'A Doll's House' and 'Trifles'

Gender roles and responsibilities continue to evolve with the passage of time. Gender equality and participative effort of women to share the responsibilities of men have resulted in challenging their roles. In “A Doll's House”, Henrik Ibsen and Susan Glaspell in “Trifles” focused on gender roles through numerous incidents that take place in the play.

Doll's House and Trifles both revolved around the role of women and their married life. In play Doll's House, leading character Nora, wife of Torvald, presents the society perception about the female roles in late 18th century (Bradford, p. 3). The element role revolves around taking care of husband and children, managing household chores, and no involvement in earning sources. Nora was controlled by her husband orders that used to guide the actions of Nora in every aspect of life. Such as in conversation with her husband she affirmed this concept which states: "You could always give me cash, Torvald. Only what you believe you could spare (McFarlane et al. 1998; p. 4).”

Nora went against her traditional role when she took a loan from a bank by fraud. As she said: “I don't know much about the law, but I'm quite certain that it must say somewhere that things like that are allowed (Valente 1995: p. 147).” This statement shows the unconventional approach of Nora as women to justify her actions deemed as unacceptable in society.

Role of Nora was confined to gender role as she said: “To be able to play and romp with the children; to be able to keep the house beautifully and have everything just as Torvald likes (Bradford 2007: p. 57).” This emphasize on giving up the self desires that became the status quo of women role in 18th century.

Nora was compared with a bird in the play that addresses elements of confined in a cage just as Nora was in the house of Dolls, freedom, and willing-to-do attitude that Nora exhibited when she realized to pay concern to herself needs. Torvald said for Nora that she was his little lark (Bradford 2007: p. 43).

Change in responsibilities and self-concern attitude seem to cover the role attitude change of Nora as women in which remarkable change has been observed in terms of responsibilities. Nora said to her husband that she has to get liberty to comprehend her surrounding and should focus on self-development (McFarlane et al. ...