Modern Drama

[FEMINISTIC COMPARISON BETWEEN A DOLL’S

HOUSE AND PYGMALION ]

In this assignment we have studied feministic perspectives in IBSEN’S play A Doll’s House and
Shaw’s Pygmalion. We have traced out differences and similarities between both plays while
measuring them on feministic grounds.
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Catch Line

1. Introduction

a) A Doll’s House
b) Pygmalion
c) Feminism (movement)

2. Feminism

a) Objectification of women
b) Binary opposition
c) Idea of good girls vs. bad girls
d) Fight for financial stability
e) Being a man

3. Conclusion
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Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” has been interpreted in different dimensions of feminist, anti-
feminist, Marxist, Freudian, poststructuralist, realist and many more perspectives since its
performance. Representation of characters in the play hints about the social structure of gender
roles and ideal women shape. In the play we can actually see social standards observed at the
time of Ibsen. Leading character Mrs. Nora Helmer can be viewed as perfect ideal by the
contexts of society and her husband. She is trapped in the doll’s house built by her husband,
chained in social norms and standards. Later on through certain happenings Nora evolves by
process of self realization and awareness then she resists to the predetermined norms and
standards as she says that “I must make up my mind which is right – society or I”. In simple
words transformation of Nora into living being from automation is the concerned study of this
research. Similarly “Pygmalion” is the representative play by well know British playwright
Bernard Shaw. It also has been discussed in many academic perspectives but here we are
supposed to trace out positions of women enacting the prescribed social roles and ideal forms
placed by social structure of respective times in both plays. The sole purpose of our study is to
identify the differences and similarities between the female characters present in both plays. In
“Pygmalion” one can clearly view evolution of women, creation of well learned duchess from a
gutter snipe flower girl and man enacts as God making this to happen. Here we see woman as an
object of experiment, which is reformed and remade by man. As Shaw is the disciple of Ibsen,
so we find a kind of relevance of subject matter and issues discussed by both them in their plays
respectively though positions of characters and circumstances under which they move are totally
different from each other. Ibsen’s play deals with real life problem of unexceptional characters
in married life while “Pygmalion” deals with development of English speech of women
belonging to lower strata of society. But the common thread between two plays is the
transformation of personalities/women by passing through different but affective happenings in
their surroundings where patriarchy operates in full authority. Nora of “A Doll’s House” and
Eliza of “Pygmalion” transform in order to achieve self respect and confidence in subordination
to men respectively , husband of Nora and professor of Eliza because both women are deprived
of their deserved positions in family (Nora) and society (Eliza).Nora is treated as a lifeless object
by her husband Torvald , who assumes her sole purpose of existence is to entertain him and
family .while “Pygmalion” is the story of a flower girl Eliza who is trained by an English
professor , Henry Higgins to speak standard English according phonetics rules. Nora gets self
realization after series of events affecting the ways her husband changes with accordance to
times, in good circumstances he loves her and in harsh time he just disgusts her presence. There
her illusion of love and happy family shatters with awareness of her position in her house and
husband’s eye and she confronts her husband as, “I am human being as you’re; now I am
going to live like a human being or at least I will try to be one.” On other hand Eliza learns by
the confidence given by Pickering, Higgins’ friend while Higgins looks down upon her even
she’s living in his house. And in the end Eliza states this process of development as, “the
difference between a lady and flower girl is not how she behaves but how she’s treated”.

Feminist movement though started before the Victorian era, during French
revolution as a result of social change. Industrial revolution changed the living conditions
drastically and the economic depression caused by world wars compelled women to become
independent to support their families economically. It was at that time when women started to
fight for political, economical and social equalization because they earned far less than men.
Until then, economically as well as socially, marriage was the safest solution for a woman.
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However, at the beginning it was mainly women from the middle or upper classes and the
nobility who fought for their rights as they wanted to free themselves from the conservative and
traditional image of women. Until then they were supposed to give birth to children, raise them
and be there for their husbands. Such stereotyped roles and social standards were challenged in
coming generations with much more developed ideas of freedom and independence from
patriarchy. With passage of time, feminism evolved and it started capturing all fields of life
related with women. In 20th century feminism is discussed in three waves, with improvised ideas
each time. Feminism is defined as movement started to fight for the equal opportunities and
rights for women as men have. Feminists have raised different points and issues where women
are marginalized by men which we have discussed in next pages.

Nora in “A Doll’s House” is the doll controlled by her husband in her

doll’s house detached from outside world. Her husband, Torvald Helmer treats her something
precious, a delicate object but not an alive being with brain. In the beginning of play we see
Torvald calling her with pet names entertaining animal Imagery like skylark. Though these
names are called out of love seemingly but imagery associated with these animals is somewhat
entertaining and pleasurable object which takes out all the characteristics of being brainy and
thoughtful cell regarding Nora as a doll with no feelings and emotions. In poor words Nora is the
desired-object for her husband not a human being. Torvald holds authoritative position dictating
her always to set her life patterns. To objectify the Male dominancy Ibsen depicts Torvald as
head of house resting all powers in his hand. Shaw also has shown men something above
women. Eliza is almost in the same situation but with a big difference that Higgins is not her
husband and she’s not clutched in prescribed domestics responsibilities and duties. Higgins is the
phonetics scientist who meets Eliza accidently in St. Paul’s church and finds her pronunciations
interesting enough for academic research in his field of study, phonetics and speech patterns.
Here interesting point is to notice that difference between human being is not measured on the
bases of virtues and intellect but social belongings. Professor Higgins is seen molding clay into
difference shapes until he gets desired shaped of the toy. Some of critics relate Higgins with
sculptor Pygmalion, whose creation ( sculpture of Galatea ) came to life with his love, same
happens with Higgins who raises a lower class flower girl to the status of a lady of upper strata
of England with fine speech in order to prove his scientific theories of speech and social
functions of language. Higgins calls her “this baggage” and then “this draggletailed guttersnipe.”
He thinks of Eliza as an object in a scientific experiment. He commands Eliza to perform like a
doll or a robot. Pickering, friend of Higgins, is no different from Higgins in treating Eliza as a
toy, though he is far more polite and considerate to her than is Higgins. Patriarchy gave space to
objectification of women to settle down in society despising class difference. higgins tries to
control Eliza with commanding behavior and ordering her to exactly do what he says even he
dictates her to change her appearance. The typical example is in Act 2 when Eliza visits Higgins
to talk about her lessons of phonetics; Higgins' attitude to Eliza is very rude and abusive. He
orders her "peremptorily” to sit down, and when she does not do so immediately, he repeats the
order, " thundering " it at her. When she interrupts his speculations about the price she has
offered for the lessons, he barks out, “Hold your tongue”. We see when women are treated as
objects then male’s behavior grows more commanding and authoritative towards them.

The very basic feminist approach towards literature is to trace out the sex based
binary opposition in human beings which demarcates women as something low, accommodation
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and object like. Ibsen in “A Doll’s House” presents Nora and other females (Mrs. Linde, nanny
etc.) as objects moved and replaced by others according to situations. On the other hand, same
image of women in presented by Shaw but setting and environment is different. In the beginning
of the play, “Pygmalion” mother and sister of Freddie are dependent over him to find a cab.
When he is unable to do so they look for someone else. In both cases clearly see the dominancy
of men over women to survive in the society. Since long time feminist critics and scholars have
been striving to gain status of “rational and wise being” for women. Ibsen and Shaw’s males
underestimate women as a silly, irrational and brain scattered, stupid and emotional. Torvald
addresses Nora as silly women and little brainscattred. On other hand, Professor Higgins treats
Eliza poorly as something without sense and rational instinct. After all efforts to convince Eliza
for being his disciple, Higgins tempts Eliza with chocolates, which she accepts in bit hesitating
manner, “How do I know what might be in them? I’ve heard of girls being drugged by the
like of you.” Here somehow this image of Nora and Eliza as no self control and easily tempted
resonates with biblical representation of eve which was lured by devil with an apple. It relates a
negative connotation with women as weak and brainless creatures.

Nora and Eliza can be both examined in garb of ideal feminine figures in their
position in terms of good girls or bad girls. Patriarchy determines that a woman can be either
*Una or Duessa. Idealizing good women as beautiful figures with polite speech and submissive
as fulfilling their duties towards family and society. Nora is portrayed as s good woman always
mingled with household, moving according to her husband’s will and always sacrificing herself
for family. While Eliza is rebellious character to some extent exercising her will in course of life
but according to Higgins men always need a power pull to keep women in control, as Neitche
says “when you go to women, take your whip with you " because when Eliza goes to his home
f1or lessons, Higgins asks Mrs. Pearce (house keeper) to give a bath to Eliza and burn all her old
cloths to change her appearance and he uses abusive and harsh words even threatens Eliza for
physical torture to make her mind her own retaliating tones and protests. This struggle to
maintain her own identity is not appreciable according to Professor Higgins in social context of
gender programming. Even she is not soft spoken or has not refined speech it’s not her fault but
Higgins encounters her in act 1 as, A woman who utters depressing and disgusting sounds
has no right to be anywhere— no right to live. Remember that you are a human being with
a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of
Shakespeare and Milton and the Bible, and don’t sit there crooning like a bilious Pigeon.”
Concept of beauty or at least fine attractive appearance is attached with feminine connotations.
Nora is something pleasurable and objects of entertainment for Helmer. He doesn’t care about
her mental growth or feeling but for her beauty and appearance. He fancies her presence while
maintaining her attractive looks. For example he asks her to wear fancy dresses, to sing for him
and dance for him. He doesn’t let her eat macaroons that her teeth will be worn out because of
sweet. Similarly Higgins is conscious of Eliza’s appearance not the same intentions as Torvald
but he also thinks that a good lady is well dressed always in gowns and long fancy laced dresses.
Traditional gender roles are always been a part of social and private domains of human life
especially women have been chained in it.

*lady Una & Duessa’s refere ce is take fro epic The Faerie Quee e . Duessa is ide tified ith e il, dark a d
1

bad moral values while Una stands for truth, purity, chastity and faith.
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Financial controls have been always in the hand of men of the society, against which
people have been taking stands that women must be given position to hold finance and accounts.
As 20th century has been identified with change so we see it in both plays. Nora in “A Doll’s
House” is financially deprived and unable to manage household budget according to Torvald.
Somehow we see both women’s transformation so in dire times Nora behaves like a like man. As
Nora says that a wife can’t borrow money without her husband’s consent.’ But she forges
her father’s signatures to submit a contract to get loan. She borrows money for her ill husband
out of love and care.
Mrs. Linde: Listen, Nora, is you sure you haven’t done something rash?
Nora: Is it rash to save your husband’s life?
Mrs. Linde: I think it’s rash if you do it without his knowledge …
Nora: But that was the whole point, to do it without him finding out! […] We never intended
him to find out how dangerously ill he was.
But later we see that her brave act later becomes punishment for her as Torvald only cares for
social status and reputation. She hides this truth from Torvald only because she never gets
enough courage to speak in front from him. It is again a symbol of patriarchal society where
women are afraid to speak truth only to avoid the cruel consequences. Even he gets angry and
calls Nora a criminal and uses harsh language against her. But latter when everything is sorted
out he again becomes like loving husband and tries to be generous as, “There is something
indescribably sweet and soothing to a man in having forgiven his wife - honestly forgiven
her, from the bottom of his heart”. In “Pygmalion”, Eliza is independent flower girl who is
money making machine for her father. Even she goes to Higgins for language classes she offers
him money as fee but only thing Higgins is ready to teach her is Pickering’s bet to give him all
the expenditure for his experiment. It’s like social classes are demarcated by amount of money
and wealth. Eliza goes to Higgins only because she is ready to change her speech and appearance
to get more money and change her status in the society. In both cases we see both women are
somehow trying to get a stable position in the society with the help of money as society gives
financial matters only in the hands of men. So both of the women are symbol of change
promoted in the 20th century.

While Nora is our protagonist, there are other characters which we see in play
quite contrastive roles in comparison to the Nora. Mrs. Linde is another strong character in the
play, which represents the struggling group of women in the society. She is a widow, who have
been doing job to take care of her mother and brothers. She’s the one who denied love while
using her rationale to stuck with her responsibilities. Her role is constructive, positive and space
filling. We can put her to fill any gap where Nora is unable to perform her role. In other words
she acts as foil to Nora but quiet opposite to the image created by Nora. Here she performs the
role, in feminist term, feministic sisterhood. She glues the broken bond between Nora and
Helmer by her reunion with Nils Krogstad. “Oh we’ll soon put that right – the stitching come
away” her stitching is the metaphorical process for Nora and Helmer’s reunion. On other hand
if we see the character of Mrs. Higgins, mother of Henry Higgins in “Pygmalion”, she is the
independent, intelligent and authoritative woman but a traditional mother. She possesses the role
of foil for Eliza because is the one who cares for Eliza as she talks to Henry Higgins in act 3,”
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"No, you two infinitely stupid male creatures: the problem of what is to be done with her
afterwards." she’s the only one Eliza can think off when she had enough of Henry Higgins. We
see Mrs. Higgins’ prominent role in controlling Higgins’s behavior towards Eliza and helps Eliza
to keep going on. She tries to make conscious Henry after the Eliza’s performance in the
party .Shaw makes Mrs. Higgins more than simply a talking head. That’s the reason why Eliza
runs off to Mrs. Higgins's place. Here we see female’s dominancy over men when in the act 5
Henry Higgins talks to Eliza as “Five minutes ago you were like a millstone round my neck.
Now you're a tower of strength: a consort battleship”.

Now if we move to the third strata of society there we meet with another group of
women who are deprived of everything which is here in our society. Anne Marie was childhood
nurse of Nora and eventually became the nanny of her children. In order to survive, Anne Marie
gives up her illegitimate daughter as she tells Nora, “I was obliged to, if I wanted to be little
Nora’s nurse”. Old nanny accepts the role which society has placed on her and she is contended
with just two letters from her daughter for lifetime. Here Anne Marie is the one minor character
that we see deprived in every sense like economically, socially and morally. Society’s behavior
towards her was cruel so she was not able to live like she wanted. She left everything including
her daughter only because for her own survival in the society. In comparison to the Anne Marie
we meet with Mrs. Pearce in “Pygmalion”, playing same role for Eliza as Anne Marie does for
Nora. She is snobbish apparently but cares for Eliza and Henry. She is house keeper of Higgins
house as motherly figure but she also takes care of Eliza. She helps in maintaining her
appearance and also advises Henry that his experiment is ridiculous and is worried for Eliza’s
future. In reply to her worries Higgins says “You can adopt her Mrs. Pearce. I’m sure a
daughter would be a great amusement to you”. Although, Mrs. Pearce does not legally adopt
Eliza, she does continue to care for and comfort Eliza throughout the play.

We can state that 20th century’s literature gave women freedom and opportunity to change their
situations. In the end of the both plays we come across the complete personality shifts in both
female protagonists, Nora and Eliza. “A Doll’s House” begins with Nora preparing for New
Year eve’s party. After all the happening and presence of Mrs. Linde gives space to Nora to
make a decision and she decides to act rationally and to learn the methods to world. She decides
to leave Torvald and his house and goes on to be independent.

Helmer: Do I have to tell you that? Isn't it your duty to your husband and children?
Nora: I have another duty, just as sacred.
Helmer: You can't have. What duty do you mean?
Nora: My duty to myself.

She realizes that Torvald has been worried about himself only as she argues, “You have
never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me”. Helmer has always
treated as a lifeless thing that is used for purpose of entertainment. She puts an end to everything
by saying that “I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being, just as you are-
-or, at all events, that I must try and become one”. “Pygmalion” begins with introduction of
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Eliza as low person with pathetic speech and as an object for others especially for her father and
professor Higgins. In the end when Eliza is grown up mentally and psychologically, she realizes
her importance and capability so she demands for independence in act4.

Liza: [rising determinedly] I'll let you see whether I'm dependent on you. If you can preach, I can
teach. I'll Go and be a teacher.
Higgins: [rising in a fury] what’ll you teach, in? Heaven’s name?
Liza: What you taught me. I'll teach phonetics.
Higgins: Ha! Ha! Ha!
Liza: I'll offer myself as an assistant to Professor Nepean.

Throughout the play we see Henry Higgins as self centered proud and rude male,
underestimating women. Eliza’s self-consciousness and self realization is result of oppression
and contempt she receives from society especially from professor Henry Higgins. Even she acts
bravely in act 4 and throws slippers on Higgins and justifies it as, “Because I wanted to smash
your face. I'd like to kill you, you selfish brute. Why didn't you leave me where you picked
me out of --- in the gutter? You thank God it's all over, and that now you can throw me
back again, do you? “What’s to become of me? What's to become of me?” Eliza is reborn
with self realization and breaks through with her dark past and moves toward future of light and
freedom. So we see modernist approach played upon by Ibsen and Shaw with creation of new
women in the society who are not stereotypically feminine and behave like a man in hard times.
We can say sum it up as both playwrights have tried to project the social structure of their times
through the characterization. Literature has always been used to mirror the society so through
modern drama we come to know the change which was occurring in 20th century and we see it
primarily in both protagonists, Nora & Eliza. Even the titles of both plays “A Doll’s House” and
“Pygmalion” are very symbolic. The very name “A Doll’s House” hints about girl’s game of
playing with doll and how females are attributed as dolls and treated as dolls. As we see
Helmer’s attitude towards Nora. “Pygmalion” is taken from Greek myth according to which a
sculpture named as Pygmalion has carved a statue of female and brings her to life by praying to
goddess of love and life. Like this we see how Higgins creates a fine duchess from a rough and
unrefined girl of pathetic speech. But both females have some similarities like both suffer in the
hands on men but in different setting and situation. Both face difficult situations and harsh
realities of life and later they learn from it. This learning results into their personality
transformation and they evolve as modern independent women who are capable of self handling
and have enough confidence to move within the society. Most of the ideas overlap with each
other but one common thread between both plays is struggle of women to prove their existence
in the society.