Abstract
Henrik Ibsen in his drama A Doll's House vividly shocked his contemporary audiences of 1879, unaccustomed to the radical and novel insights on the relationship between husband and wife he displayed through his heroines' emancipation, from her role of a self content wife in a superficial marriage to her brave refusal of this specific role society was imposing on her. Tennessee Williams in A Streetcar Named Desire, one of his most successful and psychologically-rich modern tragedies, presents to us the progressive mental demise of a genteel aristocratic Blanche Dubois, confronted and trapped in a society whose modern values she cannot comprehend. In these works, both Ibsen and Williams created some of the most vivid and influential depictions of women in our literature, figures which still inspire us and live on today. Nora's emancipation and Blanche's spiritual death, the outcome of each play are brought upon them by the revelation of a secret they both have endeavoured to hide from their entourage.
