A Doll 's House Vs. Three Sisters

Moran

Katie Moran

Miss Mandeville

College Composition 1st hr

23 November 2004

A Doll ’s House Vs. Three Sisters

When reading A Doll’s House and Three Sisters there was a lot of comparisons that I noticed. The comparisons were not just between characters, but also the setting and the everyday life situation. Three Sisters was a very good book, and very interesting. When comparing A Doll’s House and Three Sisters these are the major comparisons that I found, both Nora and the sisters want to go back to their home town, Irena lives to get up early and work while Nora had no choice, Nora learned everything from her father, and the sisters did not learn hardly anything fro their fathers.
In the play A Doll’s House it takes place where the husbands are basically in charge of the women. They make all the decisions for them, the way they want it to be done. If women were to speak up to her husband she would be looked down upon. So you can see that it is very important that the wife stay in line with what is expected of her.
In the play Three Sisters, they seem to have options. They can choose to work or anything else that they want to do. It is not as if they are free to do as they please, but they have more of a control over themselves; especially when making decisions.
In both the plays, Nora and all of the sisters want to go back to their hometown. In A Doll’s house, Nora decides that she is going to go back home in the end. She has about enough of her husband Torvald and wants to go back home and start her life over. Nora says that she misses it back home and wants to go back there to get educated. She feels that Torvald has taken so much away from her and she wants to gain it back, by going back home. When Nora lived back at home she lived with and was raised by her father and the maid. She never had a real mother, so the maid was her mother figure.
In the Three Sisters all the sisters want to go back to their hometown, because they miss it. One of the sisters Olga has a very strong attitude about going back there and living there one day (17). When the sisters lived in Moscow they lived with there father and their mother until she passed away. They were all close to their father; especially after all he was the only one that he had.

This is a preview of the whole essay

A big difference between the two plays was, how when it came to working, Nora did not and Irena does, but on her own. When A Doll’s House was written it was taken place, when women did not have a choice to work. During the time period of 1879, the husbands went out all day everyday to work and make all the money, when the women stayed home with the children. Also, being raised by her father her whole life was not much of a big help. Nora’s father always told her what to do and made decisions for her. So all of Nora’s life, it seems that it has been made up for her. Through out the play you never could notice if Nora was unhappy staying home all the time, but in the end when she ends up leaving her husband because of, not being able to do want she wants for her self is a major part of that.

In the Three Sisters Irena says that if she does not get up and work then, her friends can refuse to be her friends. Irena wakes up at seven in the morning everyday. All of the sisters were raised by their father. According to Olga she says that their father taught them to wake up at seven in the morning and that Irena is the only one that does it (13). I think that Irena looks at life differently then other women do. Most women during this time period, 1900, mostly have a choice to work but yet still relied on their husbands to make all the money. Irena seems to make working a privilege.

In both the plays there was a difference, with Nora and the three sisters in their learning ways and not learning from their fathers. Being raised by Nora’s father meant that everything would be his way. He would make all the decisions for Nora, she never had a chance to decide for her self want she wanted to do. Nora said that sometimes she felt that she was her fathers doll because she did everything that her dad told her to do. In the end of the play when Nora is telling Torvald that she is leaving to start her life over and make decisions of her own, this is reflecting by the way she was raised.

The Three Sisters were also raised by their fathers. For as much time that they spent with their father they did not learn that much from him. They did indeed learn three different languages which was a major luxury. The three sisters were given the choice if they wanted to learn the languages or not, it was not something that they had to do. The father of all the three sisters seems that he took it more easily on them, when it came to teaching them. He gave them options as apposed to just telling them or making them learn it.

There were slight differences and similarities in both A Doll’s House and Three Sister. The major ones consist of, Nora and the three sisters all want to go back to their hometowns, how Nora is not given a choice to work and the sisters are, and how Nora and the sisters learned from their fathers. Both Nora and the sister want to go back to their hometown. Nora wants to go back to start over her life and the sisters want to go back to visit. Nora is not given a choice if she can work or not, her husband makes all her decisions for her, while the sisters have a choice if they want to work or not. The father of Nora raised her as he wanted her to be, he gave her no choices to make, when the sisters had many options, they made their own decisions. In both these plays, it shows how strong these women can be. At points they can be very different or similar to each other but it just shows how to different people can show the same meaning.

Works Cited

Chekhov, Anton. Three Sisters. New York: Penguin Books Ltd, 1956.