Ibsen - Rossetti

• IBSEN fallen woman quote 1

  "A poor girl whats got into trouble cant afford to pick and choose"
• IBSEN fallen woman quote 2

  "I came to nurse my little miss nora...when i had the chance of such a good job"
• IBSEN fallen woman quote 3

  "His father was a frightful creature who kept mistresses"
• IBSEN fallen woman context 1

  -In 19th c households, nannies and wet nurses would look after their children

  -distance between parents and their children.

  -Anne Marie's experience as the "fallen woman" signifies the inescapable nature of both the class system and the gender standards at the time According to Ibsen: 'A woman cannot be herself in modern society."
• IBSEN fallen woman context 2

  - Reputation key to 19th c society especially for women.

  - If your indiscretions were brought to light, you would forever be "tainted" in the eyes of society.

  -work allowed escape from the critical eye of society,

  - without it she would remain an 'undesirable
• IBSEN fallen woman context 3

  -19th century, prostitution was rife, and many middle-class men would be having extra-marital sexual relationships with a mistress/harlot

  -women were deemed utterly immoral for any semblance of relationships outside of marriage.

  - Victorian England had a higher frequency of deaths due to poor public health and disease spreading- it could spread easily as the Industrial Revolution attracted people into the cities and factories resulting in overcrowding.
• IBSEN fallen woman critic


  Escobar: "when a woman fell she fell utterly"
• IBSEN fallen woman production


  BBC 1992 production, as Anne Marie describes how she 'got into trouble' Nora is highly sympathetic and leans in to hug her and cries on her shoulder.
• ROSSETTI fallen woman quote 1


  "That day we waded ankle-deep for lilies"
• ROSSETTI fallen woman quote 2

  "I have desired, and I have been desired"
• ROSSETTI fallen woman quote 3


  "But now the days are over of desire"
• ROSSETTI fallen woman context 1


  - 19th w/o chaperone was disastrous for a lady's reputation.

  -Freudian theories of sexual repression commented on the era's oppressive traditions.

  - paddling was inappropriate for the time.

  - ankles inappropriate (table legs covered)

  - lilies = funerals, motherhood, marriage, and purity.

  -Death could signify her "death" within society as she proclaims their indecent meeting.
• ROSSETTI fallen woman context 2


  - speaker= Duchess Louise de la Valliere, mistress of Louis XIV King of France

  - joined the convent in 1675, after publicly asking the queen for forgiveness

  - renamed Sister Louise of Mercy and kept her distance from her children.

  - Nunneries provided a legitimate escape for women and a sense of social redemption to 'fallen women'

  - Rossetti's sister entered a convent in 1873
• ROSSETTI fallen woman context 3


  - Rossetti worked at the St Mary Magdalene House of Charity: -The 1855 charter hoped "for the reception and reformation of penitent fallen women"

  -shows Rossetti believed reformation was possible, Christian ideas of new life and forgiving immorality
• ROSSETTI fallen woman critic virginia woolf

  Virginia Woolf believed Rossetti's poetic gift had been 'grossly compromised by her religious beliefs'. But it can be argued that the devout religion offers freedom from the patriarchal society that Rossetti and the 'fallen women' were in.
• ROSSETTI fallen woman critic

  " religion was a space marked out ... souls are unsexed" (Blain
• IBSEN rejection of marriage quote 1


  NORA: "Before all else, I am a human being, just as much as you are."
• IBSEN rejection of marriage quote 2


  HELMER: —To forsake your home, your husband, and your children! You don't consider what the world will say. NORA: —I can pay no heed to that. I only know what I must do."
• IBSEN rejection of marriage quote 3


  "I've lived by performing tricks for you, Torvald."
• IBSEN rejection of marriage quote 4


  "The street door is slammed shut downstairs"
• IBSEN rejection of marriage context 1


  - 1950 `Freidan's "problem that has no name" = personal unfulfillment from only assigning their identity to family.

  - Ibsen= 'humanist'

  - Other humanists such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman 'The Yellow Wallpaper' about a woman trapped within her marriage who eventually enters psychosis and begins seeing people running in the wallpaper.
• IBSEN rejection of marriage context 2

  - 19th c the idea of a wife leaving her husband was seen as a desertion due to their obligations within the home.

  -hard for women to obtain a divorce as in England the only reason was for being physically cruel.

  - women could not enter contracts, husbands had ultimate authority over divorce.

  -Laura Römcke (1883) argued femininity was the lack of all the qualities which were socially appreciated so women who wanted to play a role in society had to renounce their womanhood (motherhood and marriage)
• IBSEN rejection of marriage context 3


  - like Anna Karenina, where marriage to Karennin was based on social propriety rather than passion.

  - affair with Count Vronsky leads to scandal and tragedy, highlighting the societal pressures and moral judgments.

  - Anna rejects her marriage in favour of a 'true love' as the marriage is stifiling but she dies

  - women rely on performing in marriage to survive

  - Ibsen views marriage is as quoted 'ruining the human race
• IBSEN rejection of marriage context 4


  - Tenant of Wildfell Hall Anne Bronte; Helen Huntingdon bars her husband from entering the bedroom

  - critics argued this "reverberated" through Victorian England, she was proto-Nora via her rejection of marital duties (sex) through door imagery

  - slamming of door = slamming of door on patriarchal attitudes and rejection of the societal duties of a woman
• IBSEN rejection of marriage critic


  Her departure announced a great awakening in European drama as well as women's egalitarianism' (Ronald Gray, 1977)
• IBSEN rejection of marriage production

  BBC 1992 production Nora is a lot more sympathetic to Torvald as she places her head against his as a sense of goodbye. However, the door she leaves by is a huge flight of stairs away displaying their marital distance through a physical prop. Similarly, the sound of the slamming door is almost metallic and incredibly heavy. The use of this heavy sound exaggerates the sense of finality within their marriage.

  
  

  v Claire Blooms (1973) Nora leaves out of the door as Torvald watches her go directly behind her.
• ROSSETTI rejection of marriage quote 1


  "Here's friendship for you if you'd like but love No thank you john."
• ROSSETTI rejection of marriage quote 2


  Maude Clare: ""Here's my half of the golden chain"
• ROSSETTI rejection of marriage quote 3

  No thank you, John: "Who can't perform that task"
• ROSSETTI rejection of marriage context 1


  - Critics believe No Thank You, John, is semi-autobiographical, - Rosetti herself rejected a marriage proposal two times.

  -Her brother William said, "John was not absolutely mythical" -

  - Rosetti had written in pencil "The original John was obnoxious because he never gave scope for No thank you."

  -Women were considered incomplete if not married,

  - seen in 'A Triad' as Rossetti details the lives of the spinster, the fallen woman and the virgin turned-wife.
• ROSSETTI rejection of marriage context 2


  - Maude Clare would be the 'fallen woman' while Nell would be considered as a version of Coventry Patmore's 'Angel in the House'

  - Maude Clare rejects the idea of marriage via the token of love entirely while Nell vows to make her marriage work.
• ROSSETTI rejection of marriage context 3


  - Rosetti rejected two marriage proposals and died a 'spinster' - spinster was also presented in Rossetti's poem 'A Triad'

  - title is contrasted by the virgin which is described as a 'tinted hyacinth at a show.'

  -Due to women being unable to manage their finances, vote, own their property etc. married women survived by performing and pleasing their husbands.
• ROSSETTI rejection of marriage critic


  asserts is the woman's right to say 'no' and to claim independence and agency for herself.' (Avery)
• IBSEN bird imagery quote 1

  "My little skylark must not droop her wings."
• IBSEN bird imagery quote 2


  "A songbird must have a clean beak to sing with otherwise she will start twittering out of tune"
• IBSEN bird imagery quote 3

  "I will protect you like a hunted dove that I have saved from a hawk's claws."
• IBSEN bird imagery context 1

  - possesive "my" shows heirarchical roles German philosopher Georg Hegel identified for men and women

  - corresponds to their perceived intellectual capability

  -noras role is to be happy and look pretty

  -skylark symbolises freedom which is ironic If your bird's wings are drooping, they are tired or sick
• IBSEN bird imagery context 2


  - songbird's main ability is to sing beautifully to attract mates.

  - keeping clean is a reference to religious morality

  - This societally imposed religious morality is subverted when she decides to leave as she states, "I don't even know what religion is."

  - many believed atheists had no moral compass and religion was the only guiding force
• IBSEN bird imagery context 3


  - patronising and paternalistic attitude towards Nora

  - used by philosophers to exhibit a natural hierarchy between men and women eg. Hobbes + Burke.

  - Torvald = a protector and Nora as someone needing his care and safeguarding.

  - mirrors the societal norms and gender roles men were often expected to be the providers and protectors due to the separate private/domestic sphere and the public sphere dominated by men.
• IBSEN bird imagery critic


  confronted every convention that caged her to ensure that she would remain a house pet and infant there forever." (Kate Millett, Sexual Politics, 1971)