<b>The fragile plastic reality: a comparative study of the image “Doll’s House” in Henrik Ibsen and Katherine Mansfield</b> - DOI: 10.4025/actascilangcult.v32i1.904

Abstract

Considering the importance of significations in literary works, this paper proposes a comparative study of the image of the “Doll’s House” in Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House (1879), and Katherine Mansfield’s short story “The Doll’s House”, published in the book The Dove’s Nest (1923), based on the theories of Gaston Bachelard and Jean Baudrillard. In both cases, one notices that the presence of this image indicates not only the construction of these works’ environment, but also a criticism of the bourgeois model of a perfect and flawless society, as the described image refers to. However, even though this image shares the same idea in both works, it will be explored differently in each case, whether through the search of Nora’s character in escaping social conformity as in Ibsen, or through the subtle childlike game experienced by the Kelvey sisters, as in Mansfield.