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The character of torvald dolls house
Henrik Ibsen basic work on feminism
Henrik Ibsen basic work on feminism
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The desire to be the best, to be dominant among a group of people can reveal a character’s deepest fears or weaknesses. To be great requires a certain personality, but is it not always easy to come out on top. In the play “A Doll’s House”, by Henrik Ibsen, there are multiple endeavors for dominance. Torvald battles Krogstad over being the most successful; driven by money and a power hungry ego, this conflict reveals more about both men’s personalities. Consequently, their struggle unveils Nora’s fight to be independent and depart from society’s norms. There is pressure from society for men to be the providers for their families. As a result, they are also seen to be the leading partner in a marriage. Torvald becomes the manager of the bank …show more content…
Although the two men were friends from their college years, Torvald feels no remorse laying him off. This displays how driven Torvald is to be the boss and be respected. His reputation is important to him, but often a strong facade hides an insecure mind. Torvald is insistent in being called Mr. Helmer because he needs to feel esteemed in order to alleviate his self-doubt. However, he acts more like a child in that he always needs to be recognized in a certain manner and be the center of attention. Torvald is in fact a weak person and not a strong husband because he lets money and the desire for dominance drive his actions. On the other hand, the struggle for power reveals surprising aspects of Krogstad. Despite blackmailing Nora and having a bad reputation due to an unlawful act committed years ago, he has good intentions. Krogstad is not the cold-hearted antagonist Ibsen depicts him to be. He is, in fact, just concerned with the welfare of his family. A good reputation ensures success in their …show more content…
During this time period, there was the stereotypical opinion that women should only be homemakers because they do not have the intellectual capacity to do anything more. The struggle for dominance between Torvald and Krogstad also brings to light Nora’s venture to have purpose. Ibsen uses her to comment on society’s gender roles. For the majority of the play, Nora plays her part as the ideal wife well. However, at times she portrays herself as being more than just a trophy wife. Her conflict with Krogstad reveals how innovative and unselfish she actually is. For instance, she does not spend all the allowance money Torvald gives her. In addition to saving a little of her allowance, she also does odd jobs to earn money. She does all of this in secret to pay off the loan to Krogstad. At first, Nora gives off the impression that she is a “spendthrift” and an airhead, but she proves herself to be a woman of perseverance and determination. The men’s struggle for dominance also reveals her marriage’s flaw. Torvald treats her like a doll he needs to take care of and show off to others. He underestimates her ability, similar to how society doubts that women can do more than just sit still and look pretty. His condescending demeanor towards her ultimately allows her to realize that she needs to leave him in order to be truly independent and live up to her potential. Like all women in society eventually realize,
In society’s view, the marriage between Nora and Torvald is a wonderful relationship. Torvald supports the family through his job at the bank while Nora is the caretaker for the children. However, they have no real communication between them. Torvald commonly refers to Nora as his “little lark” or “squirrel” (1010, 1012). He never treats Nora as an equal marital partner, much less an individual. In the end, the marriage has to end because of its lack of real communication. Thus, a source of deception in the play stems from the fact that the actual marriage between Nora and Torvald is not a healthy relationship, as in society’s view. Furthermore, when Nora decides to go against her husband’s will to borrow the money for the loan, she forsakes her matrimonial bond, yet gains personal independence. Nora considers the loan “something to be proud and happy for” (1017). Yet, in essence, she is pleased with her ability to lie to her husband. Through this circumstance, Ibsen successfully reveals that a relationship built on ...
Nora Helmer was a delicate character and she relied on Torvald for her identity. This dependence that she had kept her from having her own personality. Yet when it is discovered that Nora only plays the part of the good typical housewife who stays at home to please her husband, it is then understandable that she is living not for herself but to please others. From early childhood Nora has always held the opinions of either her father or Torvald, hoping to please them. This mentality makes her act infantile, showing that she has no ambitions of her own. Because she had been pampered all of her life, first by her father and now by Torvald, Nora would only have to make a cute animal sound to get what she wanted from Torvald, “If your little squirrel were to ask you for something very, very, prettily” (Ibsen 34) she said.
...d children. The final mask of Krogstad that is seen is that of love and caring. In the end Kristine goes back to Krogstad stating that she always loved him and only left him because “I had a helpless mother and two small brothers. We couldn’t wait for you” (Ibsen, 1225). In the end it is Krogstad who has changed for the better, not Nora or Helmer. It is the very man that Torvald so easily condemned for his past mistakes.
There is not one child who has not rebelled against their parents in some way. Any little action can be seen as an act of rebellion; whether it is secretly buying a book from the Scholastic book fairs, talking on the phone late at night or purposely leaving the trash to pile up. In the play, A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen presents the ideas of rebellion for indepen¬dence. The main character, a sweet and lovely housewife, name Nora Helmer is married to Torvald Helmer who has been promoted to a new banking position. Torvald expects her to be an obedient wife who will follow him wherever he walks and to stay by his side, no matter the situation. She had fallen in debt to Krogstad, a misunderstood lawyer and moneylender, because she tried to save Torvald when he became bedridden. She works hard to pay all the money back but she cannot live any longer without her husband discovering her secret. With the reoccurring use of pet names, macaroons, and symbolic actions, Ibsen gradually reveals Nora acting more independently than anyone thinks.
Henrik Ibsen was the first to introduce a new realistic mode in theater when he wrote the play A Doll’s House. The ending of the third act of this play was not accepted due to the controversy that it caused during the nineteenth century, because in this era women were not allowed to act the way Nora did, but through women’s movements society slowly started to accept it.
Weintraub, Stanley. ""Doll's House" Metaphor Foreshadowed in Victorian Fiction." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 13: 67-69. Web. 6 Jan. 2011.
He is a smug bank manager. With his job comes many responsibilities. He often treats his wife as if she is one of these responsibilities. Torvald is very authoritative and puts his appearance, both social and physical, ahead of his wife that he supposedly loves. Torvald is a man that is worried about his reputation, and cares little about his wife's feelings.
Torvald explained to Nora that keeping Krogstad on at the bank would appear to others that he is easily swayed by his wife. Torvald has also complained about Krogstad’s use of his first name at the bank. Of course, Torvald’s true feelings about his appearance come out explicitly during his fit of rage in the end. Torvald is excessively consumed with how others view him and has no moral objections to having his wife perform sultry dances in front of other men.
This shows that Torvald is more interested in Nora physically than emotionally. He feels that it is one of Nora's main duties as his wife to physically pleasure him at his command.
A contrasting difference in the characters, are shown not in the characters themselves, but the role that they play in their marriages. These women have different relationships with their husbands. Torvald and Nora have a relationship where there is no equality. To Torvald Nora is an object. Hence, she plays the submissive role in a society where the lady plays the passive role. Her most important obligation is to please Torvald, making her role similar to a slave. He too considers himself superior to her.
Torvald is extremely cautious about how he is perceived by other people. He would do anything to keep his honourable image, even if it involves him doing something dishonourable. Another way the relationship between Nora and Torvald will end is from Nora’s desire for her own identity. Even though it might seem that without Krogstad’s extortion plan, Nora would have never developed her need for an identity, but she has shown signs of a new identity well before Krogstad tried to extort Nora from his job.
In Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House, a drama written in the midst of an 1879, middle-class, suburban Europe, he boldly depicts a female protagonist. In a culture with concern for fulfilling, or more so portraying a socially acceptable image, Nora faces the restraints of being a doll in her own house and a little helpless bird. She has been said to be the most complex character of drama, and rightfully so, the pressure of strict Victorian values is the spark that ignites the play's central conflicts. Controversy is soon to arise when any social-norm is challenged, which Nora will eventually do. She evolves throughout the play, from submissive housewife to liberated woman. It seems as though what took women in America almost a century to accomplish, Nora does in a three-day drama. Ibsen challenges the stereotypical roles of men and women in a societally-pleasing marriage. He leads his readers through the journey of a woman with emerging strength and self-respect. Nora plays the typical housewife, but reveals many more dimensions that a typical woman would never portray in such a setting.
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...
To start, in this play the main character Nora is portrayed to be the perfect nineteenth-century wife to her husband Torvald. Not only that, but Nora is also painted in a way that characterizes her as a bubbly air-head that is not able to take care of herself or have a mind of her own. Ibsen wirtes “HELMER: Nora, Nora, how like a woman! No, but seriously, Nora, you know what I think about that. No debts! Never borrow! Something of freedom’s lost—and something of beauty, too—from a home that’s founded on borrowing and debt. We’ve made a brave stand up to now, the two of us; and we’ll go right on like that the little while we have to. NORA [going toward the stove ]: Yes, whatever you say, Torvald.” (944)Since Realists go against individuals having freedom of action over a state control, Torvald Helmer can be seen as representing a government while Nora represents a citizen with no say in any matter. Torvald uses the term “like a woman” to denounce Nora's inability to handle money, thus belittling her. Nora still complies to Torvalds wishes, giving up her voice rather easily while she only does what is best for her greater power. Furthermore, Nora obtains money from her father before he dies to support the trip to Italy because Torvald was ill and needed to go in order to get help. This shows that Nora did was only thinking about her husband, the higher power she obeys, and put herself last. This also exemplifies a Realist concern with community benefit, not
Krogstad creates an elaborate plan to blackmail Nora and tell her husband about her forgery if she does not persuade Torvald to keep him employed. This would lead to many legal consequences for Nora and would disrupt the family and Torvald 's business as he would take full blame for her illegal actions. Nora 's secret begins to eat at her as she contemplates what she is going to do to solve the problem. To the audience, Nora 's impression has been completely altered. The secret that Nora possesses, reveals to the audience that her character is much more than just a trophy-wife and an object. In the meantime, Nora begins to look for different ways in order to pay back all of her debts. Nora explains that she, "was lucky enough to get a lot of copying to do... [like] working and earning money" (Ibsen Act 2). Nora begins to deter from that of a traditional wife, and takes on the role of the man and begins working to pay back all of the debt. The audience begins to recognize that Nora is evolving into a determined and brave wife who is willing to protect her secret to support her