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critical analysis a doll's house
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the doll's house analysis
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Nora's Discovery of Self in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House
Ibsen's play, "A Doll House," involves a woman who begins the play as a common housewife and through a series of joyous occurrences and catastrophes becomes a self-liberating woman. Nora Helmer is transformed and decides to abandon her family and home in search of her true self. She arrives at this point because of several factors. Her refusal to submit to her husband and her self-realization is brought on by the way she has been taught to act by her husband and her father, and the contradicting demands the situations that she has had to deal with gave her. Her true devotion to herself is discovered because of the false devotion she felt towards her husband and her role in her family. In "A Doll House," Henrik Ibsen uses the character of Nora to show that the way in which a woman is treated and her assumed role in society can actually lead to her discovery of her own true humanity.
Though it seems contradictory, it is actually Torvald Helmer, Nora's husband, who cause Nora to refuse to submit to him. Torvald holds a very low opinion of Nora's ability to handle things for herself, and allows her almost no responsibility relating to the family outside of the trivial things in the home. His incessant use of his pet names, "songbird" and "squirrel" for example, trivialize her place in their home. However, when Torvald becomes ill, it becomes Nora's responsibility to provide for his recovery. Of course, Torvald, mustn't know anything about Nora borrowing money for his sake, which the situation demands. So Nora is thrown into a dilemma. Here her first decision to disobey her husband's wishes, in point of fact for the sake of her love for hi...
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...e would long ago have told him about her troubles." (294)
Works Cited:
Gray, Ronald. "Henrik Ibsen." European Writers: The Romantic Century. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1985. Vol. 7, pp.1428-1430
Hardwick, Elizabeth. "A Doll's House." Drama Criticism. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1992. Vol. 2, pp. 294-295
Harris, Laurie Lanzen. "Henrik Ibsen." Characters in 20th Century Literature. New York: Gale Research Inc., 1990. p. 183
Huneker, James. "Ibsen." Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1979. Vol. 2, pp.222-223
Ibsen, Henrik. "A Doll House." Perrine's Literature. Forth Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1998. pp. 967-1023
Works Consulted
Shaw, Bernard. "A Doll's House Again." Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1979. Vol. 8, p. 143
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll House (1879). Trans. Rolf Fjelde. Rpt. in Michael Meyer, ed. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. 5th edition. Boston & New York: Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 1999. 1564-1612.
Upon the first glance of Torvald and Nora’s relationship, Nora is returning from a day of Christmas shopping. She is acknowledged by her husband’s greetings of belittling pet names that he uses in an inconspicuous thus unnoticed form of verbal oppression and a verbal stake to claim her as his property “But if Helmer considers Nora his property, as he apparently does, Nora encourages him to do so. To him, she calls herself his little squirrel and his lark” (Dukore 121). These actions are not Nora’s fault, it appears Nora does not fight his degrading pet names because she knows no difference and also it benefits her in the ability to manipulate Torvald w...
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll's House. Literature and the Writing Process. Elizabeth Mahan, Susan X Day, and Robert Funk. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice, 2002. 916-966.
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll House. The Bedford Introduction to Drama. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. Boston: Bedford/ST. Martin’s, 2001. 659 – 688.
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll's House. Ed. Stanley Appelbaum. New York : Dover Publications, INC. , 1879.
Scott, Clement. "Review of 'A Doll's House." The Theatre 14.79 (July 1889): 19-22. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Paula Kepos. Vol. 37. Detroit: Gale Research, 1991. Literature Resource Center. Web. 25 Mar. 2011.
Ibsen, Henrik. "A Doll House." The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking, and Writing. By Michael Meyer. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford of St. Martin's, 2011. 1709-757. Print.
Ibsen, Henrik. “A Doll’s House.” Literature for Composition. Ed. Sylvan Barnet, William Burto, and William E. Cain. 9th Ed. New York: Longman, 2010. 792-841. Print.
Nora and Torvald's relationship, on the outside appears to be a happy. Nora is treated like a child in this relationship, but as the play progresses she begins to realize how phony her marriage is. Torvald sees Nora's only role as being the subservient and loving wife. He refers to Nora as "my little squirrel" (p.1565), "my little lark" (p.1565), or "spendthrift"(1565). To him, she is only a possession. Torvald calls Nora by pet-names and speaks down to her because he thinks that she is not intelligent and that she can not think on her own.
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll's House. Ed. Jim Manis. The Pennsylvania State University, 2010. Web. 09 May 2012.
Davies, H. Neville. 1982. "Not just a bang and a whimper: the inconclusiveness of Ibsen's A Doll's House." Critical Quarterly 24:33-34.
Ibsen’s theatre background has shaped “A Doll’s House” into a realistic prose drama, which ensured that his idea’s and themes could be easily translated to engage a wider audience.
Nora Helmer was a delicate character that had been pampered all of her life, by her father, and by Torvald. She really didn't have a care in the world. She didn't even have to care for the children; the maid would usually take care of that. In every sense of the word, she was your typical housewife. Nora never left the house, mostly because her husband was afraid of the way people would talk. It really wasn't her fault she was the way she was; it was mostly Torvald's for spoiling her. Nora relies on Torvald for everything, from movements to thoughts, much like a puppet that is dependent on its puppet master for all of its actions. Her carefree spirit and somewhat childish manners are shown throughout the play with statements such as, "Is that my little lark twittering out there?" (1). "Is it my little squirrel bustling about?" (2). A lark is a happy, carefree bird, and a squirrel is quite the opposite. If you are to squirrel away something, you were hiding or storing it, kind of like what Nora was doing with her bag of macaroons. It seems childish that Nora must hide things such as macaroons from her husband, but if she didn't and he found out, she would be deceiving him and going against his wishes which would be socially wrong.
In Henrik Ibsen’s play, A Doll House Ibsen describes the perfect family and the conflicts within. Ibsen examines the normal lives of the Helmer family through the eyes of the wife, Nora Helmer. She goes through a series of trials as she progresses through the play and with each trial she realizes something is missing in her life. Ibsen examines the struggles within the house.
Ibsen, Henrik. "A Doll House." Ibsen : Four Major Plays - Volume 1. Trans. Rolf Fjelde. New York: Signet Classics, 1992. 43-114. Print.