A Doll House
by
Henrik Ibsen
Theme
I have been more of a poet and less of a
social philosopher than most people have
been inclined to believe . . . . I can’t claim
the honor of ever having worked
consciously for women’s rights. I’m not
even sure I know what they are. To me it
has seemed a matter of human rights.
- Ibsen
A Doll’s House vs. A Doll House
A Doll House, referring to a child’s
miniature model of a home, complete with
furnishings, is the literal meaning of
Ibsen’s words, and more accurately
reflects the situation in which Nora,
Torvald, their children and servants, and to
some extent their visitors exist: a prettified
imitation of a home and a marriage.
Nora
Don’t Dismiss Her Too Easily
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•
•
•
Child-wife
Adult coquette (tease)
Determined businesswoman
A woman desperate enough to consider
suicide
• A coldly independent woman
Tragedy or Comedy?
• If tragedy, is Nora’s self-destructive assertion of
her uncompromising and powerful ego a
necessary expression of her Romantic quest for
freedom?
• If comedy, is the play a social comedy revealing
the need for change in the patriarchal middle
class, a play that provides insight into how Nora
can learn to function as an individual amid a
conforming and oppressive society?
Middle-Class Life
• Ibsen’s portrayal of middle-class life emphasizes
how limiting, brutal, and unforgiving it is
• It appears to be affluent and agreeable enough
to those who can operate in it successfully.
When we first meet the Helmers, many of the
most cherished ideals of middle-class life are on
display.
• Read p. 2033 in Bedford. See if you can make
sense of the play from a Marxist viewpoint.
Day Two Notes
What Is Proper Conduct?
• This society values money, contracts, and conventional
respectability over anything else and has no room for
people who do not fit comfortably into its expectations
Mrs. Linde & Krogstad
• They live desperate lives. They are still young but have
prematurely aged.
• The cruelty of society is not simply economic – Krogstad
• Isolation can leave a person unable to create for himself
a meaningful relationship
• Pay attention to Mrs. Linde’s situation at the
beginning of the play and how it bears similarity to
Nora’s at the end
Dr. Rank = Ibsen’s Society
• External – Successful, rich, well
respected. He is a doctor who heals.
• Internal – He is dying from the inside from
syphilis. He acquired this disease not from
any wrongdoing on his part but from his
father as his inheritance.
Torvald
Don’t Dismiss Him as a Fool
Keep in Mind the World View of Ibsen’s Audience
• Torvald is a hard-working and successful
professional newly promoted to be in
charge of the engine of middle-class
respectability
• His problem – if we can call it that – is that
his intelligence is entirely determined and
limited to his awareness of the social rules
around him
Torvald’s Identity
• Torvald’s identity is wrapped up in how others
look at him (Think about how this works as a
social commentary)
• Nothing else matters to him! Nora? Rank?
Krogstad? Mrs. Linde
Nora – Endangers his social identity with
threat of scandal
Rank – What good is he to Torvald when he
is dead?
Krogstad – Challenges his social identity by
using his Christian name! How
petty!
Mrs. Linde – She is irrelevant
Torvald the Hero
• Torvald makes no attempt to pretend he
believes in anything other than what society’s
rules indicate
• He appears incapable of even imagining another
dimension to life
• We can view him as the fullest living
embodiment of the perfectly and entirely social
man in his milieu
• That is why Torvald’s comments about how
he will act the hero should the need arise are
so empty: heroes are by definition
unconventionally great. Torvald is a
thoroughly conventional man
Day Three
Is Nora’s transformation from
child to adult too sudden to be
plausible?
• Do people make self-discoveries that change
the course of their actions?
• Is Nora sufficiently characterized to explain how
the events that are dramatized can account for a
change in her?
• Does her change result in an effective dramatic
climax?
• Does her change embody Ibsen’s themes?
“The door slam heard around the
world”
How so?
“The end of a chapter in human
history”
Why?
“I forgive you” - Torvald
• Why do we as a modern audience laugh?
• How might we view his statement as a
sincere concession?
Nora
• Do we celebrate her as a champion of
feminist principles?
• Do we condemn her as an egotist?