At different points in time society has expectations for individuals of society. When these expectations are not met it is extremely out of the ordinary and seen as wrong. In the play, “A Doll’s House” most characters act outside of the expectations of society. Due to their actions, each character faces consequences for making decisions that are not in line with society’s expectations. Dr. Rank, Mrs. Linde, and Nora, all make ludicrous decisions that in turn come to change their lives. Dr. Rank’s actions in the play are outside of the social norm and in fact have malicious intent. Throughout “A Doll’s House” Dr. Rank plays the role of a doctor that comes and visits the Helmers’ home and seems to be a good friend of Torvald. Later in Act 2, …show more content…
Linde’s story of how she has lived her life is extremely different than the way most women lived their lives at that time. Mrs. Linde is an old friend of Nora’s that comes to visit her during Act 1 where they share stories about how their lives have been since they last saw each other. During the conversation, we see how much different Mrs. Linde lives than most women of society. In Act 1 Mrs. Linde talks about how she had to, “scrape up a living with a little shop and a little teaching and whatever else I could find” (Ibsen 192). Most women around this time were housewives, working under the patriarchal household they live in and taking care of the family. However, Mrs. Linde was doing the opposite once her husband died and she became a widow. She worked many different jobs and tasks to help her mother and her two younger brothers. Later in Act 3 Mrs. Linde makes a choice that brings Nora and her closer and fixes Nora’s blackmail problem. The importance of this is significant in their relationship; “As traditionally presented, her move to help Nora by marrying Krogstad makes her look noble… in turn, strengthens the relationship between her and Nora” (Benedict “A Doll’s House”) This courageous move by Mrs. Linde is helpful to Nora, but is still outside of societal norm. She marries Krogstad so quickly and without much thought. Most marriages in the 1800’s were built on the woman trusting the man to provide for the family, but Krogstad couldn’t do that. In
In the year 1879, the infamous and controversial play, “A Doll’s House” was published to the world. The play is about the Helmers, a married couple who seem to have the perfect life of a happy marriage, loving children, and more money coming in from the husband Torvald. However, the audience learns that is not the case.
The protagonist of “A Doll’s House”, Nora Helmer, has a perfect life that has been made up, planned, and all done for her by the society and her husband, Torvald. Nora is trapped in a “dollhouse” that is her physical and actual home. Her husband has made and built a perfectly arranged life for his doll wife, and their dolly children. Nora’s relationship with her husband appears lovely and pleasant at first. Indeed she loves Torvald, at least that was what is expected of her. Women are supposed to love their husbands and their husband’s opinion is usually prioritized and superior towards the women’s. It was the custom of that time that women are expected to love their husbands and follow what they say. In the play, Torvald pampers Nora and talks to her as if she was a little baby. He treats her with no respect and sees her as nothing more than a doll, a pet, and a property he owns. Torvald sometimes puts up money above Nora’s head and lets her jump for it like a pet. In t...
... of equality in marriage. When Nora began to understand Helmer didn’t love her, he loved the idea of her as a pretty woman he was married to, Nora realizes how degrading her role as a woman in the household was. She saw the freedom of Mrs. Linde to be able to obtain a job in her husband’s bank, and the freedom of being a single woman to think, act, and do what she wanted to do, not what her Father wanted her to do, or her husband. Nora realized her identity was solely in her Father, and in Helmer, and the unhealthiness of this reality. Nora wanted to be treated as a human being and not as an object. To be accepted as such would be the struggle of women in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. Nora thought in leaving Helmer she was leaving the problem of feeling like an object all together. Little did she realize she was going to have to face the other Helmers in society.
Who's Needs Should Be Met? "Putting yourself first doesn’t mean you don’t care about others, It means you're smart enough to know you can't help others if you don’t help yourself first" During a certain era, it was selfish to put yourself and your needs before other's needs. Many thought that putting everyone in front was humble and that is what they should strive to do. For example, if a mother was unhappy in a marriage and wanted to leave, the people in her community would frown upon her because, saying she was being selfish. Many saying she should stay in the marriage for her children's sake, completely disregarding how it affects the mother.
I really liked this play along with the other ones we have read in class. However, this plays seems to stand out to me because it takes a feminist point of view. It is always good to go inside the role of a woman and see how they feel and act upon their own thoughts. Good literature helps us to learn about how other people think and act. Moreover, when we can relate the characters actions to our lives or the world around us the meaning is more personal and beneficial. For some reason, I feel like many women out there really do feel like Nora. They are trapped in economic circumstances because it is the safe way to go. Many times woman do not truly love their husbands and are rather there just to live a safe and comfortable life. Even though I am not a woman I feel Nora's pain and her urge to "break free." It is the social constraints of society that despise woman to "break free," but Nora defies these constraints.
Very little seems as it was first observed in A Doll’s House. Though Nora at first appears to be a silly, selfish girl, but then we learn that she has made great sacrifices to save her husband 's life and pay back her secret loan. She has realized her true strength and strikes out as an independent woman by the time the play ended. For all his faults, Torvald appears to be a loving, devoted and generous husband. Later, it becomes obvious that he is a shallow, vain man, who is only concerned about his public reputation; he is too feeble to deliver on his promise to protect Nora from her burden. The Helmer marriage appears perfect and affectionate, but turns out to be based on lies, play-acting, incommensurate and an unequal relationship. Krogstad appears to be an acrimonious, vindictive and an extortionist but when he is reunited with his true love, Mrs. Linde, he becomes more considerate, compassionate and magnanimous. Mrs. Linde, who first assumes to us to be self-sufficient, but feels "empty" at a closer look, especially, now that she has no one to look after, Dr. Rank acts the role of friend to the duo of Torvald and Nora and visits the duo daily just
Linde both broke the stereotypical societal binds that constrained most women than. For Mrs. Linde, breaking from those traditional ideals yielded a much more positive result; she gained a family to care for. Nora, however, had to leave hers. And for good reason; even though to most during the time period, Torvald’s attitude towards Nora was common between husband and wife, she saw it as just being an object for him to show off and have for his own enjoyment. We see this clearly all throughout the course of the play, as Torvald attempts to use terms of endearment in an affectionate manner when talking to Nora, he fails. “Frightened little singing-bird”, “squirrel”, and “skylark” are just a few pet names he uses that make it seem that Torvald sees Nora as helpless, fragile, and downright idiotic. He shows no respect for his wife whatsoever but has the audacity to become outraged when Nora announces she is leaving. Torvald felt like Nora was obligated to take his disrespect because that’s what every other woman did, but thankfully (and surprisingly) Nora had an epiphany, one very little females had (and even if they did, few acted upon it). For her to do such a thing, was groundbreaking, even if she is just a fictional character; she probably spurred on women who were in similar predicaments to confront their oppression.
The women had very little influence on what their husbands thought, how they acted, or what they did. Nora followed many of Torvalds’s commands, allowing him to hear little of what she did behind his back. In a scene where Krogstad asked her for a favor to convince Torvald to let him keep his position at the bank, Nora responds with, “What should make you think I have any influence of that kind with my husband?” (24). This proves that Nora would have little effect on her husband. Many of the times she tried to talk to him, he would easily demean her. He would call her his “little skylark” or other names what would make her feel like a child with little power over him. During the 1870’s women had a hard time finding positions in their home and in life without the influence of their husband. It wasn’t until after the 1870’s that women officially started to gain more rights, such as voting, divorce rights, and property claims.
In the play A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen makes it obvious that Nora loves Torvald because of the things she does for him; for instance, the contract that she took to go on a trip to save Torvald's life. However, Ibsen uses symbolism, as in the contract taken out between Nora and Krogstad; dialogue, and in Nora's blatant confessional on the forged contract to develop Nora's love for Krogstad in very subtle manner. The first sign of Nora's love for Krogstad came from the contract she made with him before the story began. Nora felt that she could only trust Krogstad to make the contract with. She could have gone to anyone else; however, she still ended up going to him.
A Doll 's house is one of the modern works that Henrik Ibsen wrote. He was called the father of modern drama .He was famous for writing plays that related to real life. A Doll 's House is a three-act play that discusses the marriage in the 19th century. It is a well-made play that used the first act as an exposition. The extract that will be analyzed in the following paragraphs is a dialogue between Nora and the nurse that takes care of her children. This extract shows how she was afraid not only of Krogstad blackmail, but also of Torvald 's point of view about those who committed any mistake. Torvald says that the mothers who tell lies should not bring up children as they are not honest . Nora is also lying to her family and to Torvald. So she is afraid because she thinks she maybe 'poisoning ' her own children. The analysis of this extract will be about of Nora 's character, the theme, and the language in A Doll 's House.
The inferior role of Nora is extremely important to her character. Nora is oppressed by a variety of "tyrannical social conventions." Ibsen in his "A Doll's House" depicts the role of women as subordinate in order to emphasize their role in society. Nora is oppressed by the manipulation from Torvald. Torvald has a very typical relationship with society. He is a smug bank manager. With his job arrive many responsibilities. He often treats his wife as if she is one of these responsibilities. Torvald is very authoritative and puts his appearance, both social and physical, ahead of his wife that he supposedly loves. Torvald is a man that is worried about his reputation, and cares little about his wife's feelings.
“A Doll’s House” gives the reader a firsthand view at how gender roles affected the characters actions and interactions throughout the play. The play helps to portray the different struggles women faced during the 19th century with gender roles, and how the roles affected their relationships with men as well as society. It also helps to show the luxury of being a male during this time and how their higher status socially over women affected their relationships with women and others during this time period. Torvald Helmer starts off the story with a new job as a bank manager. He has a wife, Nora, who does not have a job in the workforce since that was the man's role.
A Doll House was a play written well ahead of its time. This play was written in a time when it was considered an outrage for a woman such as Nora not only to display a mind of her own, but also to leave her husband in order to obtain her freedom. This play relates to the Art Nouveau and Edwardian period because just as the furniture and clothing were considered decorative pieces, so were women. Women were expected only to tend to the husband's and children's needs. Women were not supposed to do anything without first consulting the husband and certainly never do anything without his prior knowledge and approval. Women were expected to be at home and always looking presentable for their husbands.
In Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House, the personality of the protagonist Nora Helmer is developed and revealed through her interactions and conversations with the other characters in the play, including Mrs. Linde, Nils Krogstad, Dr. Rank and Ann-Marie. Ibsen also uses certain dramatic and literary techniques and styles, such as irony, juxtaposition and parallelism, to further reveal interesting aspects of Nora’s personality. Mrs. Linde provides an interesting juxtaposition to Nora, while Krogstad initially provides the plot elements required for Nora’s character to fully expand in the play. Dr. Rank’s love for Nora provides irony and an interesting twist in their relationship, while Ann-Marie acts in a parallel role to Nora in that they are both away from their children for long periods of time. Nora Helmer’s character itself is minimally established and revealed at the beginning of the play, but the reader is further privy to her personality as the play progresses, as she interacts with each of the other minor characters in the play.
In "A Doll's House", Ibsen portrays the bleak picture of a role held by women of all economic classes that is sacrificial. The female characters in the play back-up Nora's assertion that even though men are unable to sacrifice their integrity, "hundreds of thousands of woman have." Mrs. Linde found it necessary to abandon Krogstad, her true but poor love, and marry a richer man in order to support her mother and two brothers. The nanny has to abandon her children to support herself by working for Nora. Though Nora is economically advantaged, in comparison to the other female characters, she leads a hard life because society dictates that Torvald be the marriages dominant member. Torvald condescends Nora and inadvertently forces Nora to hide the loan from him. Nora knows that Torvald could never accept the idea that his wife, or any other woman, could aid in saving his life.