#5 Not the 'Doll's House' of our childhood

Although we weren't assigned the entire reading of A Doll's House in class, I looked up the rest of the play and was even more disturbed. Around her husband, Nora acts like and is completely treated like a child. He delights in thinking that she is completely dependent on him, as something that would not survive without his constant instruction and indulgence.She is not comfortable talking about issues with 'Torvald', but instead tries to go behind his back, committing forgery, (which as a side note, was only because women weren't allowed to sign for themselves on loans--which opens a whole 'nother can of irritations for me..)  to make everything right. And then, instead of being understanding of what she had been trying to do, and thankful for doing it to save his life, Torvald belittles her. He calls her immoral, dishonest, and unfit to raise their children...until he finds out that her forgery will no longer embarrass him; then he professes how much he loves her, mostly because of how much she needs him. It is not until this moment that she realizes that she does not love him, and he does not love her--just himself. Ugh. No wonder Nora leaves.

I cannot, in my heart of hearts, be comfortable with a woman's decision to leaver her children...but I can get behind Nora's choice to leave her husband. But that is modern-day, independent me speaking. It is obvious that there is such an element of conformity and social pressure at work here; as much as I dislike Torvald by the end of the play, I feel sorry for him. He is a product of his environment, as is Nora's submissiveness to an unhappy life.

Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique examines the problems of Nora's unhappiness at length. In 1957, Ms. Friedan conducted a survey of her former Smith College classmates and found that many of them were unhappy in their marriage and role as housewives, dubbing it the "problem that has no name." She further went on to examine how there were two images of women promoted by men: happy housewives and unhappy career women--as if there was no middle ground. She noted that many women dropped out of college early to marry, afraid that if they waited too long or became too educated, they would never attract a husband.

The film "Mona Lisa Smile" is a perfect representation of this '50s mindset. Julia Roberts plays Ms. Watson, a young professor at Wellesley College, an all girls school in 1953. Ms. Watson strives to make it known to her young women students that they are capable of both career and family life; that they shouldn't settle for marriage just because society tells them too...

                               What Does it Mean?