Gender Stereotypes in Henrik Ibsens A Dolls House and Susan Glaspell

Gender Stereotypes in Henrik Ibsens A Dolls put forward and Susan Glaspells Trifles In the plays A Dolls dramatics, by Henrik Ibsen, and Trifles, by Susan Glaspell, the male characters propagate stereotypes and drop assumptions concerning the female characters. These assumptions deal with the trend in which the male characters see the female characters, on a purely stereotypical, gender-related level. The stereotypes and assumptions made in A Dolls House are manifest in the way Torvald Helmer treats his wife, Nora, and in the way Nora acts to revel her husband. These include the beliefs that women are lesser people, childlike in their actions and in fate of being controlled. Nora knows as long as she acts in accordance with the way she is expected, she will get what she wants from Torvald. The stereotypes and assumptions made in Trifles are those of the women being implicated only with trifling things, that they are loyal to the feminine gender, and that women are submissi ve to their spouses. Torvald Helmer is the stereotypical Nineteenth-century husband, as he is a controlling, condescending patriarch. By referring to his wife with diminutive names, Torvald propagates the women are lesser that men stereotype and keeps his wife in a position of subservience. In line 11 of the first act, we father across the first instance of Torvalds bird references to Nora with Is that my dwarfish lark twittering step up there? This reference is the first of many in which Torvald refers to Nora as a lark. Often this referencing is preceded by diminutive terms such as little and sweet, little. Torvald also refers to Nora as a squirrel, a spendthrift, a songbird, and a goose, these terms also preceded with a diminutive. The significance of th... ...iterature. 5th edition. Boston & immature York Bedford/St. Martins Press, 1999. 1564-1612. Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll House. Lives Through Literature A Thematic Anthology. Ed. Helane Levine Keating et al. 2nd ed. New Jerse y Prentice Hall, 1995. 782-838. Longford, Elizabeth. Eminent Victorian Women. New York Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1981. McFarlane, James, compiler. Henrik Ibsen A decisive Anthology. 1970. Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart. The Angel Over the Right Shoulder. Solomon 1 156-64. Sigourney, Lydia. The Intemperate. Solomon 1 70-85. Solomon, Barbara H., ed. Rediscoveries American suddenly Stories by Women, 1832-1916. New York Penguin Group, 1994. Templeton, Joan. Is A Doll House a womens rightist Text? (1989). Rpt. In Meyer. 1635-36. Templeton, Joan. The Doll House Backlash Criticism, Feminism,and Ibsen. PMLA (January 1989) 28-40.