Compare and contrast the representations of gender roles and responsibilities in A Dolls House and School for Wives
A Doll’s House (Ibsen, 1879) and The School For Wives (Moliere, 1662) mirror each other in many ways including the realistic nature of both plots through the portrayal of everyday, ordinary people i.e. The bourgeois in The School For Wives (obviously this play is exaggerated due to it’s comedic nature but the theme is the same) and the upper middle class that the Helmer family belongs to in A Doll’s House. Both plays seem to have more beneath the surface and what is truly interesting about these inner issues is the relationships that caused them. In a society like the one that Nora and Agnes (the two female leads) live and struggle within, there is huge emphasis upon roles, responsibilities and expectations and more specifically how these differ between genders. Both playwrights have positioned us to respond to concepts of marriage and relationships and the roles and responsibilities within them in a patriarchal society. The representation of gender roles and responsibilities in A Doll’s House and The School For Wives are similar in that they both show representations of the power hungry and reputation obsessed roles of men compared to the responsibilities and expectations of the abiding, sacrificial women, as controlled by the patriarchal society setting.
Moliere and Ibsen, through characterization, create male dominant characters in A Dolls House and The School for Wives that treat women as less than human beings and as if their responsibilities are upon more of a sacrificial basis as a wife or mother, believing that they live for others and not for themselves. The patriarchs within each of the plays treat the protagonists (Agnes and Nora) like they are inferior, ignorant and foolish while believing that women need to be controlled. What seems to be largely ignored by these patriarchs, is the sacrifices these women are making for those other...