THE RIFT BETWEEN FEMALE EXPECTATIONS AND MALE IDEALS IN HENRIK IBSEN’S WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN

Abstract

In Henrik Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken, Arnold Rubek exploits two females, Maja and Irene, for accomplishing fame and fortune. He strives to achieve his masculine ideals at the cost of their feminine expectations. He chooses Irene as his muse who performs her given role being aware that she must accept her servicing identity in a patriarchal society. She forces her to imitate the woman of his artistic mission. The other female, Maja wants to become his ideal wife, performing everything to fulfill his wishes. Realizing that her husband wants to discard their marital bond she leaves him, and finds another male for her. In this play gender inequality and mechanism of power lie at the core of the male-female relation. The unequal male-female relation gives birth to a perpetual rift in the society. This paper intends to present the rift between female expectations and male ideals in Henrik Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken. It also seeks to explore how female expectations are shaped, modified, and even transformed by male ideals, and how females accept their instrumentality under the constant surveillance of male standards. It will apply Michel Foucault’s theorization of Jeremy Bentham’s idea of panopticon to explain the disciplinary mechanism of patriarchal society which practices power on females, and strategically make them account for the torment and oppression they undergo in the hegemonized society.