Sample Response: How and why might two of the works you have studied be considered inspirational?

The plays A Doll’s House and The Crucible provide social commentary which can be considered as inspirational in the context of their temporal and societal publication. Henrik Ibsen’s three-act play, A Doll’s House was written and set in Norway during the 1870s. It presents the events and reveals conflicts within the setting of the Helmer household, leading in its charged final scene to Nora’s departure from her domestic entrapment in search of an autonomous life. The ending, controversial in the period, seems to support Ibsen’s support for women’s rights, raising important questions about how social and cultural practices constrain and determine the lives of both men and women. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible was written almost a century after the publication of Ibsen’s work. Published in 1953, it is set in 1692 Salem, Massachusetts during the period of the Salem Witch Trials. While Ibsen creates ‘composite characters’ indicative of his period, Miller bases his play on real events, creating an allegory that portrays the mob-mentality and hysteria perpetrated by McCarthyism and the Red Scare. Both plays are social commentaries, and both plays lay bare societal problems. A Doll’s House establishes Nora as a role model, a strong emancipated woman who inspires others to seek their own freedom and agency. Similarly, in The Crucible, it is characterisation that inspires readers and viewers. John Proctor and Reverend Hale are both strong characters who criticize and stand against the hypocritical abuses of the Salem theocracy. Of course, for both Nora and John, their choices have a high cost: Nora loses access to her children and financial security, and John loses his life.

In A Doll’s House, Ibsen uses the inspirational character of Nora to suggest the possibility that women can escape the patriarchal norms of society. To do this, Ibsen initially presents Nora as a representation of the archetypal subservient housewife. The play opens and remains within the confines of a domestic space, and the initial stage directions confirm that the play is likely to be a conventional domestic drama. The first exchanges between Nora and her husband, Torvald, at the opening of the first act seemingly confirm the viewer’s sense of a domestic play portraying predictable gender roles. Torvald’s use of bird imagery and possessive pronouns in addressing Nora are playful and apparently loving, but they underscore the sense that Nora is the possession of her husband. The bird imagery connotes a sense that Nora is beautiful, full of elegant movement, and possibly possessed of a fine singing voice. Darker readings are possible, although improbable in the opening scenes; it is also possible to interpret the bird imagery as connoting an erratic quality in Nora, or to illustrate her entrapment, where the ‘caged bird’ is a commonplace trope in feminist literature. The plays gender-power differences are reinforced in the way props are used in the play. For example, there is an apparent parallelism between the ornaments Nora puts on the Christmas tree and herself. The ornaments are the decorative possession of the tree, and this is an arrangement that is analogous to Nora’s relationship with Torvald. In the initial scenes, Nora appears as a “stupid child” unlike Torvald who is “a real human being” and “proud of being a man”. It becomes increasingly clear to the audience that despite Torvald’s high social status (he is a bank manager) and the material comforts he provides Nora, she is just another one of Torvald’s possessions, not unlike the piano that is a centrepiece in their home.

Following the initial exchange between Nora and Ms Linde, a different view of Nora begins to become apparent. Her movement and body language (indicated in the stage directions) assume greater confidence. Following the revelation of Nora’s secret bank loan, taken for the purpose of saving Torvald’s life, the theatre audience recognizes Nora’s agency, as a woman who can act independently. It is possible that, although in contradiction to patriarchal law, the audience understands Nora’s selflessness, and it is this that may inspire the audience – and not least women – to an understanding of their own lives and the potential to escape society’s suffocating patriarchy. In the third act, Nora’s costume change from her sexually alluring tarantella dress to outdoor clothing symbolizes Nora’s epiphany and foreshadows her eventual separation from Torvald. This change of costume suggests that Nora has concluded that she no longer wants to be “a wife and mother” who “performs tricks”. The play’s resolution and Nora’s departure from her domestic entrapment deviate from the happy ending of traditional ‘well-made plays’ that work to reaffirm societal norms. It is in this sense that Nora’s final slamming of the door – made clear in the stage directions and shocking for European audiences of the period – offers inspiration to women who feel entrapped in their roles as wives and primary caregivers. In the play, Nora undergoes character development. That is, in her ultimate refusal to be Torvald’s “doll-wife” in the same way she was her father’s “doll-child”, Nora becomes “first and foremost […] a human being.” It is this possibility of change that can inspire others.

Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible is, like Ibsen’s play, a canonical work of literature that uses characterisation as a vehicle to inspire others to positive social change, even where the costs of individual bravery comes at enormous personal cost. It is mainly through the character of John Proctor that Miller draws attention to the absurdity of hysterical mob-mentality, inspiring others to fight abuses of others and remain true to themselves. In the play, despite John’s crime of lechery, his relationship with his wife, Elizabeth, remains strong, and he does everything in his power to save his wife. Proctor is an inspiration to the play’s audience precisely because he tells the truth by confessing to his crime of adultery. Like Nora Helmer, John Procter challenges power although the outcome of doing so will not favour them. And, like Nora, John is insistent on establishing for himself an authentic identity. The exclamatory sentences in his speech where he says “because it is my name! Because I will not have another in my life!” both illustrates his despair and his sense of resoluteness as he is prepared to condemn himself but refuses to taint the reputation of others. Here, again, we see similarities to Nora in that both characters are able to put the interests of others before their own in the pursuit of a greater good. The metaphor that John is “not worth the dust on the shoes of them that hang” indicates how he is unprepared to compromise his integrity and reputation to save his life. In a pathos-laden moment as the play concludes, Proctor says “I have given you my soul; leave me my name!” Here, Miller seems to reprimand the mob mentality that exists in the play and in wider society, and he denounces the hysteria that only one character, Abigail, has managed to create.

Another character who inspires the audience, because he is the antithesis of hysteria, is Hale. Hale – Miller’s dialogue and stage directions make clear – is a voice of reason in the play, a man who seeks evidence, understanding that many of the accusations are false. Miller characterises Hale as an intelligent, learned man, made obvious by his books and hand props. As Proctor says to Hale, looking at his books, “my, they’re heavy!” It is Hale who questions Giles’ guilt, unlike Hale’s foil, Parris, who exclaims that the new proof is “an attack upon the court!” The audience is inspired by Hale because he shows determination. Although he storms off stage at the end of Act 2, he does not give up and returns to help by praying with the “guilty”.

The allegory that draws parallels between the Salem witch trials and the Red Scare allows Miller to comment on McCarthy’s regime by inspiring hi audience to seek and defend the truth. Miller, himself a witness at the HUAC trials, understood that McCarthyism was not about an attempt to defend the United States. Instead, it was motivated by ambition and vendettas. It is this that is represented in The Crucible and it is this that he seeks to inspire others to fight against.

Although written in different times and focused on different social issues, the two plays, A Doll’s House and The Crucible, have much in common. It is dialogue, props, and stage directions that, in different ways, construct fictional worlds. But, the fictional worlds have real world equivalents. It is the development of principal characters – in particular Nora and John Proctor – brave in the face of powerful obstacles, that drive both plays towards their final curtain. The plays inspired their audiences when they were first performed, and they continue to do so today. Many people continue to be persecuted for their political beliefs and many women around the world, including in my own country, continue to experience domestic entrapment and abuse.

1481 words