1906) is beyond doubt a major 19th-century playwright. Ibsen is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare. His best play A Doll’s House (1879) earned him international acclaim and acceptance as the first major innovative dramatist in the history of English literature. A Doll’s House is a representative feminist play. It deals primarily with the desire of a woman to establish her identity and dignity in the society governed by men. The play portrays the disillusionment of a wife about how she has been dominated and how her basic right-her right to be someone-has ruthlessly been destroyed in the name of love by her husband.1 The paper aims to analyze A Doll’s House from the feminist perspective whereby Nora, the protagonist, effectively subverts the ingrained elements of patriarchy, privileging female will, choice and strength.

Keywords: Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House patriarchy, disillusionment, revolt, self-worth, emancipation.

Feminism as a Movement

Feminism is a movement which tries to define and establish social, legal and cultural freedom and equality of women. It advocates women’s rights on the ground of equality of sexes in all spheres of life. Feminism, as a literary movement, aims to revolt against the patriarchal society which associates superiority, action, strength, self-assertion and domination with the ‘masculine; and on the contrary, inferiority, passivity, weakness, obedience and self-negation with the ‘feminine’ or the ‘Other’. By depicting the miseries of the women in their works, the feminist writers highlight and condemn the plight of women in the patriarchal society and thereby try to inculcate in them a sense of rebellion, self-assertion, self-identity and self-worth. Jessica Valenti aptly defines feminism in the following terms: “Feminism isn’t simply about being a woman in a position of power. It’s battling systematic inequities; it’s a social justice movement that believes sexism, racism and classism exist and interconnect, and that they should be consistently challenged.”2

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Ishfaq Hussain Bhat
Former Student
Department of English
University of Kashmir
Thune, Kangan
Ganderbal 191201
Jammu and Kashmir
India
eshfaqbhat786@gmail.com

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