Henrik Ibsen's A Doll House

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Recommended: Use of symbolism in the play a doll's house

Nora, a woman of mystery, a child if you will, and an ecstatic character is introduced in the very beginning in A Doll House as a jumpy little “squirrel, “full of energy seemingly unaware or the world and turns out as a completely different woman as she becomes wiser, sophisticated, developing a feeling of high independency due to interactions with various characters which restructure her character. Nora’s refinement was due to dilemmas with characters such as Krogstad whom she forges her father’s name to get a loan from [to save the life of her husband] and her husband Torvald who treats her as a daughter giving her nicknames of “cute little animals,” as well as minor characters such as her maid Anne-Marie. The setting of the play is Norway in the ninetieth century in which views of traditional marriage focused all the power on the husbands giving woman a scant amount of, if at all any power in the marriage. Nora’s crime at first seems to be the end of Nora after her husband was to find out, but once he realizes what she has done, the result of his reaction reversed the scenario making the product of her crime the beginning of finding out her own self. Torvald was scared to ruin his reputation for Nora’s crime which involved saving his very life and thus society would have thought it was his plan for the forgery of the signature as his. This is to say woman are less scared to lose and give up what they have, whereas men are scared to do so which I feel is an important theme of A Doll House. Nora goes against societies beliefs and values, which to me is essential to really be jubilant commonly even till today.
As Torvald the husband calls Nora, “A jumpy little squirrel,” she truly holds many of the characteristics that of a squi...

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...ht about those close to Nora which include Anne-Marie and her husband and those who wouldn’t even give a nickel for Nora such as Mr.Krogstad. The sacrifice of her marriage and children, which is everything she has ever really had marks a huge change in the character of Nora Helmer. Having left her children was truly influenced by every character, something I would imagine to be quite hard for a mother. I believe the start of maturity is pronounced when decision making not for the moments pleasure, but for the future is being made. Her leaving to discover herself may also lead Helmer to his own person journey to self-discovery, but I feel that once their children have “left the nest” the Helmers may possibly have their selves figured out to try their marriage again.

Works Cited

Gallienne, Eva Le. Six Plays by Henrik Ibsen. Toronto: Random House of Canada, 1951.

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