This month, we read
about feminism and the roles of women in society through Henrick Ibsen’s A Doll House and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.
In A Doll House, Nora illegally takes out a loan to take her husband
on a life-saving vacation. During her attempt to pay off the loan while keeping
it a secret from her husband, she discovers that she does not truly love him.
Striving for self-discovery, she leaves him and her children behind. After
doing some background research, I was shocked to discover how scandalous this
drama was considered when it was first performed. Today, if a man and woman
discover they don’t actually love each other, it’s not too foreign an idea for
them to get a divorce. But in the 1800s when it was performed, the ending
sometimes had to be changed so the audience wouldn’t be offended. Kate Chopin’s
The Awakening involved a similar
storyline in that Edna, the protagonist, is not happy with her husband and
chooses to leave him.
I related these stories
to one of my favorite movies, Breakfast
at Tiffany’s, in which the main character, Holly, leaves her husband to go
to New York and begin a new life. She did not want to feel “trapped” by a man
by being married to him. “People don’t belong to people…I’ll never let ANYBODY
put me in a cage.”
Living in the world we
live in today, it is unreal to think that, not too long ago, women had almost
no rights. Of course there are still outstanding stereotypes regarding what men
and women are capable of doing and the other is not, but we are living in a
time where opportunity exists for all people, regardless of gender.
“…Women feel just as
men feel;…and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to
say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting
stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags...”
-
Charlotte Brontë
Good Hannah :-)
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