Dolls Essays - Theatre, Films, Entertainment, Lost Films

Doll's House By Henrik Ibsen "A Doll's House" is classified under the "second phase" of Henrik Ibsen's career. It was during this period which he made the transition from mythical and historical dramas to plays dealing with social problems.It was the first in a series investigating the tensions of family life.Written during the Victorian era, the controversial play featuring a femaleprotagonist seeking individuality stirred up more controversy than any ofhis other works. In contrast to many dramas of Scandinavia in that timewhich depicted the role of women as the comforter, helper, and supporter ofman, "A Doll's House" introduced woman as having her own purposes andgoals. The heroine, Nora Helmer, progresses during the course of the playeventually to realize that she must discontinue the role of a doll and seekout her individuality. David Thomas describes the initial image of Nora as that of a dollwife who revels in the thought of luxuries that can now be afforded, whois become with flirtation, and engages in childlike acts of disobedience(259). This inferior role from which Nora progressed is extremelyimportant. Ibsen in his "A Doll's House" depicts the role of women assubordinate in order to emphasize the need to reform their role in society. Definite characteristics of the women's subordinate role in arelationship are emphasized through Nora's contradicting actions. Her infatuation with luxuries such as expensive Christmas gifts contradicts her resourcefulness in scrounging and buying cheap clothing; her defiance ofTorvald by eating forbidden Macaroons contradicts the submission of heropinions, including the decision of which dance outfit to wear, to herhusband; and Nora's flirtatious nature contradicts her devotion to herhusband. These occurrences emphasize the facets of a relationship inwhich women play a dependent role: finance, power, and love. Ibsenattracts our attention to these examples to highlight the overallsubordinate role that a woman plays compared to that of her husband. Thetwo sides of Nora contrast each other greatly and accentuate the fact thatshe is lacking in independence of will. The mere fact that Nora's well-intentioned action is consideredillegal reflects woman's subordinate position in society; but it is heractions that provide the insight to this position. It can be suggestedthat women have the power to choose which rules to follow at home, but notin the business world, thus again indicating her subordinateness. Noradoes not at first realize that the rules outside the household apply toher. This is evident in Nora's meeting with Krogstad regarding herborrowed money. In her opinion it was no crime for a woman to do everything possible to save her husband's life. She also believes that heract will be overlooked because of her desperate situation. She fails tosee that the law does not take into account the motivation behind herforgery. Marianne Sturman submits that this meeting with Krogstad was herfirst confrontation with the reality of a "lawful society" and she dealswith it by attempting to distract herself with her Christmas decorations(16). Thus her first encounter with rules outside of her "doll's house"results in the realization of her naivety and inexperience with the realworld due to her subordinate role in society. The character of Nora is not only important in describing to roleof women, but also in emphasizing the impact of this role on a woman.Nora's child-like manner, evident through her minor acts of disobedience and lack of responsibility compiled with her lack of sophistication further emphasize the subordinate role of woman. By the end of the play this isevident as she eventually sees herself as an ignorant person, and unfitmother, and essentially her husband's wife. Edmond Gosse highlights thepoint that "Her insipidity, her dollishness, come from the incessantrepression of her family life (721)." Nora has been spoonfed everythingshe has needed in life. Never having to think has caused her to becomedependent on others. This dependency has given way to subordinateness, onethat has grown into a social standing. Not only a position in society, buta state of mind is created. When circumstances suddenly place Nora in aresponsible position, and demand from her a moral judgment, she has none togive. She cannot possibly comprehend the severity of her decision toborrow money illegally. Their supposed inferiority has created a class ofignorant women who cannot take action let alone accept the consequences oftheir actions. "A Doll's House" is also a prediction of change from thissubordinate roll. According to Ibsen in his play, women will eventuallyprogress and understand her position. Bernard Shaw notes that when Nora'shusband inadvertently deems her unfit in her role as a mother, she begins to realize that her actions consisting of playing with her children happilyor dressing them nicely does not necessarily make her a suitable parent(226). She needs to be more

A Modest Proposal Essays

A Modest Proposal Essays A Modest Proposal Paper A Modest Proposal Paper Swift creates a narrator in order to satirize the intellectual hypocrisy, arrogance, and moral depravity of the landlords who paper over greed and prejudice with scientific rationalizations about the causes of Irelands poverty. Englishmen of that era frequently attributed Irelands poverty to its backward Catholic faith, not to English policies. Swifts narrator mocks, of all things, Irish eating habits and cites a French physician who attributes the seasonal surplus of Irish infants to the Catholic practice of eating fish during lent which the expert claims make Catholics more fertile. He claims that this backward Catholic practice of fish-eating can actually be turned into a financial windfall because the Irish children can be butchered and eaten during religious holidays and after christenings. It never even occurs to the narrator that eating human beings is more barbaric than eating fish. And this is where the similarity becomes evident. For in Alive, Read has made it reasonable to eat flesh, and in a similar manner to Swift, uses impersonal vocabulary, such as carcass rather than body. Although there is a strong moral tone throughout, the text remains neutral and dispassionate in Alive. In both, the authors have not tried to make their voices sensational, but rather like arguing their cases by presenting evidence. We can see this on page 62, where the survivors are still indecisive. Both sides of opinions are given, one perhaps slightly stronger than the other, and the reader is allowed to decide for himself what is right. I think most readers, due to the biased nature of the script, and the conditions mentioned before hand, tend to agree with the eventuality. P P Read has taken care to point out via his characters, that social taboo is not a sin of God, and differentiates between sin and physical revulsion. No one of the survivors proclaims that what they are doing, or might do is wrong! but each argues for himself, for personal reasons. Read suggests that there is no moral indecision, as there is in Swifts Modest Proposal, but there is a distinction between what is accepted by social conventions and what is right in the name of God. As well as using motives and social issues, there are a variety of literary techniques used by both the narrator in A Modest Proposal, and P P Read. The narrators well structured, almost business like approach, in A Modest Proposal, that has the posterity of a politicians, such as, I propose to provide for them, and careful selection of words, nutrient rather than food is one example or yield to compare human flesh to crops to be harvested, becomes apparent only when the article is understood for its real meaning. This mix of both an apparently shielded, as well as a grotesquely open approach to cannibalism, for example, a healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, wholesome food, in A Modest Proposal, confounds the reader. Read, often to make a point, will isolate sentences, such as The truth was incontestable, and like Swift, writes his piece in a detached manner. Although he does sometimes generate empathy, for example from the letters that were never sent home, it is interesting to note that the detail and description is economised, saved for particular occasions, for example, the crash itself, or as the survivors watched as a far away, disorientated Valeta stumbled down a valley: his body slithered helplessly down the side of the mountain There is also a regular use of short, sharp sentences that are used for a similar effect as the above. Combined with very minimal writing, P P read presents an argument that is guided by him, yet is left to the reader- one that seems sensible, scientific, and pragmatic. With a similar purpose, although with a contrasting approach, Swift too teaches his confused readers an important object lesson about how easy it is to be taken in, about how easy it is to become perplexed and morally confused when faced with clever, but false, reasoning. For example, while most readers will recognize that Swift is not seriously advocating cannibalism, many will mistakenly attribute the narrators anti-Catholic ravings to the Anglican clergyman, Swift. Perhaps Swift wants to show readers that their own religious prejudices make them easy targets for manipulation and make their reason an unreliable instrument for clearly differentiating between the rationalizations of Swifts morally degenerate narrator and a truly enlightened Christian perspective (his own? )- In the same way that Read questions whether the fact that the survivors of the Fairchild are Christians make them differentiate between society and religion, or whether they become cannibals because of their own instincts, in mind of the Survival of the Fittest. In a similar way, Read approaches religion almost dismissively, yet takes it into special account. His story is very much about spirituality, and throughout, the characters are often speaking the Hail Mary, but continuing to eat flesh, in religious confusion. The barren lifeless environment that they inhabit seems to give them a particular closeness to God. Yet, they challenge century old ideas of respect for dead bodies, of the linkage of body and soul, and their thoughts of the dead as simply meat is a very radical idea in the Christian world. Whether the survivors of the Fairchild convince themselves or actually believe in what they are doing is another matter. It is clear to me that Read has used wine in particular to signify the Holy Communion in connection to the blood of Christ, yet this time, it seems that they have taken a step further, substituting bread for the body itself. Another survivor, Delgado: we thought to ourselves, that if Jesus at His last supper had shared His flesh and blood with his apostles, then it was a sign to us that we should do the same take the flesh and blood as an intimate communion between us all. Although Swifts grotesque narrator, with his reasoned proposal for cannibalism, his suggestion that childrens skin be manufactured into ladies gloves or gentlemens boots, and his grisly recipe collection is probably the literary antecedent of Hannibal Lecter, he states his piece so calmly, that one can sometimes wonder where the blood and gore has gone. The narrators moral confusion is also mirrored in Swifts readers. Swift entangles not only his narrator, but also his readers, possibly deliberately, in faulty reasoning. To most readers, the reasonable narrator appears completely irrational in suggesting cannibalism as a modest and reasonable solution to the problem of Irish poverty. Yet this cannibal professes Christianity and concern for the poor; he champions progress. An effective technique that Swift uses is verisimilitude. He quotes scientific experts such as a French doctor, and another cannibal, Psalmanazar, and manipulates reason and science to justify not only cannibalism, but ignorance, unemployment, exploitation, and anti-Catholic bigotry. However, the conditions which Swift or Read describes are not hyperbole, for the Great Potato Famine ravaged Ireland, and the moral dilemmas faced by the Argentinean Rugby Team were ones that had never been addressed in the society of the day. Only, in Modest Proposal does the projector exaggerate, and perhaps only a little. Instead, Swift has used savage irony to wield his powerful writing skills, and here lies the success of his article. By writing of cannibalism and its meaning in society as an antithesis, in an masterminded satirized form, Swift makes his work all the more poignant, while his projector appears cold, mechanical, his thoughts computed and wicked, his words spoken, rather, with the banality of evil in mind. However, in Alive, the reader learns that decisions of an extreme nature shall always have opposition, whichever answer is given. The author, while remaining detached and reporting only through the survivors journey and speech, I feel creates a similar narrator as in A Modest Proposal, only not quite as directly. There is certainly the voice of Pier Paul Read in the book, and although he is not quite as direct or inhumane as his counterpart in A Modest Proposal, his detachment creates a sense of fear and bewilderment in the reader, as they envision what they themselves might have don in a similar situation. When Alive and A Modest Proposal are compared, although I found this difficult considering they are not easily paralleled, I preferred Jonathan Swifts satirical piece, for this reason. It was short, ridiculous, and although not originally intended, humorous in its madness. On the other hand, I found Pier Paul Reads work tedious and too questioning of a topic, cannibalism, that many today have made their firm minds up about, and of decisions that may only be changed if they were faced with such terrible situations.