The Significant Roles of Women in A Doll’s House, Candide, and The Epic of Gilgamesh
...her brothers’ and her sick mother. Anne, the nurse, sacrificed her own and her daughters life together by abandoning her daughter in order to give her daughter the chance for a better life. Anne gave up being a mother to her own daughter to become Nora’s mother figure and nurse. Nora, Christine, and Anne were all strong, levelheaded women who made selfless sacrifices for their loved ones. I think that Ibsen purposely created dynamic female characters to further illustrate the idea of the social lie and duty in Norway in the late 1800’s. The female characters were dynamic in that they acted the way they were expected to in front of society and another way with each other or behind society’s back. In Candide the female characters were the objects of sexual exploitation. Sexual chastity was a valued quality that was continually stripped away from the female characters by barbaric men who took advantage of these women sexually because of their status and strength as men. Both Cunegonde and the Old Woman were raped and forced into sexual slavery. In “the best of all possible worlds” these two women would have led a life of status and been virgins until their wedding night. Voltaire added the violent sexual exploitation to further illustrate his point of there being no such thing as a perfect world. Paquette was Cunegonde’s chambermaid but when the family palace was raided she was forced into prostitution as a profession because she had no skills and no other way of supporting herself. These three women were all at the mercy of men who overpowered them both physically and in status. Voltaire satirized the idea of virginity and showed that it was almost impossible to remain pure in an imperfect world. In The Epic of Gilgamesh women played a seductive role. This is one of the oldest written works dating back to sometime before 2000 BCE. The female characters were almost equal to the men and had important roles in society. Its quite interesting to see how the roles of women have increased or decreased throughout history depending on the time period. The epic begins with the temple harlot being sent to the forest to find Enkidu and tame him. She turns the wild Enkidu into a man by seducing him and showing him the ways of sex and human contact. After Enkidu had been with the Harlot, the wild animal community no longer accepted him. This shows that women hold the power of sex and have the power to change wild beasts into men. Ishtar, the goddess of love and war, tried to seduce Gilgamesh but he turned her down because of all her past love failures. She was infuriated and sent down the Bull of Heaven to Uruk. Great tragedy fell upon Uruk because of the Bull of Heaven, but Enkidu and Gilgamesh killed it. This shows the great power of a woman who is used to getting whatever she wants and for once not getting what she wants. ...