Commentary of Henrik Ibsen´s A Doll´s House

When a child’s favorite toy is broken, the child is usually overcome by emotion and unable to function. When that child becomes an adult, the proverbial toy is the social life of that adult and, as with the toy, the adult is protective over it and tries to keep it from breaking. It is no mistake that Henrik Ibsen titled his play A Doll’s House, the toy house being a symbol for the carefully constructed and maintained social structures of adults. By the end of the play, the toy is all but smashed, as typical gender roles are destroyed by a revolutionary woman named Nora. Yet, Ibsen ruined his perfect progressive literature by writing a second ending; Nora, who was originally written to leave and become an empowered individual, sees her children sleeping, meekly collapses in the doorway, and decides that she should remain a hapless housewife for the sake of the children As shown in Critical Reception by Errol Durbach, people didn’t accept his original progressive literature, insisting he write this alternate ending to appease their societal views. It seems that by Ibsen writing an alternate ending, he is making himself and his work succumb to negative social pressure, just as the rewritten Nora did.

For those who have not read the rewritten ending, the change is small in action, but momentous in the message the play offers. With the new ending, the valiant, dynamic Nora is transformed back into the obedient, dependent Nora; The clock strikes midnight, and Nora is reduced to what she always is forced to be. All that has to be written in order for Nora to change her mind is, “Tomorrow, when they wake up and call for their mother, they [the children] will be - motherless”(Ibsen). Those few lines are magically given the power to re...

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...e face of change. Yet, for better or for worse, change shapes humanity. The alternate ending is not simply words on a page. Instead, it is a reflection of society’s hesitance to change, and the lengths they’ll take to stay stagnant. The fact that, now, the alternate ending is seen as irrelevant and cowardly shows how society has grown to accept a courageous, individualistic Nora. Though it took quite a few years, Henrik Ibsen has finally gotten the praise and the acceptance, letting the second ending be seen as what it is: an alternate to something better.

Works Cited

"Critical Reception." A Doll's House: Ibsen's Myth of Transformation. Errol Durbach. Boston: Twayne, 1988. 13-23. Twayne's Masterwork Studies 75. Twayne's Authors on GVRL. Web. 7 Feb. 2014.

Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House. All About Henrik Ibsen. National Library of Norway, 2014. Web. Feb. 8, 2014.