Apara's Topic and Foci

Topic: Women and their relationship with their families

Focus 1: The idea of house vs. home and what it means and how it evolves for Alison in Fun Home and Nora in A Doll's House. Fun Home follows Alison through a large portion of her childhood and adolescence, while A Doll's House takes place over the course of a few days. It would also be interesting to examine the events that trigger Alison's and Nora's changes in perspective.

Focus 2: How both girls/women (again in A Doll's House and Fun Home) cope with the treatment of the men in their life: Alison has an overbearing father, and Nora's husband is also very strongly paternal. Both women eventually manage to at least make steps towards becoming their own person, and I could look at the effects these men have in their life and how these relationships change over time (as well as what prompts these changes).

Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 24, 2018 at 12:43 PM

    Although I haven't read Fun Home or A Doll's House, I really like your topic ideas. I think you could have a lot to work with with the concept of house vs. home, and delving deeper into what defines each one for the characters. Is the definition of home the same for Nora and Alison? Do similar events happen to both of them to cause them to think that way?
    For the second focus, I like how you related Alison's father to Nora's husband in that both take on very traditional masculine roles in the family. What qualities do Alison's father and Nora's husband share that make them so "overbearing" in Alison and Nora's lives? Are there any qualities that greatly set the men apart? I don't want to mix you up too much, but would it be possible to combine your two foci? How do the men in Alison's and Nora's lives contribute to their definitions of house vs. home? If the relationships evolve over time, does this have an effect on the women's ideas of home? I hope this helps! I think you have fantastic ideas to work with!

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