A Doll's House Symbolism Essay

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The play “A Doll House” by Henrik Ibsen starts in the Helmer’s home on Christmas Eve. At the beginning of the play, the audience is introduced to Nora Helmer, the woman of the household. Nora is completely delighted with her life, and feels favorable for the way her life is coming along. She looks forward to the New Year when her husband starts his new job as a bank manager, where he will “have a big salary and earn lots and lots of money” (Ibsen 1350). Torvald Helmer, her husband, teases her and treats her like a child who is incapable. Nora responds to her husband’s actions with pure affection and does not seem to mind her controlled doll-like life. In the play Ibsen creates the setting in the late 1800s where women took care of the household, family, and children. Men saw women as delicate, innocent, unknowledgeable, and uneducated in the business world. Symbolism plays a large role in comprehending the play. The Christmas tree, the Tarantella, and the New Year are symbols that unveil the life of the characters and what they stand for.
The play opens up with the Christmas tree being symbolic. The tree symbolizes Nora’s position in the Helmer household. The tree can also symbolize Nora’s personality. In the play the Christmas tree is a materialistic object used only for …show more content…

The true meaning of each character is show in the symbolic setting that Ibsen created. In Austin E. Quigley evocative article “A Doll’s House Revisited”, “he maintains that despite the diversity of symbols in Ibsen’s play, all such symbols work collectively to constitute a coherent and extensive “image network… a series of verbal and visual motifs that function not just as supporting elements but as contributing components” (587) to the drama” (Drake). The Christmas tree, the Tarantella, and the New Year are symbols that reveal the life of the characters and show their hidden concealed

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