Both A Doll's House and the Antigone are stories of young women who clash with the conventional male-dominated power in their society. Anouilh's Antigone and Ibsen's A Doll's House have young female protagonist who struggle against male opponents with whom they have family ties. Antigone conflicts with her uncle Creon in the novel Antigone, while Nora Helmer opposes her husband Torvald in A Doll's House. In both plays, the male antagonist embodies the values of the society and state. Creon, the ruler of Thebes, upholds commitment to his people. In a related sense, Torvald is a good bourgeois citizen who is thoroughly socialized and who unquestioningly supports the ideology of middle class society. He constantly monitors his and Nora's behavior against what society expects: "From now on, happiness doesn't matter; all that matters is saving the bits and pieces, the appearance."(Act III, 188)
             Heredity and the past are of central importance to both Anouilh and Ibsen. Each playwright's protagonist pays for sins inherited from their father. Antigone is the dutiful daughter of Oedipus who cares for her blinded father, sister of the beautiful Ismene, the brothers of Polynices and Eteocles, who are killed in a civil war against each other, the niece of Creon, who is a major cause of her destruction, and the fiancé of Haemon, who kills himself in order to rest eternally with her. Torvald says Nora inherited her father's sinful ways: "I should have known. All you fathers' flimsy values-Be still! All your father's flimsy values have come out in you. No religion, no morals, no sense of duty" (Act III, 187).
             Antigone gains admiration because of her devotion to her dead brother, her respect for the gods and their law, her firm resolutions, and her fearlessness. In deciding to perform the rites of the burial of her dead brother, Polynices, she is inf...