A Comparative Study of the Levels of Agency in Ibsen’s “Dollhouse” and Mehrjoui’s “Sara” Based on Allen Speight’s Reading of Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit”

In the book Hegel, Literature and the Problem of Agency, Allen Speight tries to link three levels of agency to three genres in literature by examining the Phenomenology of the Spirit: Tragedy, comedy and romantic novel. Examining the agency of the characters in different works is somehow examination of the extent to which their actions belong to them; to what extent they find themselves in their actions. Hegel, at the first place, implicitly considers the highest limit of agency to be social, and secondly, with the concept of forgiveness, he outlines the type of agency suitable for modern moral life, which after Kant’s revolution, autonomy has become one of its important components. The reason why Hegel refers to narrative works to describe this process, sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly, is because action has fundamental importance in both agency and narration. In this article, while raising Speight’s reading of the Phenomenology of the Spirit, agency in Ibsen’s Doll’s House and Mehrjoui’s film adaptation of it (Sara) are examined. In both of these works, the main character, after experiencing retrospective and dramatic Moments, must prepare for an important Moment, that is, forgiveness, but her counterpart cannot reach this level of agency. Of course, in Mehrjooi’s version, more emphasis is placed on the conciliatory and balanced aspect of forgiveness than in the original version, and it makes its image more specific and pleasing.