A Doll House and Ghosts – Compare/ Contrast

Men often entrap females into oppressive roles in society. In Henrik Ibsen's A Doll House, Torvald Helmer treats his wife Nora as a doll; whereas in Ghosts, Pastor Manders believes Mrs. Alving should be a trophy wife and protect her dead husband's reputation. Both Torvald and Manders brainwash Nora and Mrs. Alving, respectively, to behave according to what their own expectations. Because Nora and Mrs. Alving are afraid to cross the expectations of Torvald and Manders, they both hide their true feelings, causing their pasts to creep up on them and forcing them to face reality. Before her secret comes to light, Nora lives under the total control of her husband Torvald in which she does not truly understand herself or her family. Even when eating macaroons, Nora assures Torvald, "You know I could never think of going against you" (A Doll House 1242). Nora is a doll, a helpless little "lark", a "songbird", and over the course of their relationship, Nora has been molded into thinking she must be all those and does not want Torvald to think otherwise (A Doll House 1242). Because helpless songbirds did not save lives on their own, Nora could not let Torvald find out about her use of forgery to obtain money, because it would hurt his "masculine pride" and "just ruin… [their] relationship" (A Doll House 1248). Likewise, in Ghosts, Manders, a close friend and someone Mrs. Alving has cared for, repeatedly stresses to her the importance of doing her "duty" which is to "cleave to the man you had chosen and to whom you were bound by a sacred bond" (Ghosts 89). When Mrs. Alving fends for herself about the time she ran away from her husband because of his misconducts, Manders tells her that, "it is not a wife's part to be her husband's judge" (Ghosts 89). Because of her perceived duties as a wife to hide her husband's misdeeds, Mrs. Alving tries to hide her husband's infidelity from to her son Oswald. Until the actual event, Nora fantasizes that her hero Torvald will come to her rescue once he found out about her use of forgery. She hides her true feelings from Torvald while expecting and "waiting…for the miracle" to happen—believing that the emergence of her secret will strengthen the bond between her and Torvald even more (A Doll House 1275). However, while she expects to be swept away by Torvald's knightly acts, she finds herself in a completely different situation, which causes her to face reality. On the other hand, although Mrs. Alving feels that she "ought never to have concealed what sort of life… [her] husband led" from Oswald, she suppresses her feelings because of Mander's influence over her (Ghosts 97). She consciously justifies this suppression as the result of her being "too much of a coward", but it is actually Manders who is stifling her feelings (Ghosts 97). Manders calls Mrs. Alving a "miserable woman" for even thinking about telling Oswald the truth about his father, which would cause her to fall short of her "duty" as a mother and "shatter… [her] son's ideals" (Ghosts 98). Although Nora's house is seemingly full of adoration and happiness, Nora is incredulous of Torvald's initial reaction to her secret and cannot bear to stay in the house where she had been a doll for a minute longer. She immediately realizes that she has been living a lie and has been oppressed into what Torvald wanted of her. After realizing this, she stabs the core of their problems in saying to Torvald, "You arranged everything to your own taste, and so I got the same taste as you—or I pretended to; I can't remember… the way you wanted it. It's a great sin what you and Papa did to me. You're to blame that nothing's become of me" (A Doll House 1287). Before leaving her home she declares, "I believe that, before all else, I'm a human being, no less than you-or anyway, I ought to try to become one" indicating her will to break free from Torvald's expectations and become independent (A Doll House 1288). In contrast, Mrs.Alving, in dealing with her son showing interest in Regina (his half-sister), lets out the secret herself and breaks away from following Mander's expectations. However, instead of becoming strong and independent like Nora, Mrs. Alving breaks down at the reality of her son's health conditions. The past creeps up—Oswald has syphilis. She stays with her son and gives him the "sun" which are morphine pills that Oswald asked his mother to give him so he could die in peace (Ghosts 127). Because of their influence, Torvald and Manders manipulate Nora and Mrs. Alving's decisions. Because Nora is expected to be a doll wife and because it would be out of character for her to have used forgery to save his life, she keeps that as a secret from him. Mrs. Alving also hides the truth about Mr. Oswald and the tie to Regina from her son because Manders constantly reminds her of her duties as a wife to protect her husband's reputation and as a mother to save her son's honor for his father. While these women keep important secrets from their direct families to satisfy expectations, their pasts creep up on them and they face reality in different ways.