a comparative analysis of waiting for godot and henrick ibsen's a doll's house

"Two almost completely different plays, A Doll’s House and Waiting for Godot are in fact, very similar in terms of two sets of character relationships. Through the repressive husband, Torvald, and Pozzo, the master of Lucky, may appear to have little to no common qualities, their treatment of their respective partners is truly quite similar. Torvald of A Doll’s House treats his wife, Nora, as he believes a wife should be treated - he leaves her to take care of the children, and views her as little more than a romantic plaything that he can easily manipulate into carrying out his own wills. Pozzo of Waiting for Godot follows suit almost identically; although Lucky is his slave, he treats him deliberately badly. Nora, to Torvald, is merely a ‘silly girl,’ someone younger than him in face and in mind. To him, her only jobs in his household are to take care of the children (which she generally leaves to their nanny) and to do the basic shopping, (though he scolds her for spending what he views to be too much money on the children’s Christmas gifts.) Lucky, on the other hand, is lucky to receive even the slightest bit of attention from Pozzo. He is treated most similarly to an abused dog, underfed, and neglected. Pozzo throws him the bones from his own food in order to feed him; he does not think about the lack of nutritional quality, only of his own needs first. Both Pozzo and Nora are maltreated characters in their respective plays, Nora by her husband, and Lucky by Pozzo, both utilized only for their practical and entertaining aspects. Though Nora of A Doll’s House is repressed and mistreated by her controlling husband, Lucky suffers abuse and neglect from his master, therefore making him the more unfortunate of the two." (1)