Language, a Crucial Weapon of Patriarchy to Subjugate Women: Referencing from Ibsen's ‘A Doll's House'

Abstract

This paper deals with the concept of ‘subjugation of women in patriarchal society' through the lense of ‘Feminist Literary Theory' and ‘Language Politics', referencing with Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll's House”. The main hypothesis of this paper is to demonstrate: how women’s identity use to be violated and constructed by patriarchy, how women are not treated as societal capital but are commodified and how their human psyche is being constructed by male dominated society. Margaret Fuller's concept of ‘Androgyny’, Virginia Woolf's notion of ‘women centric education', Simone De Beauvoir's concept of ‘second sex', Elaine Showalter's concept of ‘Gynocriticism’ are being depicted here in this paper to evaluate Ibsen’s strong feminist character Nora, protagonist of ‘A Doll's House'. But the nuclear task of this paper is to distinguish how Language plays a crucial role to make women as ‘second sex' or inferior sex to some extent. Through the Metamorphosis of Nora's character we will come to Know how she will break the chained convention of patriarchal society by dejecting her husband Mr. Helmer through the powerful language of ‘ silence'.