Response paper 2: A Doll House
Due Date:Monday, 10/11, at the beginning of class.

1. Nineteenth century social scientists see women as the earliest form of what Karl Marx called "exchange value"; that is, women were the earliest "objects" that men exchanged for barter purposes. According to feminist Gayle Rubin such a view of women deprives the woman of the opportunity to make exchanges in the market themselves, and it also implies that the inability to make money for the husband makes a woman useless. Nora Helmer makes exchanges in the market place that ultimately result in a crisis in her relationship to her husband and a move into society. Consider interior qualities of Nora and argue that they would allow her to succeed on her own in society. You might want to first decide on 3-4 qualities that Nora has (give evidence from her words and behaviors) and then see how these will make her a success.

2. Explore the implications of this interpretation: "A Doll House represents a woman imbued with the idea of becoming a person, but it proposes nothing categorical about women becoming people; in fact,its real theme has nothing to do with the sexes. It is the irrepressible conflict of two different personalities which have founded themselves on two radically different estimates of reality" (Robert M. Adams, Ibsen on the Contrary," in Modern Drama, ed. Anthony Caputi [New York: Norton, 1966], 345).

3. Argue the following: Nora is a hero. You may use the definition of hero we've discussed already, but you might do better by presenting what you feel is a good definition of a hero and then showing that Nora fits the definition.