Over time, gender parity and women’s roles have changed from conservative views to family set-ups a modern woman would consider patriarchal. Various literary pieces describe how women with a modern worldview challenged traditional gender attitudes and belies including Medea speech by Euripides and the play A Doll’s House by Isben. Euripides describes, about a tragedian called Medea who challenged gender ideology in a negative way. Contrastingly the play, A Doll’s House is about Nora who implicated gender ideology in a positive way. Although unlike Medea in Euripides speech who objects gender parity in a negative way, Nora undertakes a positive approach of confronting gender cultural norms and beliefs, both are victims of their circumstances.
First, the speech Medea by Euripides details how a woman disputed gender bias resulting in negative outcomes. Men in ancient Athens had the free will to divorce women, subjecting them to insecurity and limited control over their futures. Following the gender bias during ancient Greek, Medea opposed gender inequality by referring to men as the most “wretched” existence on earth. According to Medea, women have responded to men’s ferocious behavior by employing deception and backhanded manipulation, as embodied by her life and history.
Notably, Medea has experienced first-hand divorce and abandonment from Jason, who suffers total emasculation in the plot. In response, Medea murders her children in a horrific manner that triggers surpassing rage and gratuitous cruelty from men. By invoking unnatural violence in her appeal to social justice, Medea’s actions motivate elevated masculine exploitation by depicting women as evil beings. Arguably, Medea, who is a protagonist of the play, characterizes a tragic hero who protests gender injustice in a negative way.
In his play A Doll’s House, Ibsen demonstrates women’s roles during ancient times. The narrative describes that ancient women were prohibited from neither controlling money nor running their businesses. Portrayed as a doll, Nora is entirely submissive to her husband and would save housekeeping offered by Torvald that, in return, allows her to acquire a loan in secret when she needs to save her husband. Nora emerges as a champion for women’s plight in a positive way considering she not only sacrifices a lot to maintain her feminine frame in a patriarchal society but also goes overboard to acquire massive debt in secret to save his husband.
Both Medea and Nora are victims of their circumstances and at fault for committed actions. Due to cultural circumstances, Nora and Medea compromise their honor and dignity to uphold the tenets of marriage. However, both are challenged by observing the traditional outlook of marriage. While Medea is opposed to masculine strength and free will, Nora embraces a saving and borrowing habit against cultural norms.
Ultimately, despite the fact that, unlike Medea in Euripides’ speech, Nora takes a positive approach to confronting gender cultural norms and beliefs, both are victims of their circumstances. Medea is a villain following gender oppression in her society. Conversely, Nora in the play A Doll’s House, emerge as a virtues champion of gender equality by willingly allowing belittlement from her husband to align with cultural norms that encouraged men to be providers and women to be housekeepers.