Ayat Jalal Obaid. An English language and literature senior student at AUIB.

Ayat Jalal Obaid.
An English language and literature senior student at AUIB.


A Tug of War of Leave and Stay

Many abused women do not get to have a choice to leave, but those that do must not only summon the courage to hope for it, but also the courage to delve into the unknown. Nora from A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen and Eveline from Eveline by James Joyce are cases of the two options that women face when given the opportunity to leave an abusive home.
What is abuse? Is it always the clear physical violence or can it be dressed up as a dream as well? In Eveline we see clear abuse from the father towards Eveline. He threatens to beat her and takes away her hard earned money. He not only causes her emotional distress, but financial one too. His abuse can be recognised easily. Meanwhile Nora’s abusive environment is concealed. We see a happy couple in love. Their life is a “A dream of loveliness”(Ibsen 94). As Homer describes Nora. She indeed is a dream. It takes a closer, more in-depth look at Nora’s life to recognise the abuse; the oppression and the performanc! A life of being forced to be another person and not live outside your husband’s interests. Even though the abuse in Nora’s life is less life threatening, we see a more radical reaction, a more daring choice.
Nora’s world is more sheltered. She lacks experience in life which leads her to conform to the idea of her personality that her father and later on her husband express. Eveline’s reality could be seen as harsher. But they both do not possess financial freedom which gives the men in their lives the upper hand and control they need to treat them like dolls. It could be easier for the reader, due to Eveline’s very noticeable abuse, to understand her desire to flee. Nora’s journey is rooted in what society calls “selfishness” and Eveline’s is rooted in what it calls “selflessness”. Only one of these two did not submit to societal/familial expectations and could be seen as a threat to a patriarchal society. This is not to say that what Eveline chose is a sign of weakness or inability to be brave.
Epiphany is what they both go through, epiphanies of different natures. Nora’s epiphany is freeing. It moves in the direction of self illumination and possiblity. Eveline’s epiphany is one that a prisoner has of the inevitability of their reality. Her epiphany is imprisonening and paralyzing. Nora’s epiphany pulls her out of society’s cobwebs while Eveline’s traps her back into them.
Early 20th century Ireland was a difficult time for women to be in. Their roles in society were expected to be limited and their existence was one of usefulness only. This is evident in Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum “Certain occupations, likewise, are less fitted for women, who are intended by nature for work of the home – work indeed which especially protects modesty in women and accords by nature with the education of children and the well-being of the family”(Pope Leo XIII). Eveline’s job in the world was seen as the position of a caretaker, a nurturer and a protector of the structure of the family. “She cannot break the promise she made to her mother. If Eveline lets the family fall apart, then her mother’s ‘life of commonplace sacrifices’ was all for nothing”(Lyons). Eveline feels it in herself that she must keep on her mother’s work in maintaining the family. Not only because these were the teachings Catholic girls were being told in Ireland at the time, it is also because in this way Eveline can feel a one last connection to her mother. In doing what her mother did and made her promise to keep doing she feels closer to her mother and maybe it is the last tie she has with her after her death.
19th century Norway witnessed the first wave feminism where some women were accepted into universities and others assumed roles that were believed to be fit for men only. Organisations and associations were formed (Bergstrøm). Ibsen’s A Doll’s House was very influential in that regard. Despite that, Ibsen viewed himself not through feminist lenses but through humanist lenses (Ahmad and Wani). He wanted to convey that the troubles and desires of Nora are of a bare human nature before they are of a female nature.
Eveline seeks a whole new world with her lover overseas to escape the prison of a life she lives in Dublin, but Nora realises that the prison is within her marriage. It is the family that she must liberate from, not the land. Eveline realises at the end that by leaving the land she could leave a prison only to enter another one that could be created by Frank. She decides that the evil you know is better than the one you do not.
The last thing they differ in is escape vs freedom. Eveline seeks escape, but Nora seeks the freedom. Eveline wants to escape her reality by turning to another made by Frank; she wants to go to the other land where her unhappiness does not exist. “Escape! She must escape! Frank would save her. He would give her life, perhaps love, too”(Joyce 3). Nora, however, wants to liberate from the whole system. Not escape a man by going to another, but by discovering what she could be outside others. “It is the need of every individual to find out the kind of person he or she really is and to strive to become that person”(Templeton).


Works Cited
Ahmad, Rayees, and Aasif Rashid Wani. “The Concept of Feminism in Henrik Ibsen’s a Doll’s House.” Journal of Literature, Languages and Linguistics, vol. 47, 2018.
Bergstrøm, Ida Irene. “The History of Norwegian Equality.” Kilden, 27 Sept. 2013, kjonnsforskning.no/en/2015/09/history-norwegian-equality.
Ibsen, Henrik. A Dolls’ House. Smithsonain Institute Press, 1879.Joyce, James. Dubliners. 2016.
Lyons, Johanna. “The End of Pleasure Is Pain”: Why Eveline Could Not Leave.” The Corinthian, vol. 2, 2000, kb.gcsu.edu/thecorinthian/vol2/iss1/8. Accessed 3 Mar. 2026.
Pope Leo XIII. “CATHOLIC LIBRARY: Rerum Novarum (1891).” Www.newadvent.org, www.newadvent.org/library/docs_le13rn.htm.
Templeton, Joan. Ibsen’s Women. Cambridge University Press, 1997.