Blog post on A Dolls House

    What does in mean to be human?

In as far back as we can look in history, women have been mistreated, silenced, and dimitutized by society. This is a sad symptom of traditional gender roles where men are expected to be strong and controlling and their wives submissive to them. Even with the strong presence of these gender roles in society, there are brave women who break free of their oppression and become independent. The play A Doll’s House explores the life of Nora, who is subjected to those gender roles by her husband Helmer. Throughout the story, Nora comes to  realize her mistreatment and belittlement and has the courage to break free from her oppressive husband, and in doing so, Ibsen reveals aspects of our humanity. In the play, Henrik Ibsen utilizes symbolism and diction to explore what it means for us to be human.

One of the main factors explored in the text is how Nora is oppressed by Helmer. She is constantly being belittled and controlled by him, but for most of the play she accepted and allowed his control of her. This ties into the human experience because women have been in similar situations as Nora for as long as we can know, and many of those women were never able to escape their oppression. Ibsen is trying to illustrate how we accept these set beliefs in our society even when they harm others and even when they are harmful to us. One way we can see Nora being subjected to this oppression is through the use of Diminutive diction. Helmer constantly diminutizes Nora by comparing her to small animals like when he says “My little bird must never do that again! A song bird must have a clean beak to chirp with”(25). Helmer treats Nora like a pet by calling her a bird which is weak and small, this matches the societal expectation of women being weaker and smaller physically and emotionally. He suspects her of lying and instead of outright saying it he uses a childish metaphor saying she needs a clean beak. This diminutive diction shows How men like Helmer think women lack the capacity to make decisions themselves and have personal lives. Ibsen is trying to show that our human nature is to adopt these oppressive human traditions and use them to keep a societal order where women are seen as accessories. The problem with our human nature is that it doesn't give everyone the chance to explore their own humanity free of the bonds of societal norms. 

As humans, we always strive for free will even when we lack it. We want to make decisions on our own and create our own paths. Ibsen uses Nora to show how the oppressed can break free from their oppressors because of their will to do so. Our human nature is what gives us this will to strive for better opportunity. Ibsen uses symbolism of doors to show how Nora uses her will to break free from her oppressive relationship with Helmer “Helmer: Nora! Nora! Empty! She is gone. The most wonderful thing of all----? [The sound of a door shutting is heard from below]”(72). The door symbolizes Nora shutting out Helmer on by herself. This is a very brave thing to do for a woman in this time period and her bravery shows how human nature gives us the will to make these life changing decisions. The contrast in human nature causing Helmer to oppress Nora and Nora to try to escape that oppression shows the cycle of oppression in our society. Humans cause oppression to be ever present, but it is in people’s nature to try to break free from that oppression.

Within the play, Ibsen uses literary devices to show what it means to be human and shed light on how human nature causes a cycle of oppression.

Blog Post on Never Let Me Go

 Never Let Me Go - What does it mean to be human?

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is a novel which explores how people live in a society where some people are clones that are predetermined to be organ donors for other people. The novel follows the main character, Kathy, who is a clone, from childhood to the time she is destined to become a donor. Ishiguro wants to emphasize that the donors are no different from ‘normal’ people and they have hopes and aspirations that they will never get to achieve because of their predetermined fate. Ishiguro uses metaphor and irony to illustrate how humans use false hope and lies to hide from the negative aspects of their lives.. 

The extract I will be examining is from pages 257-258 and it is a scene where Kathy and her boyfriend Tommy are making a plea to their old Hailsham teachers Miss Emily and Madame to be able to differ from Tommy’s last donation before he dies. Kathy and Tommy heard a rumor that couples that truly loved each other could get deferrals from donating for a few years so they could live together for a little more before they died. Madame tells them the hard truth when she says “Within Hailsham itself, whenever this talk started up, I made sure to stamp it out good and proper. But as for what students said after they’d left us, what could I do?”(257). Madame uses a metaphor here to compare her trying to break down rumors to stamping them out like they are some sort of fire. This metaphor really brings out the picture that Ishiguro is trying to paint about human nature; that humans will always try to find a spark of hope in a situation where they are hopeless. That spark of hope becomes a fire as it is spread around and others start believing in it as well. Kathy’s reaction to the devastating news also shows how hope is so prevalent in human nature. Kathy thought “and even though Miss Emily’s words should have crushed us, there was an aspect to them that implied something further, something being held back, that suggested we hadn’t yet got to the bottom of things. “(258). Kathy is still trying to plead and hope even though she knows her fate is predetermined. Kathy’s denial is ironic because it is known that her fate has always been to be a donor and it will never be changed. 

In this extract, Ishiguro also explores the humaneness, or lack thereof, of this donor system. Madame states “Even back when Hailsham was considered a shining beacon, an example of how we might move to a more humane and better way of doing things”(258). Madame uses a metaphor to compare Hailsham to a beacon that people look up to to be more humane. The irony in this comparison is that there is no real way to make forcing people to donate their organs humane. This shows how humans will try to twist how they think about things to justify their actions. In our society this practice would be seen as cruel and inhumane, but their society seems to have accepted it. It is interesting to see how similar the behaviors of the victims of this inhumane system are to the benefactors. The victims create rumors and fantasies to create false hope and detract from their fates, and the benefactors twist their actions to make them seem more humane. This shows how human nature is to try to hide the negative aspects of life and not face them. 

Ishiguro uses this irony to show how human nature is to not face our problems but to hide them. We are unable to face our inadequacies and that does not allow us to enact positive change. Nobody in Never Let Me Go wanted to stop the donor program because it allowed them to live longer, and selfishness denied any form of humaneness. All of this shows that the meaning of life is different for people on different levels of society. The people that are oppressed live lives of hope that something may change in their favor, and the people who benefit from oppression live lives of selfishness and denial because they don't want to face the fact that what they are doing is wrong.

"We live in a paradox, desiring change while craving the comfort of constancy".