A Doll's House- Henrik Ibsen

A Doll’s House is a play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and was first performed in 1879. Ibsen is believed by some to be the greatest dramatist since Shakespeare and his plays often deal with the power dynamic between men and women, issues of morality and the realities that lay behind many social constructs. The play was highly controversial when first staged because of its presentation of marriage, and Ibsen was forced to rewrite the ending when it was performed in Germany, because many people saw Nora’s abandonment of her family as immoral. Ibsen’s play establishes debates about women’s rights, marital relations and the nature or love.

In his first two lines, Helmer calls Nora “my little songbird” and “my squirrel”, demonstrating the pet names he gives to her which make her the “Doll” of the title. Him calling her his “songbird” has connotations of keeping her in a cage, and expecting her to perform. As the play develops, the audience learn that Nora isn’t as childish and flippant as she originally seemed, and is actually rather shrewd, demonstrated by the fact that she secretly borrowed £250 to get her husband treatment when  he was ill, and has been deceiving him ever since.

Nora tries to keep this information secret throughout the play because she knows that Torvald will see it as a disgrace to his name. Krogstad, the man whom the money was borrowed from, informs Nora that he is aware that she forged her father’s signature on the document, which is a criminal offence. Krogstad then blackmails Nora into persuading Torvald not to fire him, because Torvald has recently become the manager at the bank where Krogstad words. Nora fails to persuade Torvald not to fire Krogstad, because Torvald is convinced that he is an immoral criminal, even though the crime he committed in the past was no more than forging a signature. When the secret is revealed Nora is remarkably calm and collected, despite the fact she has been worrying about this moment throughout the play. This is because Helmer’s angry reaction leads her to the realisation that he wasn’t the man she thought he was.

Some critics have viewed A Doll’s House as a play embracing the struggle of women for equal rights, however others have suggested that the play is about “the need of every individual to find out the kind of person he or she really is”, not just Nora. Perhaps Nora isn’t the only person in the play who is trapped and is striving to escape: Torvald spends the majority of his time working and could be seen as being at the mercy of society because he’s constantly worried about what other people will think of him. One type of love the play explores is love of self, exemplified mostly by Nora’s realisation that she must leave her home in order to be true to herself. Torvald attempts to persuade to stay by saying that she has a duty to bring up their children; Nora replies that “I’ve someone else to bring up first- myself.”

Mrs Linde is an interesting character in the play, and arguably supports the domestication of women. Mrs Linde previously abandoned Krogstad for a richer man because she needed the money. However following her husband’s death they are reunited and she says to him: “there’s no pleasure in working only for yourself, give me somebody and something to work for”. On the one hand, this implies her dependence on a man to work for; however on the other hand she just wants a sense of purpose in her life. The love depicted between Krogstad and Linde is arguably the most romantic in the play: Krogstad described himself as a “broken man clinging to the wreck of life”, and perhaps this is because the barriers of hypocrisy between the two have been broken down: Linde knows Krogstad is blackmailing Nora and Krogstad has already experienced anguish at being abandoned. However the two are able to accept each other for who they are, something Nora and Helmer fail to do. 

Dr Rank is another interesting character in the play. He frequently visits the Helmer household partly because he and Torvald are friends but mainly because he’s in love with Nora. Rank is arguably a slightly more realistic character than the others, because he ironically mocks his situation in life in a way that the other characters don’t. Rank is dying from a generic decease, suffering for his father’s exuberant lifestyle, and the theme of children suffering for their parent’s actions is recurrent. Nora is frequently reminded by Helmer that her father got himself into debt by overspending, and that she should refrain of doing the same. Rank is aware that his days are numbered and he therefore has nothing to lose in claiming to love Nora “as deeply as anyone else”, but his love for her is ultimately unrequited.