Titanic and A Doll's House

When reading A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, I thought of a scene from the 1997 movie Titanic. Here is how the scene plays out- seventeen year old Rose is on the luxury liner the RMS Titanic with her wealthy fiance Cal. However, one night she decides to go out with a young artist named Jack from a low social class. When Cal confronts Rose about her indiscretions with Jack, he says to her;

Cal: "My fian... my fiance! Yes, you are, and my wife. My wife in practice if not yet by law, so you will honor me. You will honor me the way a wife is required to honor a husband. Because i will not be made a fool of, Rose. Is that in anyway unclear?"
Rose: "No"

This scene relates to A Doll's House because Cal's words ("You will honor me") reflect the old ways of thinking about marriages and women's involvement in them. It was thought that men were the strong providers, and women were sensitive and dependent and their only jobs were to be a good wife and mother. In A Doll's House, Torvald tells Nora, "First and foremost, you are a wife and mother" (Act 3). Torvald says this to her when he tells him that she is going to leave him so she can find out for herself who she is and what she wants to do with her life. It was very radical for a women to act like this back in the 1800s. It was so radical in fact, that Ibsen was forced to write and alternative ending to his play shortly before its debut in Germany because of fear that it would not be accepted.


When Cal says, "Because I will not be made a fool of, Rose", he is reflecting the views of Torvald in A Doll's House. In the play, Torvald does many things to ensure that he will not be embarrassed by his wife. For example, the main reason behind making such a showing of firing Krogstad was that he did not want people in town and his business to think that he could be swayed by the beliefs of his wife. Also, Torvald listened to Nora when she asked him to not open the letters and to instead help her on her dance because, if she screwed up the tartanella in front of everyone, it would make Torvald feel like a fool. So, back then, men not only kept their wives in check because they thought the only job they could perform was the job of "caretaker", but they also kept them in check because a rogue wife would be considered an embarrassment.