Comparison of A Doll's House and Oedipus RexIbsen's play, "A Doll's House," serves as an example of the type of problem-based drama that distinguishes Ibsen from many of his contemporaries . The dialogue of the play is not poetic, but very naturalistic, and the characters are recognizable people. Given the sense of modernity that the work possesses, it seems unusual to compare it to a Greek tragedy produced more than two thousand years earlier. Upon closer inspection, however, one notices some similarities between the way "A Doll's House" is told and a tragedy like Oedipus Rex. Both “Oedipus” and “A Doll's House” describe disastrous events that happen to two very different characters. At the beginning of Oedipus we meet a hero who is almost universally adored. Oedipus is a popular king who at the end of the play will be reduced to the lowest possible level. Classically the tragic hero began the play as a man of high position as this made his death even more tragic. The fact that the tragic center of Ibsen's work is female and not particularly linked to birth is a marked departure from the classical condition of tragedy. Ibsen moved many such concepts and placed them in a domestic context. To see how Nora can be seen as a true tragic heroine it is useful to examine some of the concepts often used in Greek tragedy. In both plays the troubles that befall the main characters are due to their own actions committed by Oedipus. a series of huge errors whose meaning you don't really understand until it's too late. In "A Doll's House", Nora borrows a sum of money, an action that will destroy her family. The idea that the tragedy of a play begins with an embrace... middle of paper... 2-838.O'Brien, Michael J. Introduction. In Twentieth-Century Interpretations of Oedipus Rex, edited by Michael J. O'Brien. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968. Segal, Charles. Oedipus Tyrannus: tragic heroism and the limits of knowledge. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993. Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. Trans. by F.Storr. no pag.Available http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/browse-mixed new?tag=public&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&part=0&id=SopOedi"Sophocles" In World Literature Western, edited by Brian Wilkie and James Hurt. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1984.Van Nortwick, Thomas. Oedipus: the meaning of a male life. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998. Watling, E.F. Introduction. In Sophocles: The Theban Comedies, translated by E. F. Watling. New York: Penguin Books, 1974.