Henrik Isben's A Doll's House

A Doll’s House, a play by Henrik Ibsen, tells the story of Nora, the wife of Torvald Helmer, who is an adult living as a child, kept as a doll by her husband. She is expected to be content and happy living in the world Torvald has created for her. By studying the play and comparing and contrasting the versions presented in the video and the live performance, one can analyze the different aspects of it.

For various reasons, the role of women in society has been analyzed and frequently debated throughout history. Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House is no exception to the rule. In Norway, and during the Victorian period in history, women’s responsibilities were simply to keep house or do small jobs on the side such as sewing or light secretarial work. Henrik Ibsen may have had several intentions when writing his play A Doll’s House, but the one that stands out so clearly is the role of women in the time period from which the play takes place and just how doll-like they were treated in Victorian society. Women during this period were by no means the decision-makers of their households. Husbands or fathers were the heads of the household and many times women didn’t even know what state their financial affairs were in. It was often times only when something drastic happened that a woman would become aware of these things. For instance, if a husband should fall sick or even pass away and there were no male relatives to help take care of things, often times the woman would have to step up and distinguish what needed to be done in order to take care of things. We see a variation of this situation in Ibsen’s play. We meet a woman, Nora, and her husband Torvald and in it we witness the deterioration of their life together through Nora’s eyes. Throughout this analysis of A Doll’s House, I will address several things concerning Ibsen’s play. I will give a synopsis of the play, an analysis of three major characters: a.) Nora, b.) Torvald, and c.) Krogstad. I will discuss the language of the play and themes. I will give an in-depth look at the playwright himself as well as information on his creation of the play. I will give an idea of ...

Most of us live a life where we do what we want and when we want without anyone telling us how to live our lives. This wasn’t the case in A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, where he illustrates to us how one woman lives a life through her father and husband. Throughout the play we see how a once childish like woman gains her independence and a life of her own. Ibsen shows us a very realistic play that demonstrates how on the outside Nora and Torvald seem to have it all. While in reality their life together is simply empty until Nora stands up for herself and starts to build her own life.

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...

Society’s expectation of how a person should act, specifically, is commonly present in A Doll’s House. Unbalanced relationships in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House are shown through the symbolism of a doll. A doll is a representation of an ideal human being, often used as a toy for children. A doll represents what a human being should want to be and what little girls should grow up to be, this human is considered as the “ideal person.” For example the saying “I got all dolled up for a party,” it is an informal interpretation of one dressing smartly or attractively. Characters in A Doll’s House live according to the assurance and pressure of society in the Victorian era. These characters are all very different and divided as a result of their background, beliefs, and intelligence. These unbalanced relationships shown through the symbolism of a doll are commonly displayed among the main characters, and minor characters, and can also be shown through social class. When first opening this play we meet the main characters, Nora Helmer and Torvald Helmer, these two are husband and wife and are very important in developing theme and character development.

...be pathway to autonomy by supporting a person’s entitlement to make decisions about their own health and health care (Feinsod & Wagner, 2008). It is a person’s right to know when they seek medical treatment it will be delivered with no bias or discrimination. This can be achieved by continuing AIDS education in health care facilities and to their staff. The education would also benefit society. The health care community has an ethical duty to do whatever is needed to ensure that all patients, including those with AIDS, gain from the most current treatments. Nurses have many roles in patient care. Expanding some of those roles, in order to determine the various aspects of a patient’s life, to help organize services to start/continue the most current treatment available to AIDS patients, may assist in minimizing the fear of discrimination in the clinical setting.

Societal expectations during this time period generally restricted women from the liberties in which their male counterparts partook in. The ideal woman was one who was good natured, cultured, practiced philanthropy, a loving wife, and a devout mother. She managed her household while maintaining her poise and retaining her femininity as a woman. Ibsen creates his main character, for which his play “A Doll’s house” is named, to be the antithesis of the ideal woman. Nora herself may seem like the ideal woman from her facade. She is beautiful, and poses as a distinguished and childish woman. Only after reading the play for one’s self may the reader discover Ibsen’s criticism that he has so cleverly intertwined within his work. By creating his female lead to be a complete contradiction of the feminine ideal, we can see Ibsen’s feminist criticism of gender expectations. Nora is controlled by her husband Helmer on each and every aspect of her life. The men in that century were regarded as they control the women’s life. While on the other hand Glaspell in her play showed how all the women stood together and supported a murderer just so she could be free from prison showing us the feministic view of the society in those days. These two plays are an ideal pair as they show the power of women to construct an identity in the society, women’s interdependence on each other as well as a feministic approach to the society.

Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” is a play about a young wife and her husband. Nora and Helmer seem to be madly in love with one another and very happy with their lives together. Yet the conflict comes into this show when Nora brags to her friend Ms. Linde about how she had forged her father’s name to borrow money to save her husband’s life and how she had been secretly paying off this debt. Helmer finds out about this crime and is furious, until he finds that no one will ever know about it. This entire conflict is written to bring to light the ridiculous social expectations demanded of both women and men. Ibsen expertly leads the audience into accepting that these social expectations are foolish and wrong. The audience buys into this so much that in the end when Nora stands firm and refuses to bow down to what society demands of her, we see her as the hero.

The “Doll House” is a drama piece bringing to readers the typical occurrences that take place in marriages. At the beginning, Nora, the protagonist of the play and a typical housewife believes that true marriage is based on obedience. She put in illustration the act of being good to her parents as a daughter, obedient as a wife, and responsible as a mother. Torvald the husband of Nora is a man who is extremely successful and also projects on the act of being manipulative. As the breadwinner he is dominant and controlling and shows such characteristics at every given opportunity. In Torvald’s opinion, to have true marriage, a husband should be the model of his wife and breadwinner as it is from the named drama piece, Nora is the Doll in the house; “Doll House”.

A Doll’s House, a screenplay written by Henrik Ibsen during the 19th century showcases Nora a wife who is living, as any other woman, in an oppressed era for woman. A time when men ruled and women were docile obeying their husbands and fathers implicitly. Nora’s life is staged into itself. According to Ibsen’s play, there are little secrets that are told not only to ourselves but to those around us. Therefore, the ability to understand the changes as secrets unfold and the manipulation of lies told, take on new meaning.

In many theories about the dinosaurs disappearing many say meteors are the reason, is that true? The many theories about dinosaurs disappearing is a huge meteor or asteroid,climate change, volcanic eruptions, lava,and fractured crystals. At the same time there are over 40 theories of why the dinosaurs disappeared, but I only listed the most important ones that were mentioned the most.

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.

Henrik Ibsen’s famous play A Doll’s House was first published in 1879 and contains elements and characters that appear to support feminism, and drew attention from the women’s rights movement. However, Ibsen himself said that he was not a feminist; rather, his play is about the human nature in general, and is not specifically about women’s rights. Over the years, this was the view that most scholars used to interpret the play, but more recently scholars have produced an opposing argument. Margaret Stetz, one such scholar, writes that “To call Ibsen a feminist playwright or to describe A Doll’s House as a drama in favor of women’s rights is no longer controversial” (150). The most obvious example of Ibsen’s view on gender roles is the relationship between Nora and Helmer and, more specifically, Nora’s self-discovery at the end of the play. Other characters, however, such as Mrs. Linde and Krogstad, as well as Anne-Marie, play a part in defining gender roles in A Doll’s House. In this essay, I will discuss the ways in which Ibsen represents gender roles in A Doll’s House through the characters in his play and the differing views about feminism and gender roles in the play.