Henrik Isben's A Doll's House

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A Dolls House

A Dolls House represents a women’s marital life from many years ago. The central theme of this play is Nora’’s rebellion against society and everything that was expected of her. Nora shows this by breaking away from all the standards and expectations her husband and society had set up for her. Women were not considered of importance to their husbands and that made women feel like in a “dolls house”, such as with Nora and her husband Helmer. In her time women were not supposed to be independent. They were to support their husbands, take care of the children, cook, clean, and make everything perfect around the house. Nora had two main rebellions; her taking out the loan, and when she left her family, and everything was all planned out by her.
Nora’’s first rebellion was when she took out a loan so that she could pay for her husband, Torvald’s medical treatment. It was against the law for women to take out a loan without their husbands consent. When she did this she proved that she was not as submissive and helpless as Torvald thought she was. He called her “helpless”. A perfect example of Torvald’s control and Nora’s submissiveness was when she got him to re-teach her the tarantella. She already knew the dance but she acted as if she needed him to re-teach her the whole thing. When he says to her “Watching you swing and dance the tarantella makes my blood rush”. This shows that he is more interested in her physically than em...

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