Discovering 'Nora' and 'Romita's Entity and Identity in Their Contemporary Societies in the Light of Feminism: A Comparative Study between Ibsen's a Doll's House and Suchitra's Dahan

Abstract

This article investigates both the texts in the eyes of feminism, here, one is a Norwegian play "A Doll's House" by Henrik Ibsen and the other one is an Indian novel "Dahan" by Suchitra Bhattacharya. It aims to explore the deteriorating social and economic conditions of women and lastly their search for individual entity and identity. Ibsen wrote "A Doll's House" (1879) whereas after more than 100 years later Suchitra wrote "Dahan" (1996) but the depiction of women in our society remains standstill. They are still undergoing exploitation, negligence, injustice, disrespect, patriarchal domination etc. These two literary pieces focus on these issues against women and make a comparative study between them. Both the women are delineated as a stereotypical one with the beginning of the texts. But as the story moves forward, they break the conventional norms and strictures of their society. They start to discover and reshape themselves after realizing the facts they are facing long time. The study compares the feministic views of two prominent writers. Both the authors are conscious of the condition of women in their own times and try to break the prevailing progressive thoughts into their writings. This paper also persuades the readers to understand the concept of feminism in terms of literature.