In a dolls house, Ibsen has combined several characters with diverse personal qualities and used them to develop the story line as well as bring to life the major themes and issues that the plot is meant to address. Primarily there are two types of characters who can be categorized as static and dynamic, the static characters remain the same form the start to the end of a story and despite the events taking place around them, and they do not change their perception or altitudes. These types of characters are often “punished” for their inflexibility especially when there are antagonists. In A doll’s house, Nora’s husband Torvald is depicted as such, he treats Nora like she is a child and proves incapable of understanding the depth of her inner feeling or her personal strength which albeit not manifest at first are preset nevertheless. At the end of the play, he is still holding on to the same patronizing altitude and this results in her leaving him claiming quite rightly, that he does not understand her. The second type of character which Nora embodies is the dynamic character, whereby she is flexible, undergoes growth and changes in personality and perception as the story develops, again she respond more deeply to situations and circumstances. This is evident when the childish Nora who Ibsen introduces is not a decisive, intelligent and pragmatic woman who is gradually revealed, and the climax of her transformation is seen when she authoritatively terminates her marriage to Torvald who had appeared to be in control of her all along. The primary focus of this paper is to examine the character of Nora and explores her various attributes in the context of the plot and concerning her relationship with the other characters in “A doll’...
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...nd but the children who had done nothing to deserve abandonment (Rosefeldt 85). This was so serious that in Germany the performance of the play was banned until Ibsen finally bowed to the pressure and grudgingly rewrote the ending such that Nora breaks down in tears and agrees to stay but only for the sake of the children.
Works Cited
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House. Rockville, MD: Arc Manor LLC. 2009. Print
Lingard, John. "Ibsen: A Doll's House." Modern Drama 39.2 (1996): 363.
Rosefeldt, Paul. "Ibsen's A Doll's House." The Explicator 61.2 (2003): 84-5.
Templeton, Joan. "Reviews -- Ibsen: A Doll's House by Egil Tornqvist." Scandinavian Studies 68.1 (1996): 135-7.
Yuehua, Guo. "Gender Struggle Over Ideological Power in Ibsen's A Doll's House/LA LUTTE DES SEXES SUR LE POUVOIR IDEOLOGIQUE DANS MAISON DE POUPEE D'IBSEN." Canadian Social Science 5.1 (2009): 79-87.
Rogers, Katharine M. (1985): ‘‘A Doll House in a Course on Women in Literature,’’ in Approaches to Teaching Ibsen’s A Doll House, Shafer, Yvonne (ed.). New York: Modern Language Association, p.82.
and the transition of control between characters Ibsen is able to create a commentary on the rights and values of a society devoid of many gender equality that are present today. The change in Nora. from being under the power of Krogstad and Helmer to eventually. leaving the house and the children was a ground breaking power shift. to portray in the social setting of late 1880’s
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll House (1879). Trans. Rolf Fjelde. Rpt. in Michael Meyer, ed. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. 5th edition. Boston & New York: Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 1999. 1564-1612.
...the tensions which lied within the Helmer household. After living within Torvald’s world and not being able to participate in activities in which she pleased, Nora walked out on her family and said “now it is all over” (Ibsen 129). She began to refer to Torvald as a “stranger” (Ibsen129), because she was leaving his misogynistic ways behind and pursued to commence a better life for herself. Seeing that the play defines the perceived gender roles of the time, Ibsen wrote A Doll’s House to support his ostracized view of a woman being the equivalent of a man.
Furthermore, if we go to see a production of this play (at least among English-speaking theatre companies), the chances are we will see something based more or less on this interpretative line: heroic Nora fighting for her freedom against oppressive males and winning out in the end by her courageous final departure. The sympathies will almost certainly be distributed so that our hearts are with Nora, however much we might carry some reservations about her leaving her children.
...The play demonstrates this in the following lines: Helmer: Before anything else, you’re a wife and mother. Nora: I don’t believe that any more. I believe that before anything else, I’m a human being, just as much a one as you are … or at least I’m going to turn myself into one … I want to think everything out for myself and make my own decisions. Nora must be true to herself in order to participate in society in a meaningful manner. Her relationship with her children has been marred by her relationships with her father and husband; she treats her children as dolls, and they are apt to grow up in the same manner, with the same inability to be true to themselves. By the end of the play, Nora realizes that she cannot properly fulfill her duties as a mother until she learns how to become a person first. In this sense, her abandonment of her children is an act of mercy.
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll's House. Literature and Ourselves. 2nd Ed. Ed. by Gloria Henderson, Bill Day, and Sandra Waller. New York: Longman, 1997
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.
Davies, H. Neville. 1982. "Not just a bang and a whimper: the inconclusiveness of Ibsen's A Doll's House." Critical Quarterly 24:33-34.
Furthermore, if we go to see a production of this play (at least among English-speaking theatre companies), the chances are we will see something based more or less on this interpretative line: heroic Nora fighting for her freedom against oppressive males and winning out in the end by her courageous final departure. The sympathies will almost certainly be distributed so that our hearts are with Nora, however much we might carry some reservations about her leaving her children.
Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, written in 1879, makes many bold statements about nineteenth century society. Ibsen uses his play to write about traditional marital roles, women’s independence, and crime. Each individual characters started out as one person and evolved into someone different by the end of the play, be it either good or bad.
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll House. The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking, Writing. 5th ed. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999. 1564-1612.
Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” a nineteenth century play successfully uses symbolism to express many characteristics of Helmer’s life, together with the way that the main character Nora feels towards her marriage at the end of the play. Ibsen’s use of symbolism to convey about the social setting, including the harsh male-controlled Danish society, seen mostly in Torvald in the play and the role of women, signified mostly in Nora. These symbols act as foretelling before the tragic events at the end of the play, as they show the problems which lead to the demise of the Helmer’s ‘perfect’ family life.
Ibsen, Henrik. "A Doll House." Ibsen : Four Major Plays - Volume 1. Trans. Rolf Fjelde. New York: Signet Classics, 1992. 43-114. Print.
“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.