A Dolls HouseVictorian Morals Essay Research Paper

A Dolls House-Victorian Ethical motives Essay, Research Paper

Victorian Morals, Values, and Ideals

The Victorian Era describes things and events in the reign of Queen Victoria ( 1837-1901 ) . Victoria was merely 18 old ages old when she became queen upon the decease of her uncle William IV in 1837. Many people today believe that the Victorian Era is truly intensions of priggish, antique, and really traditional. But, the Victorian Era is really self-contradictory and really complex.

In faith, the Victorians experienced a great age of uncertainty. On a big graduated table, there were many inquiries into Christianity and the position of society. One of them, was Friedrich Nietzsche s ( 1844-1900 ) . He saw a civilisation so self-assured over its command of scientific discipline, engineering, political relations, and economic sciences that for it & # 8220 ; God is dead, & # 8221 ; and that & # 8220 ; belief in the Christian God has become unworthy of belief. & # 8221 ; Without a theological and spiritual instruction, he realized, virtuousnesss would go values, societal conventions that could be debated and modified whenever convenience wanted. The moral system of European civilisation is founded on Judaism and Christianity. He believed, one time this foundation is removed, the construction would get down to crumple. He predicted, & # 8220 ; there will be wars such as there have ne’er been on Earth before. & # 8221 ; Culture has, Nietzsche argues, hollowed itself out, and work forces, the last work forces, are left eye blink in a universe devoid of all significance. This is what Nietzsche calls nihilism.

The Victorian clip was a clip of ideological and scientific agnosticism. The Oxford Movement, a High-Church, anti-liberal motion within the Church of England, in support of Tractarianism ; Utilitarianism, which is the instruction that the worth or value of anything is determined entirely by its public-service corporation ; Karl Marx s ( 1818-1883 ) political orientation, nicknamed Marxism, of dialectical philistinism, communism and socialism ; Darwinism, Charles Darwin s ( 1809-1882 ) full theory of development ; Sigmund Freud s ( 1856-1939 ) suggested feasible remedies for mental upsets. Freud s theories were at extremely disputed.

Victorian virtuousnesss were centered on the place and the household. This is easy apparent in a conversation at the top of page 65:

HELMER: It s flooring. This is how you would pretermit your most sacred responsibilities.

NORA: What do you see my most sacred responsibilities?

HELMER: Do I need to state you that? Are they non your responsibilities to your hubby and your kids?

[ ]

HELMER: Before all else, you are a married woman and a female parent.

Respectability was something Victorians worried about, particularly the on the job category. Mothers of big households kept her kids clean and sent them to school. In a twenty-four hours and age without rinsing machines or iceboxs where nutrient could be stored for more than a couple yearss, this wasn T easy. Womans of the upper category were likely to be unpaid places in charitable or societal service endeavors.

The Victorian period saw the emerging thought of feminism. It emerged largely through literature. Charlotte Bronte s ( 1816-1854 ) Jane Eyre was the first major women’s rightist novel. The book doesn T straight intimation of any equality of the sexes, but many literary critics say Jane simply wants acknowledgment that both sexes are similar in bosom and spirit.

A quotation mark from Jane Eyre: Do you believe I am an zombi? A machine without feelings? & # 8230 ; Do you believe, because I am hapless, vague, field, and small, I am soulless and heartless? You think incorrect. I have every bit much psyche as you, & # 8212 ; and full as much bosom & # 8230 ; I am non

speaking to you now through the medium of usage, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh ; — it is my spirit that addresses your spirit ; merely as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s pess, equal, — as we are. I don t think anybody would differ that that is a supplication for simple human and gender equality.

In A Doll s House, Nora Helmer went out into the universe with a demand that a adult female excessively must hold the freedom to develop as an grownup, independent, responsible individual. Henrik Ibsen portrays such pragmatism in his drama. The drama shows an single s resistance to society s oppressive authorization. Nora herself says, on page 65, five lines from the underside, I am traveling to see if I can do out who is right, the universe, or I. Nora metamorphoses into a women’s rightist by the terminal of the drama. One might reason that Nora Helmer is synonymous with Jane Eyre.

Ibsen is really superficial and insecure of Nora happening the freedom and independency she s seeking and of the utmost societal hostility a divorced adult female would have in modern-day society. However, he is merely covering with her moral jobs, non economic and practical 1s of her lasting on her ain.

Nora frees herself from traditional ways of thought, merely like Ibsen. Ibsen is one of the male innovator s in feminism and new political orientation. You might merely set him up at that place with Charlotte Bronte, Fredrich Nietzsche, or Karl Marx. Nora has served as a symbol for adult females contending everyplace for release and equality. Ibsen breaks the Victorian cast: a adult female leaves her kids and hubby, wholly interrupting off the most of import establishment of the Victoria Era the household.

It is unsure whether Ibsen feels pessimistic or optimistic of Victorian ethical motives and values. Possibly Ibsen feels Nora s freedom and independency, symbolism of gender equality and feminism, will convey about gender equality in the Victorian or post-Victorian Era. Possibly he sees himself as a Nora Helmer, composing agnostic books in order to advance alteration.

On the other manus, possibly he feels that adult females have been pushed excessively far. Nora herself says it is a thing 100s of 1000s of adult females have done in response to Helmer s exclaiming that he [ wouldn T ] sacrifice his award for the 1 he loves. ( Bottom of Page 66, top of 67 ) Possibly Ibsen has a pessimistic position in that adult females will stay at the same societal position and go on to be the keeper s of places, the entertainer s of work forces, and the carrier s of kids. Possibly he believes that really few adult females have the bravery and unity that Nora does. Possibly, but less likely, Ibsen might hold a nihilistic position that the societal construction of households will fall in because adult females will make ( somewhat ) what Nora did. They will seek and emancipate themselves.

We have to retrieve that the Victorian moral resurgence could non hold been manipulated by political and economic powers of the clip. How could they arise it or command it? No 1 could hold conceived where it would take. Hell, even today we are still playing by Nietzsche & # 8217 ; s regulations. We talk about set uping values, non detecting virtuousnesss. At that clip, it was merely the same phenomenon. It is dubious that it was unreal, but really a motion for reform that manifested itself into assorted dramas, books, and political orientations. Peoples could raise up some values, ethical motives, and Torahs to function their involvements. Case in point, the non-rights of adult females. They may good win in raising up something, but possibly non precisely what they expect. Case in point, the feminism motion and people like Ibsen s work.