New Women and the Politics of Self: An Insight into Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House” and George Bernard Shaw's "Saint Joan”

Abstract

This article is entitled "New Women and the Politics of Self: An Insight into Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House” and George Bernard Shaw's "Saint Joan”."  The article investigates how the heroines in the plays of both authors break away from the mores of the Victorian and Norwegian societies in a bid to find their true selves. The article attempts a comparative analysis of the revolutionary attitudes of Ibsen's and Shaw's women. It illustrates the claim that the heroines of both authors are precursors of change and instruments of meaningful alteration. Based on the assumption that the women of Ibsen and Shaw are revolutionists and agents of socio-political, cultural, and economic transformation, the article posits that the unconventional mindsets of the heroines represent a threat to 19th-century society in general and the sacrosanctity of Victorian mores in particular.

Seen from the feminist and Marxist perspectives, this article focuses on how Ibsen and Shaw used the stage in the 19th century to create stereotypical new women to achieve a gradual and sometimes cataclysmic transformation of their societies. According to the article, to discover their true selves, the heroines of the playwrights must challenge the inanities of conformist degeneracy in society and break the confining chain that limits women's freedom.