LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 13:3 March 2013
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.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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The Use of Symbolic Language in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House:
A Feministic Perspective

Abdul Baseer, Ph.D. Candidate
Sofia Dildar Alvi
Fareha Zafran, M.Phil. English Candidate

Abstract

This paper is a feministic analysis of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House in Julia Kristeva’s perspective of semiotic and symbolic language. The focus of the paper is to expose the patriarchy and its ruthless exploitation of women. In the light of Kristeva’s semiotic / symbolic language modes appropriate sentences, clauses, phrases and lexemes have been specified and marked out to uncover the social status of woman, and to demonstrate that how a woman is reduced to mere toy or / and a breathing object to a maximum extent, and a socially constructed phenomenon working for man. The paper concludes that patriarchy establishes the ideas of man’s ascendancy and woman’s relegation on the basis of symbolic concepts associated with male-dominated linguistic code, and not on the basis of semiotic use of language.

Key Words: Julia Kristeva, Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House, Feminism, Symbolic Language, Semiotic Language, Patriarchy

Introduction

The paper is a feministic study of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House in the light of Kristeva’s feministic theory of language. Feminism discusses the injustices against women which “extend into the structure of our society and the contents of our culture and permeates our consciousness” (Barkty, 1990: 63). Kristeva states her opinions through the concepts of semiotic and symbolic modes of language. The semiotic is natural meaning while symbolic, on the other hand, is related to power and dominance; the patriarchal functions in society or culture. Semiotic is pre-oedipal phase, inclined to maternal relation and the symbolic is “any social, historical sign system of meaning constitutive of a community of speakers” (Keltner, 2011:19). If a woman identifies with the mother [a female], she guarantees her elimination from the patriarchal order. And in case she identifies with the father [a male], then she ends up backing up the same male-controlled order which marginalizes and relegates her as a woman.

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

Abdul Baseer, Ph.D. Candidate
Lecturer in English (Linguistics)
Government College University Faisalabad, Pakistan
abdulbasseer@yahoo.com

Sofia Dildar Alvi
Lecturer in English
Government College University Faisalabad, Pakistan

Fareha Zafran
M.Phil. English Candidate
Distance Education Program
Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan, Pakistan
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