Imorality And Irruption In 'A Dollhouse'

During a child's growth into an adult, the child is most influenced by his parents. The child looks towards his parents to learn how to walk, talk, and eat and so on. But besides gaining knowledge about such simple physical actions, the child also gains knowledge about the parent's behavior and morality, and to a degree imitates them. In this manner, weakness and corruption can be passed down from one generation to another. In the realistic drama A Dollhouse, Henrik Ibsen applies the idea of the passing of immorality and corruption as a central theme in his drama through the relationships between Krogstad and his sons, Nora and her father, Nora and her children and Dr.Rank and his father.

Krogstad's crime of forgery at the bank seems to haunt his children as well. While talking to Nora about his reputation, Krogstad announces: "But now I must cut myself free from all that. My sons are growing up; for their sake I must try and win back as much respect as I can in the town" (Ibsen 1.speech 363). Krogstad implies that his bad reputation can clearly affect his children and how they grow up, thereby requiring him to rebuild his own reputation. Commenting about Krogstad's forgery, Torvald tells Nora, "Each breath the children take in such a house is full of the germs of evil" (Ibsen 1.speech 474). He implies that Krogstad's children would gain the same immoral and corrupt nature of Krogstad, since they live with him every day. According to literary critic Paul Rosefeldt, Krogstad's "fatherhood is connected with a moral disease that will infect and destroy the lives of the children" (85). Thus Krogstad's children would themselves have the risk of obtaining their father's immorality.

The passing down of weaknesses is also evident in the...

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...s Nora that he likes her, even though he knows Nora is Torvald's, his close friend's wife. Though he does not have any particular relationship with Nora, at that instant when he tells Nora about his love, he reflects back on his own father who became sick from having unhealthy relationships.

Throughout the drama, the characters possess flaws, either due to their immoral nature or by inheriting it from their parents. For the characters that possess some immoral nature, they still have a threat of passing it on to the next generation. Simultaneously, the people who inherit the corruption are helpless and are still a threat for corrupting the next generation. Nora and Krogstad, even at the end of the play, still have this risk of transferring their corruption towards their children. Thus, in A Dollhouse, parenthood itself becomes a major source of universal corruption.