Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T00:55:57.996Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ibsen's Nora and the Confucian Critique of the “Unencumbered Self”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Shaun O'Dwyer
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Criticisms of the liberal‐individualist idea of the “unencumbered self” are not just a staple of communitarian thought. Some modern Confucian thinkers are now seeking to develop an ethically particular understanding of social roles in the family that is sensitive to gender‐justice issues, and that provides an alternative to liberal‐individualist conceptions of the “unencumbered self” in relation to family roles. The character of Nora in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House seemingly exemplifies such conceptions of the unencumbered self in her rejection of her housewife role for a more authentic selfhood. Drawing upon the capabilities approach to justice, and positive early Japanese bluestockings’ responses to Ibsen's play, I argue that Nora's character is better understood as exemplifying an ethically compelling disencumbered self in potentially cross‐cultural circumstances: a self criticizing and rejecting social roles that are found to be unjust according to universal, as opposed to particularist, “Confucian” ethical standards.

Type
Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , Fall 2016 , pp. 890 - 906
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ames, Roger, and Rosemont, Henry. 2011. Were the early Confucians virtuous? In Ethics in early China, ed. Fraser, S., Robins, D., and O'Leary, T.Hong Kong: HKU Press.Google Scholar
Book of rites, part I. 2003. Trans. Arthur Waley. Ware, UK: Wordsworth.Google Scholar
Cavell, Stanley. 2005. Cities of words. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Epstein, Brian. 2009. Ontological individualism reconsidered. Synthese 166 (1): 187–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gosse, Edmund. 1908. Henrik Ibsen. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.Google Scholar
Hall, David, and Ames, Roger. 1999. Democracy of the dead. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Hiratsuka, Raicho. 1983. Chosakushu (1): Seito (Collected Works, Vol. 1: Bluestocking). Tokyo: Otsuki Shoten.Google Scholar
Hiratsuka, Raicho. 2006. In the beginning, woman was the sun. Trans. Teruku Craig. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Ibsen, Henrik. 1890. A doll's house. Trans. William Archer. Boston: William Baker.Google Scholar
James, William. 1916. The varieties of religious experience. London: Longman, Green, and Co.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. 1886. The metaphysics of ethics. Trans. J. W. Semple. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clarke.Google Scholar
Kato, Midori. 1999. “Ningyo no Ie” (“A Doll's House”). “Seito”: Josei Kaiho Ronshu (Seito: Collected Essays on Women's Liberation), ed. Horiba, Kiyoko. Tokyo: Iwanami Bunko.Google Scholar
Koyama, Shizuko. 2012. Ryosai kenbo: The educational ideal of “good wife and wise mother” in modern Japan. Trans. Stephen Filler. Boston: Brill.Google Scholar
Li, Chenyang. 1994. The Confucian concept of Jen and the feminist ethics of care: A comparative study. Hypatia 9 (1): 70–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lukes, Steven. 2006. Individualism. Colchester, UK: ECPR Press.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1982. After virtue. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Mencius, .2005. Mencius. Trans. D. C. Lau. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha. 2000. Women and human development: The capabilities approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Mary Louise. 2002. Disruptive acts: The new woman in fin‐de‐siècle France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robeyns, Ingrid. 2003. Sen's capability approach and gender inequality: Selecting relevant capabilities. Feminist Economics 9 (2–3): 61–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosemont, Henry. 2006. Two loci of authority: Autonomous individuals and relational persons. In Confucian cultures of authority, ed. Ames, R. and Hershock, P.Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Rosemont, Henry. 2015. Against individualism: A Confucian rethinking of the foundations of morality. Lanham, Md.: Lexington.Google Scholar
Sandel, Michael. 1989. Religious liberty: Freedom of conscience or freedom of choice? Utah Law Review 3: 597–65.Google Scholar
Sandel, Michael. 1998. Democracy's discontent. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya. 1995. Gender inequality and theories of justice. In Women, culture, and development: A study of human capabilities, ed. Nussbaum, Martha and Glover, J.Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 1991. The ethics of authenticity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Templeton, Joan. 1989. The doll house backlash: Criticism, feminism, and Ibsen. PMLA 104 (1): 28–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomida, Hiroko. 2004. Hiratsuka raicho and early Japanese feminism. Boston: Brill.Google Scholar
Ueda, Kimi. 1999. “Ningyo no Ie” wo yomu (Reading A Doll's House). “Seito”: Josei kaiho ronshu (Seito: Collected Essays on Women's Liberation), ed. Horiba, Kiyoko. Tokyo: Iwanami Bunko.Google Scholar
Ueno, Yoko. 1999. “‘Ningyo no Ie’ yori Jyosei no Mondai e” (“From ‘A Doll's House’ to the Woman Problem”). “Seito”: Josei kaiho ronshu (Seito: Collected Essays on Women's Liberation), ed. Horiba, Kiyoko. Tokyo: Iwanami Bunko.Google Scholar
Yosano, Akiko. 1999. “Sozorogoto” (“Rambling Talk”). “Seito”: Josei kaiho ronshu (Seito: Collected Essays on Women's Liberation), ed. Kiyoko Horiba. Tokyo: Iwanami Bunko.Google Scholar