a doll's house critical essays

A Doll’s House: Critical Analysis

Henrik Ibsen is one of the greatest dramatists of English literature . He is the first man to show that high tragedy can be written about ordinary people in ordinary everyday prose . His contribution to the theatre is memorable. His A Doll’s House is a beautiful drama .

A Doll’s House is a problem play or thesis play. Here Ibsen presents the problem and leaves the solution to the readers. The problem is – what is the position of woman in relation to her husband and her home? The play focuses our attention on the conjugal life of a middle class couple. It shows the sad consequences of the subordination of a married woman to the control of her husband. It again shows the method to get out of that predicament. Thus marriage is the major theme of this play. Ibsen is in favour of Nora, the heroine of the play. She wins our sympathy also. Thus it can be said that A Doll’s House is a feminist play.

Ibsen is popular as a dramatist of social realities.He was interested in women’s independence. In A Doll’s House we find that. When the play was staged, it had the effect of bombshell. This theme was completely new to the 19th century Europe. Nora does not only defy her husband at the end of the play but also makes him dwarf. The play had a message for the society. The message was that if a woman is not allowed to establish her own identity, she could not be happy. Thus this play pointed out a particular weakness and flaw in the social fabric. The dramatist diagnosed the malady and lifted the cure to others.

When the play opens, we find that Nora has been leading a life of a pet in her husband’s home. Though her husband loves her, but it seems a love of a superior for somebody lower in rank. He insists that she should exercise economy. He always speaks like a moralist. He advises her not to eat sweets because they would spoil her teeth. He says that she has inherited her habit of extravagance from her father. When she recommends Krogstad’s case to him, he speaks again like a moralist.

As a wife Nora has been very devoted to her husband, Helmer. When he falls ill, she takes him to Italy under medical advice. For that she has to borrow money and has even to forge her father’s signature. But she does not tell her husband about her sacrifice for a long time. She hides it because it would heat Helmer’s self respect and ego. Nora feels that Helmer loves her with equal devotion. She firmly believes that if the worst happens, Helmer would take her whole guilt upon his own shoulders.

There are two reasons that lead to whole trouble between Helmer and Nora. The first reason is that he regards her as his property. He has possessive attitude towards her. The second reason is that when Helmer reads Krogstad’s letter, he becomes furious. His behaviour shows that he is absolutely selfish and self centred. Nora is completely disillusioned about Helmer. That is why she decides to leave Helmer. She gives her reason for leaving. She tells him that first her father and then her husband wronged her. Her father used her as his baby doll and her husband has been treating her as his doll wife. Now she wants to establish her own identity. Thus she takes back her wedding ring and steps out of the house.

At the end of the play our sympathies are largely with Nora. We feel that she is right. Why should a wife be subordinate to her husband? Why should a wife be always servile to her husband? By leaving her house Nora compels husbands to examine their relationship with their wives. On the basis of these facts it can be said that A Doll’s House is a feminist play. It suitably advocates the rights of women.

Thus A Doll’s House is a beautiful play. The play deals with the woman’s predicament. The subject of the play is nothing but the disillusionment of a wife. The play ends with the drastic step taken by a wife. It is the woman in the play who wins our maximum sympathy. In short, it is a problem play or thesis play because it gives rise to a problem in our minds.

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Analysis of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 27, 2020 • ( 0 )

Whether one reads A Doll’s House as a technical revolution in modern theater, the modern tragedy, the first feminist play since the Greeks, a Hegelian allegory of the spirit’s historical evolution, or a Kierkegaardian leap from aesthetic into ethical life, the deep structure of the play as a modern myth of self-transformation ensures it perennial importance as a work that honors the vitality of the human spirit in women and men.

—Errol Durbach, A Doll’s House : Ibsen’s Myth of Transformation

More than one literary historian has identified the precise moment when modern drama began: December 4, 1879, with the publication of Ibsen ’s Etdukkehjem ( A Doll’s House ), or, more dramatically at the explosive climax of the first performance in Copenhagen on December 21, 1879, with the slamming of the door as Nora Helmer shockingly leaves her comfortable home, respectable marriage, husband, and children for an uncertain future of self-discovery. Nora’s shattering exit ushered in a new dramatic era, legitimizing the exploration of key social problems as a serious concern for the modern theater, while sounding the opening blast in the modern sexual revolution. As Henrik Ibsen ’s biographer Michael Meyer has observed, “No play had ever before contributed so momentously to the social debate, or been so widely and furiously discussed among people who were not normally interested in theatrical or even artistic matter.” A contemporary reviewer of the play also declared: “When Nora slammed the door shut on her marriage, walls shook in a thousand homes.”

Ibsen set in motion a transformation of drama as distinctive in the history of the theater as the one that occurred in fifth-century b.c. Athens or Elizabethan London. Like the great Athenian dramatists and William Shakespeare, Ibsen fundamentally redefined drama and set a standard that later playwrights have had to absorb or challenge. The stage that he inherited had largely ceased to function as a serious medium for the deepest consideration of human themes and values. After Ibsen drama was restored as an important truth-telling vehicle for a comprehensive criticism of life. A Doll’s House anatomized on stage for the first time the social, psychological, emotional, and moral truths beneath the placid surface of a conventional, respectable marriage while creating a new, psychologically complex modern heroine, who still manages to shock and unsettle audiences more than a century later. A Doll’s House is, therefore, one of the ground-breaking modern literary texts that established in fundamental ways the responsibility and cost of women’s liberation and gender equality. According to critic Evert Sprinchorn, Nora is “the richest, most complex” female dramatic character since Shakespeare’s heroines, and as feminist critic Kate Millett has argued in Sexual Politics, Ibsen was the first dramatist since the Greeks to challenge the myth of male dominance. “In Aeschylus’ dramatization of the myth,” Millett asserts, “one is permitted to see patriarchy confront matriarchy, confound it through the knowledge of paternity, and come off triumphant. Until Ibsen’s Nora slammed the door announcing the sexual revolution, this triumph went nearly uncontested.”

The momentum that propelled Ibsen’s daring artistic and social revolt was sustained principally by his outsider status, as an exile both at home and abroad. His last deathbed word was “ Tvertimod !” (On the contrary!), a fitting epitaph and description of his artistic and intellectual mindset. Born in Skien, Norway, a logging town southwest of Oslo, Ibsen endured a lonely and impoverished childhood, particularly after the bankruptcy of his businessman father when Ibsen was eight. At 15, he was sent to Grimstad as an apothecary’s apprentice, where he lived for six years in an attic room on meager pay, sustained by reading romantic poetry, sagas, and folk ballads. He later recalled feeling “on a war footing with the little community where I felt I was being suppressed by my situation and by circumstances in general.” His first play, Cataline , was a historical drama featuring a revolutionary hero who reflects Ibsen’s own alienation. “ Cataline was written,” the playwright later recalled, “in a little provincial town, where it was impossible for me to give expression to all that fermented in me except by mad, riotous pranks, which brought down upon me the ill will of all the respectable citizens who could not enter into that world which I was wrestling with alone.”

Largely self-educated, Ibsen failed the university entrance examination to pursue medical training and instead pursued a career in the theater. In 1851 he began a 13-year stage apprenticeship in Bergen and Oslo, doing everything from sweeping the stage to directing, stage managing, and writing mostly verse dramas based on Norwegian legends and historical subjects. The experience gave him a solid knowledge of the stage conventions of the day, particularly of the so-called well-made play of the popular French playwright Augustin Eugène Scribe and his many imitators, with its emphasis on a complicated, artificial plot based on secrets, suspense, and surprises. Ibsen would transform the conventions of the well-made play into the modern problem play, exploring controversial social and human questions that had never before been dramatized. Although his stage experience in Norway was marked chiefly by failure, Ibsen’s apprenticeship was a crucial testing ground for perfecting his craft and providing him with the skills to mount the assault on theatrical conventions and moral complacency in his mature work.

In 1864 Ibsen began a self-imposed exile from Norway that would last 27 years. He traveled first to Italy, where he was joined by his wife, Susannah, whom he had married in 1858, and his son. The family divided its time between Italy and Germany. The experience was liberating for Ibsen; he felt that he had “escaped from darkness into light,” releasing the productive energy with which he composed the succession of plays that brought him worldwide fame. His first important works, Brand (1866) and Peer Gynt (1867), were poetic dramas, very much in the romantic mode of the individual’s conflict with experience and the gap between heroic assertion and accomplishment, between sobering reality and blind idealism. Pillars of Society (1877) shows him experimenting with ways of introducing these central themes into a play reflecting modern life, the first in a series of realistic dramas that redefined the conventions and subjects of the modern theater.

The first inklings of his next play, A Doll’s House , are glimpsed in Ibsen’s journal under the heading “Notes for a Modern Tragedy”:

There are two kinds of moral laws, two kinds of conscience, one for men and one, quite different, for women. They don’t understand each other; but in practical life, woman is judged by masculine law, as though she weren’t a woman but a man.

The wife in the play ends by having no idea what is right and what is wrong; natural feelings on the one hand and belief in authority on the other lead her to utter distraction. . . .

Moral conflict. Weighed down and confused by her trust in authority, she loses faith in her own morality, and in her fitness to bring up her children. Bitterness. A mother in modern society, like certain insects, retires and dies once she has done her duty by propagating the race. Love of life, of home, of husband and children and family. Now and then, as women do, she shrugs off her thoughts. Suddenly anguish and fear return. Everything must be borne alone. The catastrophe approaches, mercilessly, inevitably. Despair, conflict, and defeat.

To tell his modern tragedy based on gender relations, Ibsen takes his audience on an unprecedented, intimate tour of a contemporary, respectable marriage. Set during the Christmas holidays, A Doll’s House begins with Nora Helmer completing the finishing touches on the family’s celebrations. Her husband, Torvald, has recently been named a bank manager, promising an end to the family’s former straitened financial circumstances, and Nora is determined to celebrate the holiday with her husband and three children in style. Despite Torvald’s disapproval of her indulgences, he relents, giving her the money she desires, softened by Nora’s childish play-acting, which gratifies his sense of what is expected of his “lark” and “squirrel.” Beneath the surface of this apparently charming domestic scene is a potentially damning and destructive secret. Seven years before Nora had saved the life of her critically ill husband by secretly borrowing the money needed for a rest cure in Italy. Knowing that Torvald would be too proud to borrow money himself, Nora forged her dying father’s name on the loan she received from Krogstad, a banking associate of Torvald.

The crisis comes when Nora’s old schoolfriend Christina Linde arrives in need of a job. At Nora’s urging Torvald aids her friend by giving her Krogstad’s position at the bank. Learning that he is to be dismissed, Krogstad threatens to expose Nora’s forgery unless she is able to persuade Torvald to reinstate him. Nora fails to convince Torvald to relent, and after receiving his dismissal notice, Krogstad sends Torvald a letter disclosing the details of the forgery. The incriminating letter remains in the Helmers’ mailbox like a ticking time-bomb as Nora tries to distract Torvald from reading it and Christina attempts to convince Krogstad to withdraw his accusation. Torvald eventu-ally reads the letter following the couple’s return from a Christmas ball and explodes in recriminations against his wife, calling her a liar and a criminal, unfit to be his wife and his children’s mother. “Now you’ve wrecked all my happiness—ruined my whole future,” Torvald insists. “Oh, it’s awful to think of. I’m in a cheap little grafter’s hands; he can do anything he wants with me, ask me for anything, play with me like a puppet—and I can’t breathe a word. I’ll be swept down miserably into the depths on account of a featherbrained woman.” Torvald’s reaction reveals that his formerly expressed high moral rectitude is hypocritical and self-serving. He shows himself worried more about appearances than true morality, caring about his reputation rather than his wife. However, when Krogstad’s second letter arrives in which he announces his intention of pursuing the matter no further, Torvald joyfully informs Nora that he is “saved” and that Nora should forget all that he has said, assuming that the normal relation between himself and his “frightened little songbird” can be resumed. Nora, however, shocks Torvald with her reaction.

Nora, profoundly disillusioned by Torvald’s response to Krogstad’s letter, a response bereft of the sympathy and heroic self-sacrifice she had hoped for, orders Torvald to sit down for a serious talk, the first in their married life, in which she reviews their relationship. “I’ve been your doll-wife here, just as at home I was Papa’s doll-child,” Nora explains. “And in turn the children have been my dolls. I thought it was fun when you played with me, just as they thought it fun when I played with them. That’s been our marriage, Torvald.” Nora has acted out the 19th-century ideal of the submissive, unthinking, dutiful daughter and wife, and it has taken Torvald’s reaction to shatter the illusion and to force an illumination. Nora explains:

When the big fright was over—and it wasn’t from any threat against me, only for what might damage you—when all the danger was past, for you it was just as if nothing had happened. I was exactly the same, your little lark, your doll, that you’d have to handle with double care now that I’d turned out so brittle and frail. Torvald—in that instant it dawned on me that I’ve been living here with a stranger.

Nora tells Torvald that she no longer loves him because he is not the man she thought he was, that he was incapable of heroic action on her behalf. When Torvald insists that “no man would sacrifice his honor for love,” Nora replies: “Millions of women have done just that.”

Nora finally resists the claims Torvald mounts in response that she must honor her duties as a wife and mother, stating,

I don’t believe in that anymore. I believe that, before all else, I’m a human being, no less than you—or anyway, I ought to try to become one. I know the majority thinks you’re right, Torvald, and plenty of books agree with you, too. But I can’t go on believing what the majority says, or what’s written in books. I have to think over these things myself and try to understand them.

The finality of Nora’s decision to forgo her assigned role as wife and mother for the authenticity of selfhood is marked by the sound of the door slamming and her exit into the wider world, leaving Torvald to survey the wreckage of their marriage.

Ibsen leaves his audience and readers to consider sobering truths: that married women are the decorative playthings and servants of their husbands who require their submissiveness, that a man’s authority in the home should not go unchallenged, and that the prime duty of anyone is to arrive at an authentic human identity, not to accept the role determined by social conventions. That Nora would be willing to sacrifice everything, even her children, to become her own person proved to be, and remains, the controversial shock of A Doll’s House , provoking continuing debate over Nora’s motivations and justifications. The first edition of 8,000 copies of the play quickly sold out, and the play was so heatedly debated in Scandinavia in 1879 that, as critic Frances Lord observes, “many a social invitation in Stockholm during that winter bore the words, ‘You are requested not to mention Ibsen’s Doll’s House!” Ibsen was obliged to supply an alternative ending for the first German production when the famous leading lady Hedwig Niemann-Raabe refused to perform the role of Nora, stating that “I would never leave my children !” Ibsen provided what he would call a “barbaric outrage,” an ending in which Nora’s departure is halted at the doorway of her children’s bedroom. The play served as a catalyst for an ongoing debate over feminism and women’s rights. In 1898 Ibsen was honored by the Norwegian Society for Women’s Rights and toasted as the “creator of Nora.” Always the contrarian, Ibsen rejected the notion that A Doll’s House champions the cause of women’s rights:

I have been more of a poet and less of a social philosopher than people generally tend to suppose. I thank you for your toast, but must disclaim the honor of having consciously worked for women’s rights. I am not even quite sure what women’s rights really are. To me it has been a question of human rights. And if you read my books carefully you will realize that. Of course it is incidentally desirable to solve the problem of women; but that has not been my whole object. My task has been the portrayal of human beings.

Despite Ibsen’s disclaimer that A Doll’s House should be appreciated as more than a piece of gender propaganda, that it deals with universal truths of human identity, it is nevertheless the case that Ibsen’s drama is one of the milestones of the sexual revolution, sounding themes and advancing the cause of women’s autonomy and liberation that echoes Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and anticipates subsequent works such as Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique.

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Analysis of Henrik Ibsen’s Plays

A Summary and Analysis of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

A Doll’s House is one of the most important plays in all modern drama. Written by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen in 1879, the play is well-known for its shocking ending, which attracted both criticism and admiration from audiences when it premiered.

Before we offer an analysis of A Doll’s House , it might be worth recapping the ‘story’ of the play, which had its roots in real-life events involving a friend of Ibsen’s.

A Doll’s House : summary

The play opens on Christmas Eve. Nora Helmer has returned home from doing the Christmas shopping. Her husband, a bank manager named Torvald, asks her how much she has spent. Nora confides to her friend Mrs Linde that, shortly after she and Torvald married, he fell ill and she secretly borrowed some money to pay for his treatment. Mrs Linde is looking for work from Nora’s husband.

She is still paying that money back (by setting aside a little from her housekeeping money on a regular basis) to the man she borrowed it from, Krogstad – a man who, it just so happens, works for Nora’s husband … who is about to sack Krogstad for forging another person’s signature.

But Krogstad knows Nora’s secret, that she forged her father’s signature, and he tells her in no uncertain terms that, if she lets her husband sack him, Krogstad will make sure her husband knows her secret.

But Torvald refuses to grant Nora’s request when she beseeches him to go easy on Krogstad and give him another chance. It looks as though all is over for Nora and her husband will soon know what she did.

The next day – Christmas Day – Nora is waiting for the letter from Krogstad to arrive, and for her secret to be revealed. She entreats her husband to be lenient towards Krogstad, but again, Torvald refuses, sending the maid off with the letter for Krogstad which informs him that he has been dismissed from Torvald’s employment.

Doctor Rank, who is dying of an incurable disease, arrives as Nora is getting ready for a fancy-dress party. Nora asks him if he will help her, and he vows to do so, but before she can say any more, Krogstad appears with his letter for Torvald. Now he’s been sacked, he is clearly going to go through with his threat and tell his former employer the truth about what Helmer’s wife did.

When Mrs Linde – who was romantically involved with Krogstad – arrives, she tries to appeal to Krogstad’s better nature, but he refuses to withdraw the letter. Then Torvald arrives, and Nora dances for him to delay her husband from reading Krogstad’s letter.

The next act takes place the following day: Boxing Day. The Helmers are at their fancy-dress party. Meanwhile, we learn that Mrs Linde broke it off with Krogstad because he had no money, and she needed cash to pay for her mother’s medical treatment. Torvald has offered Mrs Linde Krogstad’s old job, but she says that she really wants him – money or no money – and the two of them are reconciled.

When Nora returns with Torvald from the party, Mrs Linde, who had prevented Krogstad from having a change of heart and retrieving his letter, tells Nora that she should tell her husband everything. Nora refuses, and Torvald reads the letter from Krogstad anyway.

Nora is distraught, and sure enough, Torvald blames her – until another letter from Krogstad arrives, cancelling Nora’s debt to him, whereupon Torvald forgives her completely.

But Nora has realised something about her marriage to Torvald, and, changing out of her fancy-dress outfit, she announces that she is leaving him. She takes his ring and gives him hers, before going to the door and leaving her husband – slamming the door behind her.

A Doll’s House : analysis

A Doll’s House is one of the most important plays in all of modern theatre. It arguably represents the beginning of modern theatre itself. First performed in 1879, it was a watershed moment in naturalist drama, especially thanks to its dramatic final scene. In what has become probably the most famous statement made about the play, James Huneker observed: ‘That slammed door reverberated across the roof of the world.’

Why? It’s not hard to see why, in fact. And the answer lies in the conventional domestic scenarios that were often the subject of European plays of the period when Ibsen was writing. Indeed, these scenarios are well-known to anyone who’s read Ibsen’s play, because A Doll’s House is itself a classic example of this kind of conventional play.

Yes: the shocking power of Ibsen’s play lies not in the main part of the play itself but in its very final scene, which undoes and subverts everything that has gone before.

This conventional play, the plot of which A Doll’s House follows with consummate skill on Ibsen’s part, is a French tradition known as the ‘ well-made play ’.

Well-made plays have a tight plot, and usually begin with a secret kept from one or more characters in the play (regarding A Doll’s House : check), a back-story which is gradually revealed during the course of the play (check), and a dramatic resolution, which might either involve reconciliation when the secret is revealed, or, in the case of tragedies, the death of one or more of the characters.

Ibsen flirts with both kinds of endings, the comic and the tragic, at the end of A Doll’s House : when Nora knows her secret’s out, she contemplates taking her own life. But when Torvald forgives her following the arrival of Krogstad’s second letter, it looks as though a tragic ending has been averted and we have a comic one in its place.

Just as the plot of the play largely follows these conventions, so Ibsen is careful to portray both Torvald Helmer and his wife Nora as a conventional middle-class married couple. Nora’s behaviour at the end of the play signals an awakening within her, but this is all the more momentous, and surprising, because she is hardly what we would now call a radical feminist.

Similarly, her husband is not nasty to her: he doesn’t mistreat her, or beat her, or put her down, even if he patronises her as his ‘doll’ or ‘bird’ and encourages her to behave like a silly little creature for him. But Nora encourages him to carry on doing so.

They are both caught up in bourgeois ideology: financial security is paramount (as symbolised by Torvald’s job at the bank); the wife is there to give birth to her husband’s children and to dote on him a little, dancing for him and indulging in his occasional whims.

A Doll’s House takes such a powerful torch to all this because it lights a small match underneath it, not because it douses everything in petrol and sets off a firebomb.

And it’s worth noting that, whilst Ibsen was a champion of women’s rights and saw them as their husbands’ intellectual equal, A Doll’s House does not tell us whether we should support or condemn Nora’s decision to walk out on her husband. She has, after all, left her three blameless children without a mother, at least until she returns – if she ever does return. Is she selfish?

Of course, that is something that the play doesn’t answer for us. Ibsen himself later said that he was not ‘tendentious’ in anything he wrote: like a good dramatist, he explores themes which perhaps audiences and readers hadn’t been encouraged to explore before, but he refuses to bang what we would now call the ‘feminist’ drum and turn his play into a piece of political protest.

2 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House”

This powerful play foretold the 1960’s monumental epic of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, A similar awakening for middle class women, of their unnamed discontent within a marriage. Both paved the the way to the Feminist Movement of the 1970’s where with increased consciousness of economic inequities, women rebelled, just as Nora had done. Homage is owing to both Ibsen in his era and Friedan in hers. Today there are increasing numbers of women serving as Presidents of their nations and in the USA a female Vice-President recently elected to that prestigious office.

I remember reading the play while being a college student. It seemed so sad but at the same time so close to real life. Maybe our lives are quite sad after all.

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Ibsen’s A Doll’s House: Critical Analysis

Introduction, marriage as the form of social contract.

Bibliography

Henrik Ibsen’s play “A Doll House” is now being commonly referred to as one of the finest examples of feminist literature of 19 th century. The theme of women’s liberation can be found throughout play’s entirety, even though this theme is being spared of aggressive undertones, with which we usually associate feminist literature of second half of 20 th century. Partially, this can be explained by the fact that “A Doll House” has been written by a man who had never dealt with a gender identity crisis, while being simply interested in portraying spousal relationships between men and women in utterly realistic manner. In this paper we will discuss Ibsen’s play within a context of how it tackles the issue of spousal inadequacy, while aiming to expose author’s ideas, in regards to the subject matter, as such that continue to remain fully valid even in our time.

Play’s storyline cannot be described as being overly complex. Nora Helmer is a married woman, who had helped her husband Torvald Helmer (bank clerk) once by borrowing a large sum of money from the bank, by the mean of having forged her dad’s signature. Torvald is completely unaware of it. Initially, he is being presented to us as a loving husband, who treats Nora in particularly affectionate manner, even though he also appears to be utterly ignorant as to Nora’s basic humanity, while continuing to think of her as pretty but soulless doll. After having discovered a truth that the money he and Nora had spent on having a honeymoon trip, was obtained illegally, Torvald becomes enraged over his wife’s presumed infidelity. In its turn, this opens Nora’s eyes on the fact that she has been loyal to an unworthy man, who is being incapable of addressing life’s challenges outside of norms of conventional morality and for whom continuous observation of social customs meant so much more than ensuring his wife’s happiness. After having realized it, Nora decides in favor of leaving Torvald, who in her eyes has been downsized from a respectful head of the household into a moralistic mediocrity, totally incapable of appreciating Nora in a way she truly deserved.

It is not by a pure accident that the profession of a bank clerk is being traditionally held in contempt by many people. Apparently, this is because of this profession’s utterly mechanistic subtleties, which explains why classical works of European literature usually describe bank clerks as being pretentiously moralistic and spiritually shallow individuals. Throughout play’s entirety, Torvald never ceases to give Nora lectures on morality, without realizing that if it was not up to his wife’s “moral wickedness”, he would have died – it is namely because Torvald was able to spend time in Italy, which had restored his ailing health. In its turn, this brings us to discussion of one of “A Doll House” most important characteristics – in this Ibsen’s play, major characters’ physical appearance and the extent of their intellectual refinement do not reflect their existential value as individuals.

For example – initially, Nora is being shown to us as very naïve woman who takes a great pleasure in lightweight pursuits, such as decorating Christmas tree. The way she goes about dealing with petty domestic problems and the way she talks to Torvald and play’s other characters, prompt us to think of her as nothing but a regular housewife, who is not being burdened with too much intelligence. It is only gradually that we get to realize the full scope of Nora’s individuality, as someone who is being deeply affiliated with masculine values of decisiveness, courage and will-power.

At the end of the play, Nora reveals her true self by coming up with powerful statements, which her husband cannot effectively address: “I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you wanted it like that. You and father have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life. Our home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I was father’s doll-child; and here the children have been my dolls” (Ibsen, Act 3). Alternatively; whereas, at the beginning of the play Torvald seems to be nothing less of a physical embodiment of the concept of manhood, by the time play ends, he is being revealed to us as someone who should have been born a woman, due to his moralistic-mindedness. Even the character that plays the role of a classical villain in this Ibsen’s play – Krogstad, is also being shown to us as psychologically complex individuals, whose behavior appears to be the least affected by truly malicious considerations, on his part.

In “Doll’s House” author does not promote any political agenda. His main objective was to show that women are not only capable of understanding the meaning of such an abstract concept as freedom, but that they are also capable of taking the issue of personal freedom close to heart. However, there is nothing truly “revolutionary” about how Ibsen portrays Nora. Play’s context implies that it is absolutely natural for women to be in charge of raising children and looking after the house. Throughout play’s first two acts, Nora seems to be quite happy about proceeding with her housewife’s routine. Moreover, she does not think about freedom as something that can be attained outside of domestic realm: “Free. To be free, absolutely free. To spend time playing with the children. To have a clean, beautiful house, the way Torvald likes it” (Ibsen, Act 1). It appears that the real reason why relationship between Nora and Torvald had come to an end is because Torvald did not possess necessary psychological qualities that would allow him to act as the head of the family. In other words, we can say that; whereas, Nora was able to perfectly fit into the role of a housewife, Torvald’s lack of “perceptional masculinity” did not allow him to fit into the role of a husband and provider, regardless of how hard he tried to pose as the figure of “moral authority”.

The reason why integrity of Helmers’ family remained intact for quite some time, before Krogstad tried to blackmail Nora, was due to Torvald wife’s kindness –

Nora pitied Torvald to the extent that she would never say anything to him that could cause Torvald to begin doubting his own self-worth: “Torvald has his pride – most men have – he would be terribly hurt and humiliated if he thought he had owed anything to me. It would spoil everything between us, and our lovely happy home would never be the same again” (Ibsen, Act 1). These Nora’s words leave no doubt as to her idealistic nature, as an individual. Also, they explain why Nora remained unaware of Torvald’s unworthiness for a long time – just as any idealist, Nora had constructed a projection of “ideal Torvald” in her mind, while waiting until “real Torvald” would begin living up to her expectations. However, this never happened, simply because there were no objective preconditions for Torvald to finally begin acting like a man.

In his famous book “Sex and Gender”, Otto Weininger provides us with an insight on what accounts for the healthiness of marital relations between man and woman: “Woman makes it a criterion of manliness that the man should be superior to herself mentally, that she should be influenced and dominated by the man; and this in itself is enough to ridicule all ideas of sexual equality” (Weninger, Ch. 10). What is the foremost psychological feature of a particularly intelligent individual? It is the fact that such individual’s existential mode is not being affected by considerations of conventional morality. The fact that

Nora was able to step over the notions of morality, while forging her father’s signature, and the fact that Torvald thought of such her deed as being “morally wicked”, has only one possible implication – psychologically speaking, Nora was more of a man, as compared to her simple-minded but “morally upstanding” husband.

Thus, we can say that, despite what is being assumed about “A Doll House” by majority of literary critics, this play does not promote the feministic idea of “gender equality”, but the idea that many men do not have a moral right to think of themselves as being superior to their wives, due to these men’s deep-seated psychological femininity. Women’s traditionally submissive social role comes as a result of men having embraced the duty of provider. This duty implies men’s ability to step over the notions of conventional morality, when necessary, in order to save the family. Marriage is nothing but a form of social contract. If, for whatever the reason (in Torvald’s case, it was his conformism), man fails to live up to his duty of a provider, wife gets a legitimate excuse to break the contract. This is exactly what Nora does at the end of the play: “Listen, Torvald. I have heard that when a wife deserts her husband’s house, as I am doing now, he is legally freed from all obligations towards her. In any case, I set you free from all your obligations” (Ibsen, Act 3).

Nevertheless, the fact that Nora decided to break up with Torvald does not necessarily mean that this was because she got fed up with “male chauvinism”, as many today’s feminists suggest – such her decision simply signified the strength of her resolution to find a worthy man to sign up a new “social contract” with. Apparently, Nora had realized the full scope of

Torvald’s worthlessness, as someone who was only good for holding on to his pathetic job, while continuing to come up with pseudo-philosophical statements about the importance of saving money. Thus, we can say that at the end of the play Nora does attain freedom, but such her newly attained freedom is not being concerned with Nora’s hypothetical intention to start wearing pants, while promoting “women’s liberation”, but with Nora’s realization of her true value as an attractive, intelligent and courageous woman.

The issues that are being discussed in “A Doll House”, continue to affect the realities of 21 st century’s living. It is not a secret that, as time goes by, more and more men in Western countries grow increasingly effeminate, while women grow increasingly masculine. Such trend results in the extent “gender equality” between men and women is significantly increased. However, this trend also makes it less likely for husbands and wives to come to mutual understanding. The character of Torvald reminds us a typical White yuppie, who thinks of “making a career” as the solemn purpose of his life. Just like Torvald, such yuppies like to moralize a lot on issues they cannot possibly understand, due to their limited intelligence. Just like Torvald, “white collars” are incapable of admitting even to themselves that their allegiance to the rules of conventional morality is nothing but sublimation of their fear of life’s objective realities.

The reason why character of Torvald is so despicable is because his morals are superficial. He is nothing but a robot, who wants everybody to accept his way of life as being absolutely natural. Moreover, he seriously believes that everybody should act just like him. Unfortunately, people like Torvald continue to exert powerful influence on the process of designing socio-political policies in Western countries. Bible-thumping “torvalds” can never get tired of trying to instill citizens with “Christian values”, despite these “values’” sheer outdatedness.

Therefore, we can say that Ibsen play’s ultimate theme is being concerned with the process of men’s biological and spiritual degradation. The fact that, as time goes by, more and more men appear to grow increasingly incapable of acting as responsible heads of the household, leaves women with no option but to turn into feminists, despite their actual will.

Thus, we cannot consider “A Doll House” as merely literary work. Apparently, Ibsen’s play contains a number of powerful philosophical messages, which can be defined as follows: 1) Whatever comes naturally is automatically moral 2) Christianity cannot remain as a valid basis for social ethics to be based upon 3) Men and women have their own unique socio-biological roles, but this does not mean they are equal, in feminist sense of this word. 4) Marriage is nothing but a form of social contract, which can be broken at any time, if proven counter-productive.

Ibsen, Henrik “A Doll House”. 2001. Project Guttenberg. Web.

Weininger, Otto “Sex and Character”. 1902 (2002). The Absolute. Web.

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Drama Analysis: A Doll’s House Essay

A brief overview of a doll’s house, standard conventions and adaptations of the time, the author’s intent, reception of his work and change, tone, mood, pace and internal thoughts, annotated bibliography, works cited.

A Doll’s House drama has been regarded as a composition whose performance in art has a social significance of mapping out life’s issues. It presents an in-depth development of emotional themes which realistic characters are going through. These characters are trying to deal with dramatic experiences in their lives.

According to Butler and Watt, characters in the play are facing myriads of conflicts that are arising from among themselves, the natural phenomena and society at large (181). Those themes include corruption, violence against women, class division, sexuality and moral dilemmas. Numerous examples of key themes, expression of character and practice have been clearly depicted in the drama A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen.

The position of a person based on the established sacred institutions usually indicates an individual’s status in a social group. In addition, social mobility describes the ability of an individual to comfortably fit among the popular people in society. This paper analyses the position of a woman in society, the aspect of social life as well as the importance of responsibility in the drama A Doll’s House .

Henrik Ibsen was born in March 1828 in a family of six children (Ibsen 5). His birth took place in skien, Norway. At the age of 23 years, he began working in theatres. By this time, he had written Catiline which was his first five-act tragedy play (Ibsen 15). In 1866, he wrote more dramas such as the Brand and Peer Gynt . In 1878, he wrote the Doll’s House which portrayed the classical tragedies of marriage and marriage institutions, human rights and particularly women’s rights.

It is imperative to note that Henrik Ibsen’s three-act play A Doll’s House is a significant drama which tends to critique the marriage norms and attitudes that were very popular during the 19 th century. The drama was composed by Ibsen in 1878. It has characters and themes reflecting the occurrence of tragedies during that period (Ibsen 55). He was drawn by the gender bias that explained the inability among women to stand out in society that was male-dominated.

Gender stereotype in society has been in existence for a long time. In the 19 th century, the position of a woman on the male dominated society, her roles and duties in marriage depicted how low they were regarded compared to men. According to Butler and Watt, this was due to the intensively conventional practices and persuasively convincing reference to what the society saw as acceptable at the expense of others (108).

Though these stereotypes were adopted by majority of the people during this period, Ibsen felt that it was wrong. Having married and treated his wife on an equal platform, he felt that such a culture was supposed to be discouraged as it was highly generalized and it gave wrong perceptions on women and discouraged full capacity building among women (Butler and Watt 108).

They are greatly adoptive in different regions of the globe. During the 19 th century, the differences between men and women in the society were very critical and the act of marriage was defined in terms of their roles and position in marriage and society (Calasanti and Slevin 16).

In this historic time, the events in the play are relevant to the occurrences in society. According to the events taking place in the life of Nora, she is a feminine gender who has been socially disregarded in society compared to men (Ibsen 65). She was considered to be inferior and thus unable to hold major positions in leadership and even perform any vital role in the community.

Besides, established institutions of this time gave less regard to women in society and denied them chances to head or participate in any major decision making procedures in their communities or marriages. The roles of women as exemplified in the play were described and determined in their absence since they were not allowed to hold major positions in the leadership structures (Ibsen 35). This factor prompted them to sacrifice their roles, a consideration that men could not undertake.

This would assist in saving their marriages and become economically stable. Currently, majority of the third world countries still give preference to male children with the females being denied chances to get better education and facilities. Until recently, reports showed that the practice is still practiced because land and other types of property ownership in certain areas of the world has been a reservation for men only as opposed to women (Calasanti and Slevin 16).

In their publication, Butler and Watt argue that art has been widely used for artistic purposes as well as for social purposes such as education and acquisition of general knowledge in life skills (67).

Drama has been one of the media being massively used as the key tool in promoting positive attitudes towards different gender while denouncing the stereotypical behaviors. As indicated earlier, Ibsen’s describes a society that was marred by gender issues and conventions that sidelined and oppressed women (Ibsen 45). Male dominance and institutions played the greatest role in spreading stereotypes in society due to its great availability and massive persuasive and convincing power.

Ibsen’s intention was to use his work to shed light on these issues and also educate the society on the importance of treating women in a fair manner. His drama A Doll’s House highlighted several negative attitudes towards women’s roles and the negative outcomes of the gender stereotypes (Ibsen 45). He aimed at showing both sides of the story, the feelings of the womenfolk and the menfolk with regards to their positions and pointed towards the society making informed decision.

One of the key significances of Ibsen’s work of the A Doll’s House is that he wrote it in the middle of the gender issues and appeared to criticize the systems of the that era. His work received varied receptions with many critiquing its role in fighting institutions of marriage.

Over the years, analysts have sought to establish the best method of addressing resistance to change in behavioral studies. In their argument, Butler and Watt pointed out that most plays and drama aimed at changing societal behavior were defined on the basis of the received response strength (47). Response of individuals is often measured through analysis of aspects such as the willingness to adapt to change demands and flexibility.

It is notable that the play received sharp criticism from his community and some analysts who suggested that actual response to change should be used as the correct measure of the employed mechanism. As time passes by, the drama has become widely accepted due to the calls for change by institutions that fight for human and women’s rights.

Besides, democracy as described in the classical theories of change has been a major pillar towards equating the roles of women to those of men. It has acted as a major platform for total participation in all developments in the society. Increasing democratic space for women in various decision making activities and work has been widely accepted as the call of the drama A Doll’s House . This has massively changed the earlier perception that men are unique and hold positions of advantage than women.

The play A Doll’ House by Ibsen presents important moods and tones from its stage directions, settings and characters. Analysts indicate that Ibsen sets the moods of the characters in the play by using tones. The pacing and alternate agendas are clearly seen by the symbols such as the Christmas tree and the New Year’s Day, the settings of the residence and the chaos witnessed at the end of the play (Ibsen 45).

One of the attitudes seen by the lack of arguments is misunderstandings at the start and progress of the play. The jovial tones of the characters betray the coming pain and frustrations of gender problems faced by women.

One such expression of joy is witnessed in Nora when she receives the Christmas tree from a young man (Ibsen 75). She expresses happiness at the role of paying for the service given by the young man. According to Ibsen, the settings of this mood as well as the fact that all is well at the house of Helmer creates a cozy and warms feelings in the play (144).

Besides glee, the behavior which Torvald is referring to Nora as his pet or lark creates another mood of shock and disdain among the audience (Ibsen 95). Women are seen to be affected by this type of treatment from men and as such, fail to realize and exploit their main potential in society. In addition, social inequality is being brought out as the main source of internal conflicts.

The reflection of social inequality in the play as expressed by the institutions of marriage acts as a major source of disparagement and depiction of tones used when conversing.

Besides, the play reveals internal thoughts from different characters. One such character is Nora who ends Act One by thoughts that shows she feels she will poison her children by the lies she had been telling in order to save Torvald (Ibsen 65). The thought that Krogstad will reveal her lie to Trovald makes her think suicide thoughts in black water.

From the analysis of the drama, it can be concluded that the author was very keen and focused in addressing the needs and current occurrences in society. While the events in the plot of the play may not necessarily be revealing the extent to which human rights have been violated in society, it is still vivid that an equal platform has hardly be en brought into reality especially when addressing the rights of the female gender.

Butler, Tim and Paul. Watt. Understanding social inequality. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2007. Print.

The rising levels of inequalities in society present a major problem on the roles and development of women. The book highlights social disparities as a major problem that faced the communities that lived during the 19 th century. It raises the concerns that this practice denied women an opportunity to contribute and participate in economic and political matters. The authors lament that the problem may not end soon because certain communities still cling to this practice.

Calasanti, Tony and Kathleen, Slevin. Gender, social inequalities, and aging.Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2001. Print.

This book outlines the emerging reality for many communities, families and households of the gender and social dissimilarities affecting society. The authors are of the perspective that this problem ha over the years been reduced through creation of a centralized consideration of ensuring equality for all genders. They also indicate that creating legislations as means of will act as good option in eradication inequalities.

Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House (SparkNotes Literature Guide). Bloomsbury: Spark Publishing, 2002. Print.

The book by Ibsen presents a critical analysis of the drama A Doll’s House which carefully navigates readers’ minds on the occurrences in the lives of characters. Particularly, it effectively brings out the interconnectedness of the different characters in accomplishing their needs despite social imbalances. The author seek to provide the answers to serious social inequities issues by indicating that participation of women must be encompassed on a larger framework with an aim of giving all genders an equal platform in all levels.

Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House. Rockville, Maryland: Serenity Publishing, 2009. Print.

This book A Doll’s House provides an inclusive review of the scenes of the play in both Act One and Act Two and the major settings, themes and moods of the play. Though written for readers who seek to read the play, it is highly valuable as it digs into historical underpinnings that define the period of the 19 th century.

Butler, Tim and Paul, Watt. Understanding social inequality . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2007. Print.

Calasanti, Tony and Kathleen, Slevin,. Gender, social inequalities, and aging .Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2001. Print.

Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House (SparkNotes Literature Guide) . Bloomsbury: Spark Publishing, 2002. Print.

Ibsen, Henrik . A Doll’s House . Rockville, Maryland: Serenity Publishing, 2009. Print.

Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House: Shmoop literature guide , Sunnyvale, BA: Shmoop University Inc., 2010. Print.

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A Doll's House Henrik Ibsen

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A Doll’s House Essays

Influence of antigone on a doll's house anonymous, a doll's house.

It is very difficult to label something as a first in literature. Much the way inventions are often adaptations of previously patented objects, most authors borrow ideas and techniques form pre-existing media. In order to truly classify something...

Burning Down the Doll House Noah David Safford

'Until death do us part.' Well, not always. Everywhere one looks, divorce is plaguing society, and it has become widely accepted throughout the world. Now the violent shredding of a family is shrugged off like the daily weather, and the treasured...

Ibsen's Portrayal of Women Emma Young

'Ibsen's knowledge of humanity is nowhere more obvious than in his portrayal of women' (Joyce). Discuss and illustrate:

In his often quoted 'Notes for a Modern Society' Ibsen stated that, 'in practical life, woman is judged by masculine law, as...

Dressed to Impress: The Role of the Dress in Cinderella and A Doll's House Sarah Scudder

The donning of her [dancing] dress has brought about the turning point of her life.

-Barbara Fass Leavy

Dress and outward appearance have historically played a significant role in the plot development of fairy tales. Perhaps the most famous dress in...

A Doll's House: Revolution From Within Ryan Schildkraut

When Nora Helmer slammed the door shut on her doll's house in 1879, her message sent shockwaves around the world that persist to this day. "I must stand quite alone," Nora declares, "if I am to understand myself and everything about me" (Ibsen...

A Doll's House: Breaking With Theatrical Tradition Kristen Roggemann

In A Doll's House by Ibsen, the author takes the preconditions and viewer expectations of the play format established by earlier writers and uses them to shock his audience rather than lull them into oblivion with simple entertainment. Ibsen...

Analysis of Ibsen's A Doll's House: Feminist or Humanist? Ashley J. Smith

Henrik Ibsen's well known play, A Doll's House, has long been considered a predominantly feminist work. The play focuses on the seemingly happy Helmers, Nora and Torvald, who appear to have an ideal life. Nora is charming, sweet, and stunningly...

A Doll's House: Jungian Analysis Anonymous

In Ibsen's A Doll's House, the path to self-realization and transformation is depicted by the main character, Nora Helmer. She is a woman constrained by both her husband's domineering ways as well as her own. From a Jungian perspective, Nora's...

Truth or Illusion? Hadeel Asaad

Truth or illusion? When the fantasy world people create in order to cope with the absurdity of life is brought too far into reality, it becomes hard to distinguish between authenticity and fiction. This ambiguity is apparent in both Edward Albee's...

Ibsen and Larsen and Women Kathleen M Dooley

Though written almost fifty years apart, and by two authors from completely different backgrounds, Nella Larsen's novel Quicksand and Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House (also known by the title A Doll House) address similar issues concerning the...

The Role of Women in "A Doll's House" and "Ghosts" Danielle St. George

The Role of Women in "A Doll's House" and "Ghosts"

The role of women has changed significantly throughout history, driven in part by women who took risks in setting examples for others to follow. During the Victorian era, women were beginning to...

A Defense of Torvald Helmer Colter Ross Brown

A predicatable response to reading Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House might be a distaste for Nora's feeble-minded obsession with money, possessions, and culture through the first two acts that is then, suddenly and unexpectedly, reversed as those...

A Doll’s House and the Escape From Ideological Suffocation Timothy Sexton

Marxist critic Louis Althusser’s fame rests substantially on the basis of his critical theories surrounding his proposition that human beings are interpellated by society to become complicit in propagating the prevailing ideology even when that...

Existential Models of Love in A Doll's House and The Seducer’s Diary Anonymous

According to Soren Kierkegaard, there are three categorizations of people based on their motive and actions: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. In The Seducer’s Diary , Kierkegaard presents the character of Johannes as a typical...

Gender and Theatricality in A Doll's House Anonymous

The play A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen, offers a critique of the superficial marriage between Nora and Torvald Helmer. Written in 1879, the play describes the problems which ensue after Nora secretly and illegally takes out a loan from a local...

Aristotelian Themes in A Doll's House Anonymous

Considered the precursor of Western dramatic criticism, Aristotle’s notes on The Poetics arms modern readers with the language by which tragedy is evaluated and judged. In this essay I will examine how Aristotle’s classical vision of tragedy...

The Hollowness of Conventional 19th Century Christian Morality in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll’s House and Emile Zola's Therese Raquin. Ryan N Skaria

Both Ibsen and Zola were firm believers in portraying their characters and works from a realistic perspective. Zola founded the naturalist movement in fiction and shared the same general perspective on society as Ibsen, who was the first of a new...

Male and Female Space, Onstage and Off, in Ibsen's A Doll's House Anonymous College

In “Space and Reference in Drama,” Michael Issacharoff argues that diegetic space is offstage space and mimetic space is onstage space. Issacharoff argues that “dramatic tension is often contingent on the antinomy between visible space represented...

A Study of the Significance of Mrs. Linde and Krogstad's Confrontation in Act III to the Plot Development and Thematic Ideas of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House Anonymous College

As one of the leaders of the realist movement in drama, Henrik Ibsen earned his reputation for creating plays that accurately depict the details of ordinary peoples' lives. The first two acts of A Doll's House are safe territory, following the...

Ibsen versus Society: Three Breakthrough Dramas Hannah McComb College

Henrik Ibsen was born in 1828 to a merchant family in the small Norwegian town of Skien. After his family fell into poverty, he was forced out of his education and, at 15, worked as an apprentice in a pharmacy. It was here that he began writing...

Social Criticism in A Doll's House and Look Back in Anger Megan Shannon 12th Grade

The term "social criticism" refers to a type of condemnation that reveals the reasons for malicious conditions in a society which is considered deeply flawed. Indeed, both Ibsen and Osborne, in their respective plays A Doll’s House and Look Back...

Keeping Up Appearances Gayathri Jaikumar College

“A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen, in many ways, addresses the divide between the concept of work itself and the perceptions of one’s own work. In reality, a person’s idea of work can differ from the kind of work actually done. When people think of...

Nora: Subservient and Independent Amy Allison 11th Grade

The opening of the play ‘A Doll’s House’ by Henrik Ibsen provides the audience with an introduction to the protagonist Nora and an insight into the nature of her marriage with Torvald. Even from this early point in the play Ibsen explores the...

The Morality of Relationships in 'A Doll's House' Amy Allison 11th Grade

In his play ‘A Doll’s House’ Henrik Ibsen provides the audience with an insight into life in 19th Century Norway and the injustices that existed in society at the time. Throughout the narrative Ibsen uses the Nora and Torvald’s relationship as a...

A Doll's House

Henrik Ibsen

Literature Notes
Dramatic Structure of A Doll's House
Play Summary
About A Doll's House
Character List
Summary and Analysis
Character Analysis
Nora Helmer
Torvald Helmer
Christine Linde
Henrik Ibsen Biography
Critical Essays
Theme of A Doll's House
Essay Questions
Cite this Literature Note

Critical Essays Dramatic Structure of A Doll's House

Notable for their lack of action, Ibsen's dramas are classical in their staticism. Before the curtain rises, all the significant events have already occurred in the lives of Ibsen's characters, and it is the business of the play to reap the consequences of these past circumstances. The tight logical construction of each drama is the most important factor for the play's plausibility. With this in mind, Ibsen shows how every action of each character is the result of carefully detailed experiences in the earlier life of the person, whether in childhood, education, or genetic environment.

The author shows, for instance, that Nora's impetuosity and carelessness with money are qualities inherited from her father. Krogstad suddenly turns respectable because he needs to pass on a good name for the sake of his maturing sons. Christine returns to town in order to renew her relationship with Krogstad. Finally, to account for Nora's secrecy with regard to the borrowed money, Ibsen shows how Torvald's way of life is devoted to maintaining appearances at the expense of inner truth.

Previous Henrik Ibsen Biography

Next Theme of A Doll's House

A Doll’s House Essay

A Doll’s House was written by Henrik Ibsen in 1879. A Doll’s House is not only one of Henrik Ibsen’s most famous plays, but it has also been seen as the starting point for realist drama. A Doll’s House, along with Brand and Peer Gynt, are often considered to be the first modern plays written in Europe. A Doll’s House is a play about power, money, guilt, duty, and family relationships.

A Doll’s House starts with Mrs. Nora Helmer who decides that her family should have an evening at home to celebrate Torvald’s birthday even though there are various outside activities planned earlier on that day. After getting all the children to bed Nora makes some coffee and brings some cake for herself and Torvald. She notices that the maid is not coming in to clear the table, despite several requests. As it turns out, Aune (the maid) is sick and unable to come to work. Nora remarks on Aune’s “poor condition”, saying she will take up Aune’s duties while Aune is ill.

Eventually, Nora forgets about Aune entirely as she becomes engrossed in her own thoughts of how their life together has become stifling; all play rather than essential sustenance of family life had ceased, with Torvald preferring to read newspapers alone in his study each evening rather than engaging with his wife or children. Nora decides she must break free from the chains that bind her. Aune, who turns up at one point is too sick to help with Nora’s children. Nora promises Aune that she will hire a nurse for Aune once Aune has recovered from her illness.

Aune leaves and Torvald enters. He asks about Aune, not believing that an important event would prevent Aune from attending work. The two converse until Nora suggests that they go out to visit Mrs. Linde (who had earlier announced temporary departure due to poor health). Torvald becomes irate over this suggestion as he does not have time to waste on “unimportant” people currently immersed in newspaper reading. He complains of the dinner being cold, further displaying his ignorance of his family and Aune’s conditions.

Nora sees past Torvald’s narrow-mindedness and decides to sit down and play the piano without his permission. He becomes even angrier because Nora has lost track of time while playing; instead of taking up Aune’s duties, she should be finishing the housework such as what Aune would typically do. Nora sees that her husband is quite ignorant in not understanding why Aune is unable to come into work, yet he will not allow Aune a few days’ leave when needed. She tells Torvald about Aune’s illness, but he does not believe it to be a serious affliction.

Not wanting to argue with him so late night, Nora decides to postpone Aune’s endeavor to find a nurse for Aune. The play moves to the following morning, as Nora narrates her daily routine (how she is to be “the perfect wife”). She is aware of Torvald’s explicit caresses every time he returns home from work, but his attentions are merely symbolic gestures signifying their financial arrangement. Aune enters, having recovered from her illness enough to return to work.

Aune relates that one of Mrs. Linde’s family friends has offered Aune a better-paid position in another town. Aune asks Nora whether she believes she is doing the right thing by leaving Nora in need of help with the children and housework. Aune also asks Nora if Torvald will speak to Aune about her departure. Aune requests that Nora not mention Aune’s leaving to Torvald, because Aune does not want him to feel obliged to give Aune a reference. Aune also discloses why she has taken the position, stating she is leaving for “personal reasons”.

Mrs. Linde enters, stating that an old friend of hers who works as a lawyer in Rome has offered her well-paid work caring for his motherless daughter. She requests permission from both Aune and Nora before accepting the job offer. The two are supportive; they will need help while Aune is gone. Mrs. Linde remarks on how overjoyed she is by the prospect of finding employment once again after such a long period of unemployment. Aune also shares her plans of finding a nurse for Aune, but Nora is reluctant to share the news, Aune, leaving with Torvald because he will be disappointed at Aune’s departure.

Aune warns Mrs. Linde that she must not mention Aune’s departure to Torvald either. Aune leaves and Mrs. Linde takes over Aune’s duties in the kitchen while Nora continues playing the piano. Torvald once again returns from work, ruining his routine when he finds no one in the sitting room waiting for him. He calls out “Nora”, and Nora responds by going into her bedroom where Torvald sits on a chair reading a newspaper. She tells him about Aune having left the house. Aune, Nora points out, will definitely provide a reference for Aune.

Torvald begins to worry about Aune leaving, citing that Aune’s work has been outstanding and she would be an exceptional nurse even to his children. He accuses Nora of not being considerate enough towards Aune in allowing Aune the choice of whether or not to stay. Torvald proceeds with his newspaper reading while Nora returns to playing the piano; he comments on how well-played the piece is and praises her talent at playing it so excellently together with such speed and agility. Torvald remarks that Nora never ceases to amaze him (“”Det star mig sa n? som for/Og det driver mig saa forf? rdeligt til vanvidd””).

Aune returns from the kitchen, where Aune has been packing her belongings. Aune asks Nora if she could have a few moments alone with Torvald to say goodbye. A few minutes later Aune asks Mrs. Linde to take a peek at Aune and Torvald to see whether they are finished talking yet because Aune cannot hear anything from Aune’s bedroom. Mrs. Linde enters first before calling for Aune; she tells Aune that it would be best for Aune not to come inside as it appears that there is trouble between them.

Aune stays anyway, deciding that enough time should have passed by now as Mrs. Linde re-enters Aune’s room. Aune enters the bedroom to see Torvald embracing Aune; they are back in love. Aune overhears that Torvald has no idea Aune is leaving until Aune hears Torvald describe how it feels like Aune has left him all alone with three children—he knows exactly how much Aune means to Nora (and vice versa); he wants Aune to stay, even though he can offer her very little except for his gratitude and admiration of Aune’s work.

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How a Reality TV Show Turned the U.F.C. From Pariah to Juggernaut

The Ultimate Fighting Championship, whose 300th numbered pay-per-view fight card is this weekend, was once effectively banned on television because of its violence.

A U.F.C. octagonal ring with blood on the mat is viewed from above. Two fighters stand with their fists raised.

By Emmanuel Morgan

Twenty years ago, the Ultimate Fighting Championship was on life support. Broadcasters scoffed at the idea of televising half-naked men pummeling each other inside a caged octagon, engaged in a sport where broken bones and dislodged teeth were common. Venues closed their doors and advertisers their wallets.

The extreme violence meant there was no way to monetize the mixed martial arts promotion, Kevin Kay, who was then an executive at Spike TV, explained to the U.F.C.’s owners and its president, Dana White, in a 2004 meeting.

“I really like it but I don’t see how I’m going to get Budweiser to put their logo on the mat when there’s blood on it,” Kay recalled saying.

This weekend, T-Mobile Arena on the Las Vegas Strip will host U.F.C. 300, a pay-per-view milestone for a sport that was once effectively banned from television. And it has television to thank for its longevity.

After being spurned by networks large and small, the U.F.C. leadership devised a last-ditch plan to become profitable: a reality TV show in which 16 athletes would live together in a Las Vegas house, training and fighting one another with a six-figure contract on the line.

If it did not work, the U.F.C. would crater.

But the first season of “The Ultimate Fighter,” which aired on Spike TV in 2005, succeeded in humanizing the athletes as actual people instead of mindless punching bags. Viewers appreciated the behind-the-scenes looks at training regimens and cutting weight.

“It gave the sport a face and an emotion that most people didn’t know it had,” said Craig Piligian, an executive producer on “Survivor” who helped the U.F.C. refine its premise for “The Ultimate Fighter.” “That’s what really turned the tide.”

The U.F.C. is now a lucrative live event and entertainment entity — it was purchased for $4 billion in 2016 — and has sold out arenas like Madison Square Garden and the O2 in London. It is expected to command billions of dollars in negotiations next year as its media rights agreement with ESPN expires. ESPN will begin airing the 32nd season of “The Ultimate Fighter” in June.

It was a long journey to U.F.C. 300, however, for a sport that was once the scourge of politicians and considered too risky for television networks.

Las Vegas U.F.C. 74 in 2007. Isaac Brekken for The New York Times
Houston A Dana White doll at UF.C. 136. Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times
Glendale, Calif. Ronda Rousey, the first woman inducted into the U.F.C. Hall of of Fame, in 2015. Jake Michaels for The New York Times
New York City Conor McGregor, a two division U.F.C. champion, at U.F.C. 205 in 2016. Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times
Saddle River, N.J. Israel Adesanya, a two-time U.F.C. middle weight champion, in 2022. Mohamed Sadek for The New York Times
New York City Bruce Buffer, the U.F.C.’s official announcer, at U.F.C. 295 in 2023. Thomas Prior for The New York Times
New York City Former President Donald J. Trump, a frequent attender of U.F.C. events, at U.F.C. 295. Thomas Prior for The New York Times

In 1996, three years after the U.F.C.’s first event, Senator John McCain called mixed marital arts “human cockfighting” and sent letters to all 50 state governors imploring them to prohibit it. Most states instituted bans, and many major cable providers refused to air the fights. The U.F.C. withered as it relied on venues in smaller metros like Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Lake Charles, La.

Nearing bankruptcy in 2001, its owners sold the company to Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, who grew wealthy as casino operators, for $2 million. They gave White, their longtime friend and a former boxing manager, a 10 percent ownership stake and installed him as president .

Later that year, New Jersey adopted a unified rule set , banning blows to the back of the head and spine or strikes to the throat, ahead of other states following suit. The Fertittas estimated that their investment in the company was nearly $40 million, yet it remained unprofitable. Television networks still turned up their noses.

“It just was seen as alternative, over-the-top and not the usual conservative stick-and-ball movement we had been accustomed to airing on our platforms” said Mark Shapiro, an executive at ESPN in the early 2000s who is now the president of TKO, the U.F.C.’s parent company . “It wasn’t ready for prime time. It wasn’t critical mass.”

Quickly losing options, the Fertittas and White met with Spike TV, a niche channel whose programming targeted male viewers. White was energetic during an hourlong meeting, Kay said, “pounding on the table” and saying that the U.F.C. would be bigger than the N.F.L. But they left without a deal.

Frustrated, the U.F.C.’s leadership enlisted Piligian, who had worked with the Fertittas on the Discovery Channel series “American Casino.” He had discussed a fighting reality show concept with them in the past and helped develop a format similar to “Survivor.”

The contestants would live together in close quarters for nearly 60 days, and compete in challenges like obstacle races before fighting one another. Two of the U.F.C.’s biggest stars, Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture, would serve as coaches.

“ These guys wake up in the morning and are across the table from each other eating Rice Krispies, and then they have to fight in the afternoon — that’s difficult,” said Piligian, now the managing director of Lionsgate’s alternative television division. He added, “It was a tried-and-true format we knew would be a pressure cooker.”

Piligian and U.F.C. leadership pitched the revised idea to Spike TV executives in Los Angeles. Kay said the format was appealing to the network because it would teach the audience about mixed martial arts, which combines unarmed combat forms like boxing, wrestling and jujitsu.

“They’ll see that it’s not just guys in a cage beating each other and blood all over the place ,” Kay said.

But budget constraints prevented Spike TV, which has since rebranded as Paramount Network , from immediately starting production. The Fertittas provided $10 million to cover costs, but decided they would no longer invest in the U.F.C. if the season failed.

The show was a success, averaging at least 1.9 million viewers weekly from its inception through 2008. Some fighters inside the home drunkenly bickered with each other, similar to reality shows such as “The Bachelor.” Contestants fought on a blue canvas devoid of sponsorships, a stark contrast to the Monster Energy, Modelo and DraftKings logos now emblazoned inside U.F.C. octagons.

Forrest Griffin had quit his job in law enforcement to join the first season of “The Ultimate Fighter” and won the final fight against Stephan Bonnar in a unanimous decision. White still gave both men contracts, and Griffin participated in the U.F.C. until 2012.

Although he became a light-heavyweight champion in 2008, he says the most important fight of his career was the finale of “The Ultimate Fighter.”

“That night I won that fight, I was a professional fighter,” Griffin said. “I wasn’t a part-time bouncer. I wasn’t a police officer who just happened to fight.”

In a parking lot next to production trucks outside the fight arena, Spike TV executives and the Fertitta brothers entered a handshake agreement for a second season. The network would pay the production costs and soon began broadcasting other U.F.C. fights.

White declined to comment for this article, but he has previously credited the finale of the first season of “The Ultimate Fighter” as the moment that salvaged the U.F.C. On a podcast last month , White called it “the most perfect fight at the most perfect time.”

The bout catapulted the expansion of the U.F.C., which soon bought rival companies and in 2011 signed a $700 million contract with Fox Sports. The U.F.C. aggressively lobbied state politicians to regulate the sport, and in 2016, New York became the last state to lift its ban on mixed martial arts. Two years later, ESPN signed a $1.5 billion agreement with the U.F.C.

Matt Kenny, the vice president of programing and acquisitions for ESPN, said in an email that the network partnered with the company to bolster its young ESPN+ streaming service, and to capitalize on the U.F.C.’s “diverse, affluent and digitally native” fan base.

Decades earlier, that fan base was irrelevant to the same television channel.

Emmanuel Morgan reports on sports, pop culture and entertainment. More about Emmanuel Morgan

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A Doll's House Critical Essays
Essays and criticism on Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House - Critical Essays. Select an area of the website to search. Search this site Go Start an essay Ask a question Join Sign ...
A Doll's House: Critical Analysis
A Doll's House: Critical Analysis. Henrik Ibsen is one of the greatest dramatists of English literature. He is the first man to show that high tragedy can be written about ordinary people in ordinary everyday prose. His contribution to the theatre is memorable. His A Doll's House is a beautiful drama. A Doll's House is a problem play or ...
Analysis of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House
Analysis of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 27, 2020 • ( 0). Whether one reads A Doll's House as a technical revolution in modern theater, the modern tragedy, the first feminist play since the Greeks, a Hegelian allegory of the spirit's historical evolution, or a Kierkegaardian leap from aesthetic into ethical life, the deep structure of the play as a ...
Liberation of Women: "A Doll's House" Analysis Essay (Critical Writing)
Henrik Ibsen's play 'A Doll's House' explores the issue of change in the 19 th century Norwegian society. Ibsen's Women characters are discriminated and trivialized to the extent that they feel empty and helpless. This triggers a gradual struggle that leads to their liberation. Within the play, various characters undergo transformation.
A Summary and Analysis of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House
A Doll's House is one of the most important plays in all modern drama. Written by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen in 1879, the play is well-known for its shocking ending, which attracted both criticism and admiration from audiences when it premiered. Before we offer an analysis of A Doll's House, it might be worth recapping the ...
Critical interpretations British critics A Doll's House: A Level
Key context. Clement Scott saw the early productions of Ibsen in London, beginning with A Doll's House, as a steady progression from bad to worse.He wrote of Ghosts, Hedda Gabler and Rosmersholm: 'A few steps out of the hospital ward, and we arrive at the dissecting-room.Down a little lower … and we come to the dead-house.
Theme of A Doll's House
A Doll's House. The interwoven themes of A Doll's House recur throughout most of Ibsen's works. The specific problem of this drama deals with the difficulty of maintaining an individual personality — in this case a feminine personality — within the confines of a stereotyped social role. The problem is personified as Nora, the doll, strives ...
Ibsen's A Doll's House: Critical Analysis
Introduction. Henrik Ibsen's play "A Doll House" is now being commonly referred to as one of the finest examples of feminist literature of 19 th century. The theme of women's liberation can be found throughout play's entirety, even though this theme is being spared of aggressive undertones, with which we usually associate feminist ...
Drama analysis: A Doll's House
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll's House (SparkNotes Literature Guide). Bloomsbury: Spark Publishing, 2002. Print. The book by Ibsen presents a critical analysis of the drama A Doll's House which carefully navigates readers' minds on the occurrences in the lives of characters. Particularly, it effectively brings out the interconnectedness of the ...
A Doll's House: Full Play Analysis
A Doll's House explores the ways that societal expectations restrict individuals, especially women, as the young housewife Nora Helmer comes to the realization that she has spent her eight-year marriage, and indeed most of her life, pretending to be the person that Torvald, her father, and society at large expect her to be.At the beginning of the play, Nora believes that all she wants is to ...
A Doll's House Essay Questions
Essays for A Doll's House. A Doll's House essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House. Influence of Antigone on A Doll's House; Burning Down the Doll House; Ibsen's Portrayal of Women; Dressed to Impress: The Role of the Dress in ...
A Doll's House Essays
A Doll's House essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House. Best summary PDF, themes, and quotes.
Dramatic Structure of A Doll's House
Critical Essays Dramatic Structure of. A Doll's House. Notable for their lack of action, Ibsen's dramas are classical in their staticism. Before the curtain rises, all the significant events have already occurred in the lives of Ibsen's characters, and it is the business of the play to reap the consequences of these past circumstances.
Critical Analysis of 'A Dolls House'
The essay is a critical analysis of the play, A Doll's House written by a Norwegian playwright Ibsen Henrik back in 21 December 1879. It deemed to be the most famous of the writers play and has been read in many institutions of learning. The play is written in three main acts and has been very influential in what human kind thought.
A Doll's House: Mini Essays
Mini Essays. Compare Torvald's and Nora's attitudes toward money. Torvald and Nora's first conversation establishes Torvald as the member of the household who makes and controls the money and Nora as the one who spends it. Torvald repeatedly teases Nora about her spending, and at one point Mrs. Linde points out that Nora was a big spender ...
A Doll's House: Interpretations
Since its release in 1879, Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House has been performed across the globe, second only to Shakespeare in its popularity. Since its first production though, society and thinking has changed greatly. Below are some examples of critical reactions that have evolved in relation to the key themes and ideas in A Doll's House.
A Doll's House: Suggested Essay Topics
Suggestions for essay topics to use when you're writing about A Doll's House.
A Doll's House Essay Essay
A Doll's House Essay. A Doll's House was written by Henrik Ibsen in 1879. A Doll's House is not only one of Henrik Ibsen's most famous plays, but it has also been seen as the starting point for realist drama. A Doll's House, along with Brand and Peer Gynt, are often considered to be the first modern plays written in Europe. ...
A Doll's House: Study Guide
A Doll's House by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, first published in 1879 (as Et dukkehjem), is a seminal work in the realm of theatrical literature.Set in the Helmers' household in Norway, the three-act play centers around Nora Helmer, a seemingly happy and carefree wife and mother, whose life takes a dramatic turn as long-buried secrets and societal expectations come to light.
How a Reality TV Show Turned the U.F.C. From Pariah to Juggernaut
In 1996, three years after the U.F.C.'s first event, Senator John McCain called mixed marital arts "human cockfighting" and sent letters to all 50 state governors imploring them to prohibit it.