Ibsen's "A Doll's House" - Masculinity And Marriage

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12 pages in length. Gender construct, built around the patriarchal perspective, has long been a principle focus of theater and cinema. The extent to which the issues of masculinity and femininity are regularly used as central themes is both grand and far-reaching; that such depictions have become fundamentally stereotypical in nature speaks to the dilemma of truly being able to define masculinity within a social context. Ibsen's A Doll's House is one of many theatrical illustrations of this observable fact in the way it pits the dominating husband against the submissive wife and spotlights the misery she experiences from being an emotional prisoner in her own marriage. While these social constructs have changed to a great degree since Ibsen penned his play, there is still enough residual support of this patriarchal ideology to warrant it ongoing in the twenty-first century institution of marriage. Bibliography lists 3 sources.