Volume III Special Issue I January 2023

Name of Author : Shibymol Babu

Title of the paper : The Mad Woman in the Sea; Choosing between Isolation and Engagement: Sea or Land in Henrik Ibsens The Lady from the Sea

Abstract:  The Madwoman in the Attic, a discourse upon the writings of eighteenth century literature portraying women either as monsters or angels, has made the dictum famous. Henrik Ibsen exposes this demand of choosing between an exemplary housewife and an isolated outsider through the typology of the place in which the woman loves to spend her time in his play The Lady from the Sea’. In the play, the woman who spends a lot of time in the sea turns out to be liberated, but she is labelled as mad and is an outsider to the family. When she decides to stay in the land, she is loved and bound to the traditional roles expected of a woman. In this paper, I would like to analyse how this selection of one’s environment defines a woman’s identity and how society maps women as isolated or engaged depending on whether she prefers sea or land.

Keywords : Mapping Women, Isolation, Liberation, Womanhood, Dilemma

DOI :

Page Number : 186-188