A Doll's House Morals

The saying, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” has been disproven in almost all forms of media. It dates back to the modern era, with Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker both wishing one another death, to ancient times with Hera despising her son, Hephaestus, so much, that she pushes him off a cliff. The trope is typically reversed as to create shock, but is it truly so inaccurate? On the surface, we may be different than our parents, but when they have such an impact and influence on how we are brought up, how different can we truly be? It’s inevitable that one day, when faced with a situation, we’ll mirror our parents decisions, because it's all we know. Henrik Ibsen demonstrates this concept of inheritance in “A Doll’s House”, by having

Krogstad commits forgery, and we later learn that his mother must have done a similar thing. This crime may have been shown as less than it actually was, because his own mother had done it. In this way, Ibsen shows how the taint of morality occurs through the parent. Since children admire their parents so much, the things they do wrong are seen as less in their eyes, leading them to grow up believing that doing the same thing is less as well. Helmer claims, “Almost everyone who has gone to the bad early in life has had a lying mother”(179), as to solidify Ibsen’s motif. Ironically, Helmer himself is guilty of a similar crime, but this time, it's the consequence of the father. At the time women were treated as less, and although it isn’t against the law, treating others as below you is seen as moral fault in today’s society. Helmer’s ideologies are too attributed to his parent, but it's most likely his father. Although never explicitly mentioned, it can be assumed that Helmer watched his father treat his mother a certain way, and now he does the same with Nora. When faced with a situation where Nora angers him, Helmer reverts to what he observed from his father and exerts his superiority over Nora, forcefully holding her in place(220). These ideas, both of deceit and pride, pertain to concepts that are often shown in variants of Hell, the place of corrupt

These decisions, like morals, mirror the parent’s, but unlike the latter, they cannot be explained by any feasible explanations. This facet of the assertion is the most abstract and moreover, the one with the least relation to the real world. Ibsen’s story, like all forms of literature, has literary devices, one of which is foreshadowing. Using this device, Ibsen uses the parent’s as a foil to the child, with childhood events indicating what will happen later in the story. The most important example is of Nora. As indicated by the quote, “Little Nora, poor dear, had no other mother but me”(182), Nora never had a mother figure, relying on her nanny to take care of her. There is nothing to show that Nora was going to follow her mother’s example, and we are cannot assume why Nora’s mother left her father. However, even though impractical, it’s impossible to ignore. This being the connection between parent and child, which is exactly what Ibsen seeks to do. By showing a clear correlation with Nora and her mother, the reader is able to quickly see the inheritance theme present in the play. Just how Nora imitated her mother’s decisions, her children will most likely as well. This use of literary devices can rarely be translated into the real world, as foreshadowing only occurs so often, but these examples are equally as important as the others, as they weave