The Doll s House By Henry Ibsen And The Glass Menagerie

Sujin Oh Prof. JAMES WERNER ENG 102 11-15-2015 Paper 2 According to â€Å"The doll’s house† by Henry Ibsen and the â€Å"Glass Menagerie† by Tennessee Williams, women are portrayed as very resilient characters capable of overcoming adversity, both plays tell strong stories about feminism. Literally, Feminism is the advocacy of women’s right on the ground of social, political and economic equality to men. Henry Ibsen sets up the female main character, Nora, as a wife. However, unlike Henry Ibsen, Tennessee Williams features Tom, a male character as his main character. Yet, Tom’s character serves the purpose of highlighting the life of his mother, Amanda, and his older sister, Laura, as the real lead characters of the story. Although Tennessee Williams and Henry Ibsen are both male writers, they seem to be aware of the social issues about a woman’s suffering for the sake of her family. Both of them express their perception of women by making their female characters appear as the leading character s. All of the female characters that have appeared in both plays have lived under an environment full of repression and dominated by masculinity. Despite the fact that they live in a world of gender inequality they emancipate themselves in their own ways. First of all, looking at â€Å"The doll’s house†. Nora takes it for granted that men are superior to women from the beginning of the story to the middle. She does not even question why and just accepts male superiority as a fact. All over the