Digital essay
IT's A DOLL'S WORLD
For most young girls, receiving a beautiful doll for their birthday is worth squealing over and celebrating. Dolls with long, blonde hair, flawless skin, and wide eyes, are strewn across little girls’ bedrooms--a symbolic image of society’s take on beauty. These girls grow up with Barbie ingrained in their heads: the beautiful dolls with perfect features and picturesque lives. Young girls strive to be like their dolls and as they mature, set their standards on the models and celebrities who have achieved such a goal. They devour magazines, social media, and Instagram pages that portray the beautiful bodies they so long to have. Little do they know:
they are already dolls.
Everyone is.
I'm not just talking about the women and men who intentionally go through plastic surgery and pack on makeup to transform into real-life Barbie dolls, like this woman. I'm discussing actual everyday people, like you and me.
Dolls are malleable figures, easy manipulated by the people that own them. They control the doll’s movements, their attitudes, and even their words. Everyone has been a doll at some point in their life, allowing another to dictate their actions, motives, thoughts, and feelings. Henrik Ibson’s play, "A Doll’s House," portrays this as Nora, one of the dolls of the house, finally begins to understand who she is after stating that her father “played with [her] the way [she] played with her dolls.” This sudden epiphany allows Nora to finally break free of being the doll in her marriage. She understands that her life was “passed from [her] Daddy’s hands” (1149) into her husband’s and she is being treated the same way: like a doll.
EVERYONE IN society feels the need to be validated.
It’s why so many students and adults strive to fill up their resumes, join more groups, take more AP classes, and fill up their schedules to the brim--a superfluous amount of things that show society we have done something with our lives. It’s the need to have money, possessions, fame, and business so that we can show the world that we are valid. Our existence is valid. Nora portrays this need for validation when she tells Kristine that “it’s lovely to have lots and lots of money” (1098) after mentioning her husband getting a raise. This need to feel validated often dictates our existence and we allow others to dictate us in turn. It’s a hierarchy of being condescending, constantly comparing, and competing.
Nora is a woman who does all three of those things. She acts condescending to Kristine when she tells Kristine that “[she's] just like all the others" (1100), but Kristine also acts this way to Nora. She calls Nora a “child” (1100) and tells her that she’s “known so little trouble and hardship.” This also goes back to comparing and competing. People compare their lives to each other’s and compete as to who has the busiest schedule, the most hardship, the wiser mind, etc. It’s a constant circle dictated by society’s hand. We all become dolls when we allow these things to take hold of us and dictate our relationships, our standards, and our view of ourselves.
When we allow our constant search of approval and validation to take over our thoughts, we become depressed, suicidal, and filled with anxiety. Situations--even those that are stressful--do not cause these emotions. It is our thoughts that are the culprits. When we believe a thought, no matter who said it or how it was placed into our minds, we surrender ourselves to that thought. Our self-image--how we view ourselves--can be reinforced or tainted depending on our belief of any thought. Which is why the world is so anxious, so depressed, and so unable to cope with many situations.
We are afraid of losing ourselves.
We are afraid that without the validation of others, without the image that we have of ourselves, we are no longer who we thought we were. We are riddled with depression and anxiety because we have to face those thoughts that we choose to believe about ourselves. And so, we seek validation from others to reinforce the idea in our heads of who we think we are. For everything we do, is all brought back to one motive: the need for peace, happiness, and contentment. Nora has the same incentive.
As the play comes to a close, Nora finally begins to understand how she has let others and society play with her like she’s a doll and how she has let them do this her entire life. She tells Torvald that she has to “grow up [herself]” (1152) and leave. She must divorce her husband, so “[his] doll is taken from [him]” (1153). Only then can she mature, if she leaves her doll house--the house where everyone is being played by society’s hand. It is through leaving that Nora will begin to understand that being condescending, comparing, and competing were draining her of her life and making her into society’s doll. By maturing, she will slowly begin to become the controller and not the one being controlled.
She will be the living girl in a doll’s world.
As the play comes to a close, Nora finally begins to understand how she has let others and society play with her like she’s a doll and how she has let them do this her entire life. She tells Torvald that she has to “grow up [herself]” (1152) and leave. She must divorce her husband, so “[his] doll is taken from [him]” (1153). Only then can she mature, if she leaves her doll house--the house where everyone is being played by society’s hand. It is through leaving that Nora will begin to understand that being condescending, comparing, and competing were draining her of her life and making her into society’s doll. By maturing, she will slowly begin to become the controller and not the one being controlled.
She will be the living girl in a doll’s world.
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