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.
Ending scene – The last scene of the play is significant because it is when Nora realizes that she has been acting as a doll for her entire life. By leaving her husband, it shows that she is finally making her own decisions.
Henrik Ibsen was the first to introduce a new realistic mode in theater when he wrote the play A Doll’s House. The ending of the third act of this play was not accepted due to the controversy that it caused during the nineteenth century, because in this era women were not allowed to act the way Nora did, but through women’s movements society slowly started to accept it.
... is reminiscing about the fact that she messed up and it cost the boy’s life. The overall tone in the end of the novel is depressing as the governess’s actions and attitudes about current events tend to reflect the tone of the situation.
5. Ford, Karen. "Social contrains and painful growth in A Doll's House". Expanded Academic ASAP. Methodist College , Fayetteville , NC . 30 Octuber 2005
Nora’s final actions in the end of Henrick Ibsen’s “A Doll House” have certainly been the object of much criticism. In fact, “So much has it disturbed audiences that a few well-known productions changed the ending to have her return before the curtain falls”(Brooks). After all, why would a mother abandon her children and her husband with no clear indication to if she were going to return? In its time, Nora’s decision was considered disgraceful as well as practically unheard of, and, continues to be an albeit less shocking force in contemporary analysis. A deeper understanding of Nora’s reasons in her seeming dereliction of her family, however, requires
Ibsen, Henrik. "A Doll House." The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking, and Writing. By Michael Meyer. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford of St. Martin's, 2011. 1709-757. Print.
“A Doll’s House.” Drama for Students. 1985. Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll House. The Bedford Introduction to Literature.
Ibsen, Henrik. "A Doll House" The Norton Introduction to Literature. By Kelly J. Mays. Eleventh ed. New York: Norton & Company, 2013. 1447-96. Print.
Although leaving her children is quite possibly one of the most difficult things for a mother to do, Nora, through great strength, does this to save them from being raised by herself: a woman who doesn't know how to be a mother. Some may argue that Nora's move is purely selfish because her children, who love her dearly, have their lives wrapped up in her very existence. She is their playmate and, very likely, the only parent who will take any time for them since their father seems much more interested in his job than his children's lives. How can she just abandon her children, leaving them helpless?
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.
While it was important to highlight the oppression of women in marriage and Nora’s dramatic exit served a valuable purpose to Ibsen’s thesis, It may have also been very effective if the last scene ended less shockingly. Audiences would have dealt more calmly with an ending in which Nora did not completely desert her family. If the end were different it may have benefited the overall mission of the play in ways, such as, more people attending shows and gaining the message without disturbing their moral beliefs too much. Also, the avoidance of a cliff hanger, an attribute of dramas that does not get along with many in the light of such a controversial topic. An alternate ending composed so that Nora could find herself and return with her family may have increased the approval of, A Doll's House, and allow it to end on a more settling note.
Ibsen writes his play A Doll House to explain the life of a housewife and her struggles with her own actions. Ibsen examines the emptiness in the lives of Nora and Torvald as they lived a dream in a Doll House. Both awaken and realize this emptiness and so now Torvald struggles to make amends as he hopes to get Nora back possibly and then to restore a new happiness in their lives. Ibsen examines this conflict as a rock that breaks the image of this perfect life and reveals all the imperfections in the lives of those around.
On the other hand, towards the end of the story, Nora exhibits the independence and
“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.
Ibsen, Henrik. "A Doll House." Ibsen : Four Major Plays - Volume 1. Trans. Rolf Fjelde. New York: Signet Classics, 1992. 43-114. Print.