Forkers Central

if anyone who was kind enough to offer suggestions cares, i ultimately decided on this thesis:

A Doll’s House reveals the impossible and contradictory expectations of femininity by highlighting Nora’s attempt to meet such unachievable standards; Ibsen uses the tarantella to illustrate the detrimental effects of Nora’s psychological effort and her subsequent shift towards a masculine persona.

i've finished writing 2 of my main points (expectations nora felt, history/symbolism of the tarantella). just have to write intro, final paragraph which is about how nora basically turns into a man at the end of the play, and conclusion. i have 3 1/2 hours.

p.s. shauna i found a really good article in my research. if you haven't read it, you should:

Pierce, Jennifer L. “The Relation Between Emotional Work and Hysteria: A Feminist Reinterpretation of Freud’s Studies on Hysteria” Women’s Studies 16.3 (1989): 255-71.

p.p.s. yay MLA

that's awesome. it sounds like it'll be a great paper. i hope you do well!

i changed my thesis about 6 times after i posted that one and ic an't even remember which one i ended up using. it was the same topic but i made it more specific. anyway, i'm burning all my sources and shitting on ibsen's grave cause im done with my paper, woooo! now i just have to get through finals. december 2nd i'll be a free nearly-21 soon-to-be-with-my-boyfriend lady.

You'll knock their socks off with that essay, Smartypants.

I have to write a paper explaining why I chose to recreate a Mondiran painting in Legos and throw in a few blah-blah-cubism-blah-blah comments. It's only a 2-page (double-spaced!!!) so it's not a real paper, but I do have to use 5 sources and include a bibliography.

- Mere "wrote plenty of 'real papers' at TCU though" 1975

I was no help yesterday, I always have to let stuff stew in my brain for a while.
Your whole Nora-as-man concept got me thinking, I think what bothers me about the story "as a feminist work" has everything to do with the fact that it WAS written by a man. I think Isben was reflecting his worldveiw onto Nora. Nora's leaving her family to "find herself" always struck me as something that a mother wouldn't do (or, that a mother we're not supposed to percieve as a "bad person" wouldn't do); it's too selfish. It seems more like something that Isben thought he would do, if he were a woman. Of course, that's the catch. Because he wasn't a woman, and fo course he could never understand what it was like to be one. It was almost silly of him to try.

yeah i said that in my paper. basically the only way nora escaped going crazy (a la, the tarantella or killing herself as she planned to do) was to turn into a man and escape her family. she's not being a feminist because she's abandoning herself to take the man's rout of leaving home to find a job and stuff. i mean, at the end she does manage to talk to torvald on equal terms so obviously she is capable of having different interactions with him than making cooing sounds and pretending to be his pet...

ibsen also talks about a woman abandoning her family in his next play, ghosts. except in that one her priest convinces her to go back and shes miserable until her husband finally dies. i mean i guess that is true for some people (in her case, her husband was doing it with the maid and an alcoholic and stuff) but with torvald, he's not a bad guy. she could stay with him and have an average life, like a lot of people do. in my opinion thats more reality than her leaving home in the 1800s. i guess people who are semi-satisfied dont make for good theater topics though.

i got a 96 on this paper. what the hell?!?!?! i thought i was going to get a B at best.

something is seriously wrong with me. whenever i think i did well, i get an average grade. whenever i am sure i sucked, i get an A.

the stupid student information system is busy but I know I got an A in math so far. will find out the rest of my grades some time today. cross your fingers.