World Lit One

How Ibsen and Euripides Objectifiy Women Within Their Plays
BY: JESSICA BORCHERS

Women are people in life that men desire to call their own. However, they are seen only as objects in the plays, A Doll House, by Henrik Ibsen and Medea, by Euripides. These plays also show the growth of women from objects into independent thinkers. The female characters in these plays were given no choice but to grow as people because of the experiences they have had with the dominant males in their families. They do things that would normally be frowned upon in order to live beyond the traditional stereotype of Women.
In the case of Nora (from A Doll House), she secretly borrows money in order to provide for her ill husband the vacation which is desperately needed. However, she is forced to borrow this money in secret because she doesn’t want to give the impression to others that her husband is weak, which would damage his pride and reputation.
However when the man who granted her the loan, Krogstad, is fired, by her husband, Torvald, he holds the loan over her head and basically says “Your husband will have no choice but to hire me back with promotions when he reads the letter I have written telling of our transaction.” When Torvald reads this letter, he is furious at Nora for humiliating him and fails to see that in truth it is because of her that he is living. “What a horrible awakening! All these years—she who was my joy and my pride—a hypocrite, a liar—worse, worse--a criminal! (Nora is as criminal for the simple fact that she forged her father’s signature in order to obtain the loan. She forged his signature because he did not want to discuss her financial woes at her father’s death bed.).....Now you have destroyed my happiness. You have ruined all my future. It is horrible to think of! I am in the power of an unscrupulous man; he can do what he likes with me....And I must sink to such miserable depths because of a thoughtless woman!”
During the course of the play Nora has come to terms with the truth that she married a man who knows nothing about her. However he can not know anything about her because she knows nothing of herself. This is because she has always been a “doll”. Even as a child, “When I was home with Daddy, he told me all his opinions, and so they became my opinions too. If I disagreed with him I kept it to myself, for he wouldn’t have liked that.”
When she got to be too old to live with her father she was placed in Torvald’s house to be his doll. She has never had her own opinions on things. Realizing this she wants to evolve from a mere child’s plaything into a real person with thoughts and feelings of her own. In order to do this she leaves her husband and children. This releases Torvald from the doll protection program and the marriage and leaves the responsibility of taking care of the children to the Nurse, as it has always been, preventing herself from making her children out to be little dolls as well. Also preventing, herself to return to doll like form. For she is tired of being seen as a precious china doll, that is just in existence to be beautiful.
In the case of Medea (from Medea), she kills his new bride, his new father-in-law and her own sons in order to spite her husband, Jason, for being a coward and secretly marrying another woman while they are still married. Jason claims that he married the other woman (who was a princess) so “that I might be the father of brothers for the children thou hast borne, and raise these to the same high rank, uniting the family in one, -to my lasting bliss. Thou, indeed hast no need of more children, but me it profits to help my present family by that which is to be.”
She is basically being told, “I don’t care about your feelings. I just wanted to have more children, with someone other than you. You are nothing more to me than a baby making machine, and you’ve broken down.” He’s treachery upon Medea evokes no sympathy. Even as he influences the exile of Medea (out fear for his, his new-bride, and the king’s safety) he feels nothing. The only reason at all that Jason offers to help (financially and such) is because she is the mother of his only two sons.
This unlocks her treachery. She makes a dress and crown lined with poison. She gives them to her sons to take to the princess in hopes she will accept them as her sons. They are accepted as part of her family, but not an hour later is the new bride dead. Soon after when the children return home they are slain by their mother.
The slaughter of the sons is justified through the hardships and the embarrassment that Jason inflicted upon Medea. He provoked her to kill their sons by choosing to marry another person rather than talk to his spouse.
If he would’ve allowed Medea and himself the chance to talk out their relationship issues maybe she wouldn’t have killed her children.
She refused to allow Jason a proper good-bye to his sons. In order to evoke as much pain and anger that had evoked within her heart.
These plays show the audiences how women can be objectified and overcome such cruelty. Women need to be respected and treated with kindness too. They needed to be talked to as if they are of importance and will offer some new thought to the table. They are not just toys or baby making machines they are the ones who will prove their love (for their spouse) over and over again. However, if provoked, they will do anything to make them (their spouses) suffer.