Breaking The Boundaries between The Seen and Unseen Side of A Woman: Katherina and Nora.

According to the Oxford Advanced Learning Dictionary, character is defined as all the qualities and features that make a person, groups of people and places different from others. The Taming of The Shrew by William Shakespeare and A Dolls House by Henrik Ibsen were both set in a different era, with the previous during the Elizabethan era while the latter was set in a modern era. Although it is set in different era, we could see that both the characters in the play faced conflicts both internally and externally. The only difference is how the characters in the play dealt with both the forces. Internal conflict means that it is within ones psyche, more to like man against himself while external conflict is beyond the characters control and out of the characters self and its more to man against man or man against nature. One of Kates internal conflict is that she have to force herself to submit to her husband. In Taming of the Shrew, Kate finally submits to her husband although she did it half-heartedly. After being married to Petruchio, her life is actually being controlled by a mad man. It is just like she is living her life for someone else and not being able to do anything for her own. She finally have to let go of her shrewishness just to get a better life as she knows that being a shrew will not help as Petruchio is much more crazier then she is. Therefore in the end, she enslaves herself to Petruchio even though it is done half- heartedly and more of being forced to. Although in the beginning, Kate might look stupid for not standing up for her own self, her virtues and her value as a strong lady, but in the end, Kate gained more reputation than the other ladies and she earned her husband and herself a good name by transforming into a woman who submits everything to her husband. Another internal conflict that Katherina must deal with is her own pride as a human being in the eyes of her father. For Katherina, Bianca is Baptistas treasure and she is nothing to him until she must dance barefoot on Biancas wedding and because of Baptistas love to Bianca, Katherine will have to lead apes in hell. However, after all she has said and done, she warned Baptista to not talk to her as she sits and cry. This could mean that she is hurt inside despite being such a shrew externally. After she married Petruchio and underwent his taming process, she is a changed person. Towards the end, she redeemed herself in the eyes of her

father by being an obedient wife. Her father was also very happy to see the change that he added another dowry for Petruchio. One of the external conflict that we could see in The Taming of the Shrew is Baptista treated his daughters as a commodity. Baptista is actually a very materialistic old man as he does not see his daughters as human beings but more towards a product for him to trade in order to bring more wealth to the family. Baptista tries hard to get rid of Katherina. Therefore, he made that rule that Katherina must first be wedded off before others can come for Biancas hand, hoping that the suitors for Bianca will be kind enough to find Katherina a suitor, and indeed he was right. One of the suitor, Hortension introduces Katherina to Petruchio and Petruchio then came to Baptista and asked for Katherinas hand. Not long after that, Baptista agrees to the wedding. All he cares is that once Kate has been gotten rid of, he can now concentrate on selling Bianca to the highest bidder. Even Gremio was surprised at how fast the match was seal. Another external conflict faced by Katherina is that she must deal with a mad husband. Petruchio made Katherina obey all he say by giving her a torturous life. Katherina have to deal with a man mad and a torturing husband after she has married him. Petruchio has already started to control Kates life ever since the wedding day. His ultimate target is to tame Katherina and he wants Katherina to be just a normal household Katherina and no longer Katherina the shrew. He also intends to make Katherina sees the world as he does. Right after their marriage, he did not even let Katherina stay for the banquet, instead he took her off to his house. Back at his house, he starts the taming process and he deprives Katherina of food and sleep. In the second play, which is A dolls house, Nora also faced both internal and external conflict. One of the internal conflict in A dolls house is that Nora who is always perceived by her husband as an immature lady who is not capable of doing anything serious, is actually a strong lady deep in her because she actually saved her husbands life all by herself without letting others know. Its undeniable that Nora does love her husband very much. This is because she tries to save him on her own by getting a loan of 250 pounds from Krogstad in order to go to Italy just like what the doctors has advised even though she knew that by taking a loan, it means that her reputation will more or less gets tarnished. Nora has been a very strong woman during the hard time in her life. She made a loan from Krogstad, fraud her

Papas signature and try to repay her debts by all kinds of ways. She was really strong as she went through this all by herself in the name of love. Besides that in order to collect more money, she even find jobs so she could earn some money. This can be proven from her conversation with Mrs. Linde well, then I have found other ways of earning money. Last winter I was lucky enough to get a lot of copying to do, so I locked myself up and sat writing every evening until quite late at night. Many a time I was desperately tired, but all the same it was a tremendous pleasure to sit there working and earning money. It was like being a man. Besides that, Nora also did needlework, crochet-work, and embroidery just to help her husband loosen up his burden as he did not have good prospect during that time. Nora is actually a very good wife as she who has always been showered with all the good things in life is willing to sacrifice for her husband.

In A Dolls House, another of Nora internal conflict is that she have to force herself to be a liar. In order for Nora to preserve her reputation in others eyes especially Torvald, she turns into a very good liar. Nora knows that if her secret of borrowing money from Krogstad in leaked out, her reputation will be tarnished. Therefore, she comes up with all sorts of lies and she manipulated others just to save her own image. Take example from the play when Krogstad came to her house to see her while Torvald was away. Helen actually saw Krogstad but she made sure Helen will not mention about it to Torvald. Besides that, in order to keep her reputation, she also manipulated Christine by asking her help as she knows that both Krogstad and Christine knew each other long time ago. Besides that, she keeps pleading Torvald to keep Krogstad at the bank and not fire him because of his past mistakes just to protect her ownself, her image and the secret that Krogstad is holding. She did everything just to protect her own reputation in her husbands eyes as she knows that her husband is against borrowing money from others.

One of Noras main external conflict is that nora is being manipulated by Krogstad. Krogstad uses Nora to prevent himself from being sacked . he knew that Nora can help him since Noras husband, Torvald Helmer is made the new bank manager. He needed Noras help very badly because he knew Torvald will sack him as Helmer once committed a crima that is

similar to what Nora has did. He also knew that Nora is capable of helping him because of her influence to her husband. Take the excerpt as example, Krogstad: Mrs. Helmer, you will be so good as to use your influence on my behalf.

Another of Nora external conflict is that Noras life is actually very much controlled by Torvald. He knew that Nora is a sweet tooth and enjoys having macaroons but he disallowed her to eat any of it let alone have it in possession in his house because he said the macaroon will only spoil Noras teeth. Towards the end, we can clearly see that Torvald very much controlled Noras life when Nora said to him You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as you- or else I pretended to, I am really not quite sure of which- I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other. Finally when she told Torvald that she have been nothing but his doll-wife. This eventually means that Torvald has controlled her like a doll and she just follows even though it is against her own virtues.

Towards the end, we can see that both the characters eventually freed themselves from the men who once tried to control their life. Although they two did it in two different ways, I will have to say that I respected the way Katherina did it compared to Nora. For me, Katherina actually solved her problem for good as for Nora, she is just a coward who try to run away from the harsh realities of life, by leaving her husband although her husband has already forgiven her. A wife should never ever leave the wife after a marriage, instead a wife should always listen to the husband and bear with all his faults and doings although they might not agree to the action of their husband.Take the Malay saying for example Syurga terletak di tapak kaki suami

REFERENCES

Baldick, C. (2008). Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, United States: Oxford University Press Inc, New York. Kirszner, L and Mandell, S. (2001), Literature: Reading, Reacting and Writing (4th ed), Orlando: Harcourt College Publishers Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary (8th ed) (2010). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shakespeare, W. (1992), The Taming Of The Shrew, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press