Did the Final Actions of the Female Protagonists in A Doll's House and Medea Demonstrate An Act of Self-Initiative or the Consequences of Domestic Discord
During the closing scenes of both Ibsen's A Doll's House and Euripides's Medea, the female protagonists, Nora and Medea respectively, take drastic courses of action. The question might be asked, do the final actions of these female protagonists display an act of self-initiative, or are their actions the consequences of domestic discord? To fully comprehend the obstacles faced by these women and the driving forces behind their decisions, the topic may be addressed in a Socratic dialogue. Two people participate: an Eleatic and an Athenian. The Eleatic, who asserts absolute being, argues that the final actions constituted self-initiative. The Athenian, on the other hand, a relativist, believes them to result from domestic discord.
Eleatic: If you were to consider the perseverance
and determination exhibited by
Medea in pursuing her scheme to completion, you
would agree that it all was an act of self-initiative, not the pressures and
consequences of domestic discord.
Athenian: Simply the fact of her thoroughness
in realizing her plans does not stipulate
self-initiative.
It merely shows that she had the
courage to carry out her plans.
However, the factors that caused her to assume such a
drastic course
of action directly resulted from domestic
discord.
She would not have gone to such extremes if she had not felt jilted
by
Jason.
Her anger at being betrayed
led to her actions.
Eleatic: Is this anger, and the actions resulting
from it not self-determination, for she chose to pursue such a course at all
costs?
This can be clearly seen when she says: "...but my pain's a
fair price to
take away your smile." (p. 591).
She clearly professes her determination to pursue her revenge, no
matter what
dark course it may take, and regardless of the cost to her and
the consequences to others.
Instead
of leaving
Jason, or pleading for justice, she constructs a meticulous scheme
that only self-initiative could produce, and not the indirect, and thus
weaker,
results of a domestic dispute.
The fact
that she has been abandoned only makes her aware of her predicament; her subsequent
actions are all
self-initiated.
Athenian: We must not confuse
perseverance
with
initiative.
While she was mostly
unwavering in her actions, she was driven
by the
rage resulting from the
discord within the family.
She had no other course to take, considering
she was in a foreign land with foreign and even
alien laws.
The king was prejudiced against her, making
it impossible to pursue any sort of legal or logical action.
Her
children, another aspect of the family,
were also a hindrance in that she had to protect them, and whatever actions
she took would result in punishment for her offspring as well as for herself.
The
Greek society she lived in, which was
run by men, did not allow her to obtain any measure of retaliation.
The only option available to her, due to the
fact that
Jason and the family had created these unique circumstances, was
direct and
violent revenge.
The
Chorus
captures this lack of choice when is says
"
Deceit is men's device now,
Men's oaths are
god's dishonor.
Legend will now reverse our reputation,
A time comes when the female
sex is honored;"
(p.291).
To specify self-initiative
as the cause ignores the fact that the conflict within her family left her with
no other option, so any initiative was taken out of necessity, not by choice,
as implied by the phrase "self-initiative."
In other words, we say she took the initiative simply because she completed
her plans, but in fact, it was not self-induced, it was a
reaction to her
circumstances.
Eleatic: The factors of
Medea's, and also
Nora's, family problems does cause some action on their part, as does every
environment on every organism.
To isolate this as the
driving force, however,
is completely
absurd.
If we were to
consider
Nora's case for a moment, the factor of self-determination would
again be presented.
Nora was content in her existence as
Torvald's
quiet and happy wife.
She was a kind and smiling face for him to
come home to after a tiring day at
work.
Again, there is a stimulus presented by the environment: the blackmail
attempt by
Krogstad.
The family discord
resulting from this, as in
Medea's case, serves to awaken
Nora to the true
state of affairs in the household.
Once
she is aware of her position, she resolves, for the first time in their relationship,
to talk about a serious matter.
There
were no
forces pressuring her to bring these feelings up; she choose to do
so.
She makes plain her self-initiative
when she says:
"No, that's just it. You don't understand me; and I have
never
understood you either -- until tonight.
No, don't in-
terrupt
me.
Just listen to what I have to say.
This is
to
be a final settlement, Torvald." (p. 711)
She is unsatisfied with
her role in the family, and once it has been brought to her attention through
family
discord, she clearly takes matters into her own hands.
Athenian: You are missing the point, and you
must take that quote in
context.
When isolated, it may appear to justify and
support the self-determination point of view, but in truth it disproves it.
If we consider the whole sequence of events at
the conclusion of the play, when
Nora speaks with
Torvald and then leaves,
we will see that all directly results from
discord in the family.
She has spent more than eight years with
Torvald,
suppressing her feelings, desires,
beliefs and opinions to match his.
She unwittingly played along with his
game, assuming her role as a
little
doll, always smiling and always pretty, but with nothing of
substance
to say.
Once she realizes that she has
had an empty and unrewarding existence she leaves the house.
However, this realization only occurred in the heat of family
discord.
When she says:
"It doesn't occur to you, does it, that though
we've been
married for eight years, this is the first time that we
two -- man and wife -- have sat down for a
serious talk?",
(p. 711)
we realize that she has been affected by the lack of communication and shared
feelings in her relationship.
This
discord, and its consequences, caused her to reevaluate her circumstances,
and decide to leave
Torvald.
She did
not simply decide to get up and leave.
Rather,
the
discord caused by
Krogstad's blackmail attempt jolted her out of her
self-deception, and caused her to take that course of action.
These circumstances, although unnoticed, accumulated over eight years.
Since she was unaware of them, they cannot possibly result from self-initiative,
and the actions resulting from them also have no connection to self-initiative.
However, even though her circumstances were unnoticed, they still
represented family
discord, and once they were realized, they led to her actions.
The connections and logic are
obvious, would you not agree?
Eleatic: I must agree that, when considering
your points, the actions of both
Nora and
Medea appear to be consequences
of family
discord.
However, it is hard to believe that, despite the
validity of your
points,
Medea would choose to kill her offspring as a result of discord in
the family.
Athenian: Your point is well taken, however
we must consider that
Euripides intended to evoke pity and fear in the mind
of his audience. The enormity of her actions is indeed overwhelming,
especially when we have the time to sit back and contemplate their repercussions.
However,
Medea was acting under a considerable amount of
pressure
and
strain.
The
discord in her family
left her with no other choice and if we emotionally separate ourselves from
the issue, and consider the whole situation
logically, we will understand
that, however heinous the act, it was her only choice.
Combined with the fact that the
gods, the
final arbitrators
in any dispute, supported her actions, proves that she was wrongly treated by
Jason, and subject to the
strain of a dysfunctional family.
This
discord fueled her actions.
The parallel to
Nora's case is obvious as
well.
She can no longer
live under
conditions that require her to subjugate her
will to her husband's, no matter
how much she loves him.
She must have
the chance to develop and nurture a personality of her own, and this desire
creates more
discord in the family, the consequences of which is her departure
from
Torvald.
Corinthian: It is clear to me that, in conclusion
to this argument, the final actions of the female protagonists in "
A Doll's
House" and "
Medea" displayed the direct and definite consequences
of domestic
discord.
These pressures resulting in a mixture of circumstances
caused them to take the drastic course of action that they took in the end of
both
plays.
Both women were subjected
to trying circumstances and they made decisions with which we might not
morally
agree, but we must respect and realize that they were not intentionally
cruel
reactions, but a response to stimuli
forced upon them by others.
works
cited
1)
Euripides.
Ten Plays.
Translated by Moses
Hadas and John
McLean.
New
York: Bantam Books, Inc., 1966.
2)
Ibsen, Henrik.
Eight Plays.
Translated
by Eva Le Gallienne.
New York: The Modern Library, 1982.