Henrik Isben's A Doll's House

1129 Words3 Pages

Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll House examines a woman’s struggle for independence in her marriage and social world. Through the use of character change, Ibsen conveys his theme that by breaking away from all social expectations, we can be true to ourselves. When Ibsen presents Nora Helmer, we see a “perfect” wife, who lives in a “perfect” house with a “perfect” husband and children. The Helmer children have a nanny that raises them. By having the nanny, Nora has the freedom to come and go as she pleases. Torvald Helmer, Nora’s husband, will begin a new job as bank manager, so they will be rich, which will make her “perfect” life even better. Torvald even calls Nora pet names like “my sweet little lark” (Ibsen 1567) and “my squirrel” (Ibsen 1565). These names may seem to be harmless and cute little nicknames, but the names actually show how little he thinks of her. “Torvald uses derogatory diminutives to address Nora” (Kashdan 52). Torvald talks down to her. Nora is “regarded as property rather than a partner” (Drama for Students 112). He isn’t treating her like a real person. In Torvald eyes, she isn’t an equal. “Nora is viewed as an object, a toy, a child, but never an equal” (Drama for Students 109). Nora and Torvald seem to be in love with each other though. However, Torvald is very controlling of Nora. Torvald makes little rules for Nora to follow. During the time period when the play was written, a husband controlling his wife and making rules for her was not uncommon. One incident of control is when Nora comes home from Christmas shopping. Torvald knows how much Nora loves macaroons and suspects she has bought some to eat. He comments to Nora, “My sweet tooth really didn’t make a little detour through the confectio... ... middle of paper ... ...ment about how Torvald doesn’t like for her to eat them. Nora lies and says Kristine brought them too her. As Nora’s secret side is revealed, her life seems anything but perfect. As we look at the character change in Nora, we see two different sides to her. The beginning of the play reveals a woman totally dependent on her husband for everything,. It isn’t until the end of the play that she realizes she can be herself and she doesn’t have to depend on her husband. Nora realizes “that if she wants an identity as an adult that she must leave her husband’s home” (Drama for Students 112). By examining Nora, we see from Ibsen’s theme that if we ignore all the expectations the social world has for a person, our true selves can be revealed. Bibliography: “A Doll’s House.” Drama for Students. 1985. Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll House. The Bedford Introduction to Literature.

The Unrecognized Dimensions of Nora
1499 Words | 3 Pages
In Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll House, Ibsen tells a story of a wife and mother who not only has been wronged by society, but by her beloved father and husband because of her gender. Nora left her father’s house as a naïve daughter only to be passed to the hands of her husband forcing her to be naïve wife and mother, or so her husband thinks. When Nora’s husband, Torvald becomes deathly ill, she takes matters into her own hands and illegally is granted a loan that will give her the means to save her husband’s life. Her well guarded secret is later is used against her, to exort Torvald, who was clueless that his wife was or could be anything more than he made her. However, Nora has many unrecognized dimensions “Besides being lovable, Nora is selfish, frivolous, seductive, unprincipled, and deceitful” (Rosenberg and Templeton 894). Nora is a dynamic character because her father and her husband treat her as a child and do not allow her to have her own thoughts and opinions, as the play progresses she breaks free from the chains of her gender expectation to explore the world around her.
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Henrik Isben's A Doll's House
738 Words | 2 Pages
Peculiar trait: On the surface Nora’s peculiar trait seems to be her obsession for money. Her internal peculiar trait is that she desires to become significant to her husband. She spends money on material objects to decorate their home and dress up the family. The impression of the home appears perfect, like a doll’s house.
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Henrik Isben's A Doll's House
1966 Words | 4 Pages
Henrik Isben?s A Doll?s House is the story of a man and a woman who have been married for eight years but are not really in love. Although at the first of the story we see a typical family, underneath there lies a dark secret. Torvald Helmer, the husband, is a lawyer who has been unsuccessful in the past because he would not accept a shady case. This has put the couple and their children in a great financial struggle and this forces him to turn elsewhere for employment. He ends up working at a local bank, putting an end to the family struggle. At the start of the story we see Nora Helmer, his wife, coming in from town with several small wrapped packages and a Christmas tree. She is a very childish acting woman but on the same note, she is also very deceptive and cunning. Nora has kept a secret from her husband ever since they moved from their last home. Torvald was very sick and Nora was pregnant with their first child. Nora?s father was on his deathbed as well. Torvald?s doctor confided in Nora that if Torvald didn?t move south then he was going to die. Since they hadn?t the money to do so, Nora takes it upon herself to borrow the money, which was not allowed solely by a woman. In order to get the loan she and her father had to sign the papers. Seeing her father?s condition, she forged his signature. She told her husband that the money was a gift from her father so he would not feel indebted to her forever. The money that Nora borrowed is almost paid off at this point and she was excited. Then the story takes a sudden turn. According to Maurice Valency, ?Nora as yet the earnest and innocent child who was sure there could be no harm in forging her father?s signature, provided her motives were good? (253). The man from who...
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Leaps and Bounds towards Feminism
1642 Words | 4 Pages
“There are two kinds of spiritual law, two kinds of conscience, one in man and another, altogether different, in women. They do not understand each other; but in practical life the women is judged by man’s law, as though she were not a woman but a man.” Those words were said by the great Henrik Ibsen himself. Henrik Ibsen was born on March twentieth eighteen twenty eight in Skien, Norway. He grew up in poverty following the demise of his father’s business. He was exiled to Italy, and then moved on to Germany. Ibsen wrote A Doll’s House in 1879, while in Germany. He sought to question social practices in the real world, and women’s position in society. He was commonly known as “The Father of Modern Drama”. Ibsen’s A Doll’s House was published in 1879 and first performed shortly after in the same year and month. The play turned out to be very controversial, which lead Ibsen to write an alternate ending. The play was later turned into a television show and multiple movie adaptations. (Galens 106,107 ) Ibsen creates many static and strong characters that help convey his message. Nora Helmer is the play’s protagonist and wife of Torvald Helmer. Torvald, Nora’s husband, is shown to be extremely controlling and dominating. He often treats Nora like a doll or child. There are many relevant themes in the play such as: appearance and reality, pride, honor, sexism, and the search for self-identity. Nora’s life as a married woman is overall symbolized by a doll. Henrik Ibsen’s characters Nora, Christine, and Torvald perfectly depict the marital and societal trends of the 19th century; while further explaining the choices some made leading to a more feminist and gender equal nation.
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A Doll's House and Trifles
1060 Words | 3 Pages
In A Doll’s House, Ibsen portrays his lead character, Nora, who is a housewife in the Helmer’s family. She has undergone a transformation throughout the play that she reacts differently to her husband. Her husband, Torvald, is an example of men who are only interested in their appearance and the amount of control they have over a person. In particular, he has a very clear and narrow definition of a woman's role. At the beginning of the story, as from the title of the play, Nora symbolizes the “doll” in the house, which means that she has been treated as treats Nora like a child or doll. For example, husband called Nora ‘bird’ and it implies that husband treats her like his pet and she is his doll as the title is a doll house. In other words, her husband wanted her to be a ‘lark' or ‘songbird' so he can enjoy h...
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A Doll's House A Raisin in the Sun
3074 Words | 7 Pages
Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House, which was written during the Victorian era, introduced a woman as having her own purposes and goals, making the play unique and contemporary. Nora, the main character, is first depicted as a doll or a puppet because she relies on her husband, Torvald Helmer, for everything, from movements to thoughts, much like a puppet who is dependent on its puppet master for all of its actions. Nora’s duties, in general, are restricted to playing with the children, doing housework, and working on her needlepoint. A problem with her responsibilities is that her most important obligation is to please Helmer. Helmer thinks of Nora as being as small, fragile, helpless animal and as childlike, unable to make rational decisions by herself. This is a problem because she has to hide the fact that she has made a decision by herself, and it was an illegal one.
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playing house
920 Words | 2 Pages
Ibsen reveals many things about the bourgeoisie roles of men and women of society through the play A Doll’s House. These ideals are crucial to ones overall social status. The reader can see the characters and their roles in a figurative and literal dollhouse from the title to the end of the story. The main character Nora is the focus of performing these gender roles as she takes on the role of a doll and eventually seeks self-realization and a striving purpose. She leaves behind her family to fulfill an independent journey. Ibsen helps to point out the flaws of society’s stereotypical gender roles and gives new possibilities to men and women.
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A Doll's House Realism Essay
1918 Words | 4 Pages
In Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House we encounter the young and beautiful Nora on Christmas Eve. Nora Helmer seems to be a playful and affectionate young woman full of life and zeal. As the play progresses, we learn that Nora is not just a “silly girl” (Ibsen) as Torvald refers to her. She learns of the business world related to debt that she acquired by taking out a loan in order to save her beloved Torvalds life. Although Krostad’s blackmail does not change Nora’s whimsical nature it opens her eyes to her underappreciated potential. “I have been performing tricks for you, Torvald,” (Find diff quote perhaps?) she exclaims in her confrontation with Torvald. She realizes that she has been putting on a facade for
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A Doll’s House
1504 Words | 4 Pages
The enforcement of specific gender roles by societal standards in 19th century married life proved to be suffocating. Women were objects to perform those duties for which their gender was thought to have been created: to remain complacent, readily accept any chore and complete it “gracefully” (Ibsen 213). Contrarily, men were the absolute monarchs over their respective homes and all that dwelled within. In Henrik Ibsen’s play, A Doll’s House, Nora is subjected to moral degradation through her familial role, the consistent patronization of her husband and her own assumed subordinance. Ibsen belittles the role of the housewife through means of stage direction, diminutive pet names and through Nora’s interaction with her morally ultimate husband, Torvald. Nora parades the façade of being naïve and frivolous, deteriorating her character from being a seemingly ignorant child-wife to a desperate woman in order to preserve her illusion of the security of home and ironically her own sanity. A Doll’s House ‘s depiction of the entrapment of the average 19th century housewife and the societal pressures placed upon her displays a woman’s gradual descent into madness. Ibsen illustrates this descent through Torvald’s progressive infantilization of Nora and the pressure on Nora to adhere to societal norms. Nora is a woman pressured by 19th century societal standards and their oppressive nature result in the gradual degradation of her character that destroys all semblances of family and identity.Nora’s role in her family is initially portrayed as being background, often “laughing quietly and happily to herself” (Ibsen 148) because of her isolation in not only space, but also person. Ibsen’s character rarely ventures from the main set of the drawi...
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Character Analysis: A Doll's House
1433 Words | 3 Pages
In the play A Doll House, by Henrik Ibsen, Nora and Torvald’s marriage seems to have been torn apart by Krogstad’s extortion plot, but in reality their marriage would have ended even without the events in the play. Torvald’s obsession with his public appearance will eventually cause him to break the marriage. Nora’s need for an identity will ultimately cause her to leave Torvald even without Krogstad’s plot. Lastly the amount of deception and dishonesty between Torvald and Nora would have resulted in the same conclusion sooner or later. In this essay I will argue that Nora and Torvald’s relationship would have ended even without Krogstad’s extortion plot.
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Free Essays - Becoming Independent in A Doll's House
851 Words | 2 Pages
Throughout A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen illustrates through an intriguing story how a once infantile-like woman gains independence and a life of her own. Ibsen creates a naturalistic drama that demonstrates how on the outside Nora and Torvald seam to have it all, but in reality their life together is empty. Instead of meaningful discussions, Torvald uses degrading pet names and meaningless talk to relate to Nora. Continuing to treat Nora like a pampered yet unimportant pet, Torvald thoroughly demonstrates how men of his era treat women as insignificant items to be possessed and shown off. While the Helmer household may have the appearance of being sociably acceptable, the marriage of Torvald and Nora was falling apart because of the lack of identity, love, and communication.
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Gender In A Doll’s House And The Importance Of Being Earnest
2000 Words | 4 Pages
Nora engages in a mutually dependent game with Torvald in that she gains power in the relationship by being perceived as weak, yet paradoxically she has no real power or independence because she is a slave to the social construction of her gender. Her epiphany at the end at the play realises her and her marriage as a product of society, Nora comes to understand that she has been living with a constr...
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A Doll's House Sacrifice Analysis
2126 Words | 5 Pages
Henrik Ibsen paints a sad picture of the sacrificial role of women throughout all social economical classes in his play “A Doll House”. The story is set in the late 19th century and all minor female characters had to overcome adversity to the expense of love, family and self-realization, in order to lead a comfortable life. While the main female protagonist Nora struggles with her increasingly troubled marriage, she soon realizes, she needs to change her life to be happy as the play climaxes. Her journey to self-discovery is achieved by the threat of her past crime and her oppressing husband, Torvald and the society he represents. The minor female characters exemplifying Nora’s ultimate sacrifice.
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Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House: A Realistic Drama
1220 Words | 3 Pages
Ibsen, Henrik. "A Doll House." Ibsen : Four Major Plays - Volume 1. Trans. Rolf Fjelde. New York: Signet Classics, 1992. 43-114. Print.
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How is the title “A Doll’s House” appropriate for the play?
1131 Words | 3 Pages
“A Doll’s House” is a play written by a Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen. The play was published in 1879, and is a literary piece that triggered almost vigorous reactions from the audience. Moreover, the play was considered Ibsen’s masterpiece and he was determined to provoke a reaction from the public. His intention was to bring awareness to the problem of gender roles in the 19th century society: the role of women who were used as decorations of the household. The title this play, “A Doll’s House”, foreshadows the play’s protagonist, Nora Helmer, and her role in the household. The title of the play suggests that Nora is a doll in her own home.
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Henrik Isben's A Doll's House

The Unrecognized Dimensions of Nora