A critical analysis of A Doll's House In the late 1800s, rigid gender roles determined the character of both men and women. In a male-dominated society, men were expected to be educated and have jobs. The role of women in society was to take care of children, do laundry, clean the house and much more. She also had many duties towards her husband, such as preparing dinner for the time he came home and not questioning anything he did. In A Doll's House Henrik Ibsen describes the roles of men and women and how they should act and appear based on society's standards. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Through Torvald and Krogstad, Ibsen describes how men should act and what the common beliefs were at the time. After Krogstad committed the crime of forgery, the rest of society considered him unreliable and it became difficult for him to have a job. Torvald is also concerned with how he appears to society, this is clearly seen when he says “…From this moment happiness is no longer a question; all we care about is saving the remains, the fragments, the appearance." (Ibsen: part 3), he believes that if people find out about Nora's crime they will think of him as they think of Krogstad. Using Nora and Mrs. Linde Ibsen is able to outline the struggle of women in this period. Torvald treats Nora like a child, for example when he says "Is my little squirrel busy?" (ibsen, part 1), and in his rule for Nora that she is not allowed to eat sweets. Other men probably treated their wives in a similar way. In the play women are portrayed as independent and fully capable, which is the main cause of the controversy caused by the play society and women's rights as much as a person's struggle to understand who they are and to strive to become that person. In the final scene Ibsen shows us that when someone is repressed they cannot reach anywhere near their full potential. Nora realizes this and is able to understand that to understand what kind of person she is she must leave the environment in which she is oppressed. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom EssayIbsen is very intelligent in the way he portrays society in general. It is able to accurately present the social norms of the time and what is wrong with them, while also giving us a solution to each individual's need to discover what kind of person he or she truly is and strive to become one. .Works Cited Ibsen, H. (1879). A doll's house. Oxford University Press.Templeton, J. S. (1997). Critical Analysis of A Doll's House: Understanding the World of Nora Helmer. Pasco-Hernando State College.Meyer, M. (2015). Gender roles in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House. GRIN Verlag.Haugan, J. (2013). A Doll's House: The Ibsen Society of America. Cambridge University Press. Belsey, C. (2013). A Doll's House: Ibsen's Myth of Transformation. Routledge. May, J. (2016). Gender and Power Dynamics in A Doll's House: A Feminist Reading. University of California Press.Templeton, J. S. (2009). The Feminist Approach in A Doll's House: A Critical Analysis of Nora's Journey to Self-Discovery. Journal of Literary Criticism, 7(2), 45-59.Templeton, J. S. (2011). Ibsen's A Doll's House: A Critique of Society's Expectations. Scandinavian Studies, 83(1), 51-68.Templeton, J. S. (2008). The Representation of Women in A Doll's House: A Character Analysis of Nora. Women in Literature: Reading through the Lens of Gender, 25(3), 89-104. Templeton, J. S. (2010). A house of, 52(1), 78-95.