Provide a 5 pages analysis while answering the following question: Gender Roles in a Doll's House. Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide. An abstract is requ

Provide a 5 pages analysis while answering the following question: Gender Roles in a Doll's House. Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide. An abstract is required. The story is set in 19th Century Norwegian society, where there are certain predetermined roles for different genders. Meyer (2008) reveals that the story also "highlights the cultural conflicts" of the time (p 3). The traditional middle-class morality based on the dominance of the male gender bases the family's institution not on the feelings of love and affection. Rather, it sees the welfare of the family institution in the form of certain established power relationships. Johnston(1989) also indicates that it takes family as a mini-state where the authority has to go to some autocratic power. The base of this family institution is not democratic. Here one person has to be dominant—the rule-maker who is to be followed by others.

The writer presents the characters in stereotype form as should conform to the Norwegian society's existing beliefs, which believed in male dominance and gave the husband the role of breadwinner. The husband's superiority over his spouse is evident in Torvald's speech and his chosen metaphor representing women as weak or diminutive creatures. The husband of the story has the right to impose any sanctions on his wife.

&nbsp.Siddall (2008) explains it in this way, "Gender in A Doll's House is crucial to the play's meaning. Gender is simplified to define the marital roles: men work, and women play. the husband is responsible and well-informed, while the wife as grown-up child decorates his life charmingly" (p 13).

Woman as a weaker sex

Nora has been described as 'little squirrel', 'little skylark'. Such diminutive roles portray her as the weaker sex. Torvald' assumed notions about the fair sex make him believe that she is weaker sex that always needs male sex protection. Torvald also thinks that his wife is incapable of taking any serious responsibility outside her domain— house.&nbsp. She is a pretty doll, and she should be confined to her home. She should think about the welfare of her home, husband and family.

Woman as a creature of home

&nbsp.Mayer (2008) reflects that "Ibsen's Nora Helmer is a doll trapped in her house, a condition underscored by the fact that all the play's action takes place in her living room. Repressed by a husband who expects her to fulfill her wifely and motherly roles under strict guidelines of morality and appearance" (p 3).