A Doll’s House “Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths” (Louis Wyse). In Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House”, Nora Helmer portrays the Victorian English archetype of the “angel in the house”, otherwise known as the “doll” metaphor. In the Victorian age, the social construction of gender roles was much more traditional than contemporary gender roles; women had a clear role in society of which they could not escape. A major focus of social construction is to uncover the ways in which individuals and groups participate in the construction of their perceived social reality. As society is revolutionized, people individualize, freeing themselves from the constraints imposed by traditional societies. Nora Helmer represents an antecedaneous model of a feministic viewpoint in an oppressed position. Trapped in her role of the “doll”, Nora struggles to break free, her actions precipitated by her husband, Torvald’s, actions. Weintraub, in his ““Doll’s House” Metaphor Foreshadowed in Victorian Fiction” critical essay, depicts Shaw’s work and proposes the idea that the male protagonist has an immense impact on the female protagonist’s automorphism as “the doll” and the decisions she makes. In Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House,” Nora’s characterization and ultimate decision to leave can be seen as a struggle against the combination of Torvald and Society’s pressure to conform. In his novel “A Doll’s House,” Ibsen explores a marriage in which love and happiness has clearly been confused. In the play, a seemingly amorous husband calls out to his wife with countless pet names, “Is that my little lark twittering out there? [he asks,] is that my little squirrel bustling about?” (Act 1 Scene 1). It appears to be a happy m... ... middle of paper ... ...y the social convention, gives Nora the strength to abandon her’s. As Pythagorous once said, “Decisions are the hinges of destiny,” and with the help from her husband and society, Nora opened her door. Works Cited "Men Quotes, Famous Men Quotes, Sayings about Man." Famous Quotes at AllGreatQuotes. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. . Pearce, Richard. "The Limits of Realism." College English 31.4: 335-43. Web. 6 Jan. 2011. "Quotes about Decision Making, Sayings about Choices." The Quote Garden - Quotes, Sayings, Quotations, Verses. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. . Unwin, Stephen. Ibsen's A Doll's House. London: Nick Hern, 2006. Print. Weintraub, Stanley. ""Doll's House" Metaphor Foreshadowed in Victorian Fiction." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 13: 67-69. Web. 6 Jan. 2011.
...ome from different worlds, yet they still share the same type of sadness and pain in their everyday lives. What Nora does is considered courageous in that time in history, where women were not treated as equals and were always looked down on and ignored. Women speaking out and taking matters into their own hands was unheard of and often risky. They want to be independent so they do what they believe is necessary to accomplish and reach their goals, so that they can once again be happy for eternity.
After she reveals the "dastardly deed" to her husband, he becomes understandably agitated; in his frustration he shares the outside world with her, the ignorance of the serious business world, and destroys her innocence and self-esteem. This disillusion marks the final destructive blow to her doll's house. Their ideal home including their marriage and parenting has been a fabrication for the sake of society. Nora's decision to leave this false life behind and discover for herself what is real is directly symbolic of woman's ultimate realization. Although she becomes aware of her supposed subordinateness, it is not because of this that she has the desire to take action. Nora is utterly confused, as suggested by Harold Clurman, "She is groping sadly in a maze of confused feeling toward a way of life and a destiny of which she is most uncertain (256)." The one thing she is aware of is her ignorance, and her desire to go out into the world is not to "prove herself" but
In A Doll’s House, Ibsen portrays his lead character, Nora, who is a housewife in the Helmer’s family. She has undergone a transformation throughout the play that she reacts differently to her husband. Her husband, Torvald, is an example of men who are only interested in their appearance and the amount of control they have over a person. In particular, he has a very clear and narrow definition of a woman's role. At the beginning of the story, as from the title of the play, Nora symbolizes the “doll” in the house, which means that she has been treated as treats Nora like a child or doll. For example, husband called Nora ‘bird’ and it implies that husband treats her like his pet and she is his doll as the title is a doll house. In other words, her husband wanted her to be a ‘lark' or ‘songbird' so he can enjoy h...
Throughout A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen illustrates through an intriguing story how a once infantile-like woman gains independence and a life of her own. Ibsen creates a naturalistic drama that demonstrates how on the outside Nora and Torvald seam to have it all, but in reality their life together is empty. Instead of meaningful discussions, Torvald uses degrading pet names and meaningless talk to relate to Nora. Continuing to treat Nora like a pampered yet unimportant pet, Torvald thoroughly demonstrates how men of his era treat women as insignificant items to be possessed and shown off. While the Helmer household may have the appearance of being sociably acceptable, the marriage of Torvald and Nora was falling apart because of the lack of identity, love, and communication.
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.
Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, written in 1879, is set in late-19th century Norway. Upon publication, Ibsen’s biting commentary on 19th century marriage stereotypes created widespread uproar. In the play’s first act, the viewer is introduced to a young married couple by the names of Nora and Torvald. In tune with stereotypes of the time, the relationship is controlled almost dictatorially by the husband. Nora is often treated by Torvald the way one might expect a father to treat his daughter. For instance, Torvald incessantly refers to Nora by child-like nicknames such as “my little squirrel” and “skylark” and often speaks to her in a condescending manner. Nora, who acts as a symbol of all women of that time, initially fits in very well with the common perception of women in late-19th century Scandinavia. Torvald himself even extends this sentiment of male infallibility and female submissiveness to the whole female race, saying, “Almost everyone who has gone to the bad early in life has had a deceitful mother (Ibsen 27).” However, throughout the play Nora begins to break the mold of inferiority that was associ...
...the tensions which lied within the Helmer household. After living within Torvald’s world and not being able to participate in activities in which she pleased, Nora walked out on her family and said “now it is all over” (Ibsen 129). She began to refer to Torvald as a “stranger” (Ibsen129), because she was leaving his misogynistic ways behind and pursued to commence a better life for herself. Seeing that the play defines the perceived gender roles of the time, Ibsen wrote A Doll’s House to support his ostracized view of a woman being the equivalent of a man.
“Is it always a betrayal to talk about your husband with another man? What about girlfriends or astrologists?” (Dormen). In modern society, people’s feelings and desires are limited by rules of law and morality, especially when they relate to marriage and conjugal relationships. In The Storm, Kate Chopin raised a moral issue of adultery between characters of the short novel-Calixta and Alcee. She discussed the questions based on the metaphor of storm and the lack of passion in Calixta and Bobinot’s marriage. Similarly, in A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen scrutinized an issue of a marriage lacking love. He depicted relationships between Nora and Torvald and showed how imperious attitude and misunderstandings ruined conjugal relationships eventually. Both stories are connected by a common problem of secrets that arose from misunderstandings between the spouses. They solved the problem of misunderstanding in different ways, depending on cultural and personal distinctions of the characters. Therefore, the stories ended differently. Chopin concluded that the adulterous act made positive short-term changes in the marriage depicted in The Storm. In contrast, Ibsen ended his play A Doll’s House by stating that lack of understanding and communication led to the marriage collapse.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on A Doll’s House”. SparkNotes LLC. 2002. SparkNotes.com. 20 Mar 2011. http://Sparknotes.com/lit/dollhouse/themes.html.
In, A Doll’s House, the reader meets Nora, a woman desperately trying to hide a secret that ended up changing her life forever. When Nora’s deceitful ways finally come to haunt her, she comes to a shocking conclusion. She must leave her family to find out who she is exactly. Ibsen uses deceit as the main theme of A Doll’s House to create drama in a seemingly peaceful world. It teaches the reader that sooner or later their deceit will catch up with them. Ibsen created a play where a marriage was tested by one criminal lie and where one woman tested the rules of society with her deceit.
The nineteenth century was truly a different time for women and what their assumed roles in life would be. Henrik Ibsen’s play “A Doll’s House” is an examination into those assumed roles and a challenge to them. It was a time of obedience and inequality and in the first act each character is shown to portray these qualities. However, the characters in this play have multiple layers that get peeled back as the story progresses. As each new layer is revealed the audience is shown that even with the nineteenth century ideals, the true nature of each character is not quite what they appeared to be initially.
Ibsen writes his play A Doll House to explain the life of a housewife and her struggles with her own actions. Ibsen examines the emptiness in the lives of Nora and Torvald as they lived a dream in a Doll House. Both awaken and realize this emptiness and so now Torvald struggles to make amends as he hopes to get Nora back possibly and then to restore a new happiness in their lives. Ibsen examines this conflict as a rock that breaks the image of this perfect life and reveals all the imperfections in the lives of those around.
Nora engages in a mutually dependent game with Torvald in that she gains power in the relationship by being perceived as weak, yet paradoxically she has no real power or independence because she is a slave to the social construction of her gender. Her epiphany at the end at the play realises her and her marriage as a product of society, Nora comes to understand that she has been living with a constr...
The play “ A Doll’s House” has a very symbolic title. The title relates right in with the the...
...on as a disgrace to society because women are not expected to leave there husbands. Nora proved that she can withstand enormous amounts of pressure and that she is capable of doing things when she is determined. She is eventually freed from that doll ouse, as she calls it, and it allows her to leave without being afraid to learn about her and the world around her.