Doll\'s House Although the Norwegian

Doll's House

Although the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen wrote a number of significant plays, the one that is the most prevalent in academic studies today is a Doll's House. Completed, published, and performed first in 1879, this play has sparked much controversy in regard to Ibsen's message as it is primarily presented through the main female character, Nora Helmer. Much has been said and written about viewing this play from purely a feminist perspective. A feminist reading is certainly a valid reading of the play. However, it is not the only reading and to give a feminist interpretation the only credibility is far too limiting of the text and too insulting of the playwright. The truth is that Ibsen's clever crafting of this play and careful development of his heroine, Nora, has allowed readers and critics over the years to apply many interpretations with validity.

To thoroughly understand what kind of reading the writer intended is a necessary first step when analyzing the play. Did Ibsen intend this play as a feminist text as many have interpreted it to be? Scholars point to female characters in Ibsen's plays prior to a Doll's House as evidence that Ibsen was thinking along feminist lines. In a play from late 1877 called the Pillars of Society, Ibsen established two female characters who knew their own minds, Lona Hessel and Dina Dorf (Watts 16). Ibsen had been studying the status of women through the writings of one of his friends, Camilla Collett. Ibsen had even made his sentiments on women public knowledge when he unsuccessfully made a motion at the Scandinavian Club in Rome to allow female members to vote (Watts 16).

Women and the role of women in society were certainly on Ibsen's mind when he was composing a Doll's House.

Much has been said and written in an attempt to pin Ibsen down on his intentions with Nora and her situation in a Doll's House. Ibsen refused to the end to limit his writing in the play to a strictly feminist standpoint. In 1898, after Ibsen had achieved great fame for this play and many others, he was honored at a banquet by the Norwegian Society for Women's Rights. The members of this organization deemed a Doll's House to be a masterpiece and a victory for women's rights. In his speech at the banquet, Ibsen explained:

have been more of a poet and less of a social philosopher than people have generally been inclined to believe. I thank you for your toast but I must decline the honor of consciously having worked for women's rights. I am not even quite sure what women's rights really are. To me it has been a question of human rights." (Ibsen as quoted in Gilman 49)

No one can ever be sure that Ibsen's statement at this event should be taken at face value, but it does signal a warning from the playwright himself that too limited view of his work is not appropriate. Similar to Ibsen, the New Critics also espoused the play as one "not concerned with feminism but with the genesis of a human being" (Rekdal 149).

A study of the play beginning with the ideas of the New Critics and Ibsen's own suggestions about human rights seems the best place to start. The play is a classic example of how one person can exert his or her authority over another. The fact that this plays out between a married couple has led so many to believe that it is purely an issue of male domination and female submissiveness. It is, however, broader than that as it is "really about human appetites for power and exploitation and the corollary victimization of those who are not so driven" (Gilman 64). This is what appears at the beginning of the play as Ibsen introduces his characters to the audience.

Nora appears to be the victim in act one of her husband's controlling attitude about money. Later, the audience realizes why Nora has such a need for money and economizing, but, early in the play, the discussion of money serves to show Nora's submissive position to her husband. Their discussion is all couched in his pet names for her as various birds and small creatures. Torvald says, "It's a sweet little bird, but it gets through a terrible amount of money. You wouldn't believe how much it costs a man when he's got a little song bird like you!" (Ibsen 151) Nora's position in relation to her husband is so submissive and unimportant at this time that he talks about her in the third person and as if she is a pet. Torvald strips Nora of her role not only as a woman here, but also as a human. Nora accepts her role and plays along with her husband's nonsense.

The undercurrent of the play is also established early on that will convert Nora from submissive wife to human by the end of the play. In the conversation with Mrs. Linde, an old friend of Nora's, Nora reveals that she secretly borrowed money years earlier to take her ill husband to Italy. Nora blurts this information out to Mrs. Linde in an attempt to be taken seriously by other characters. Nora: "And you think I've had an easy life, with nothing to contend with" (Ibsen 158). Mrs. Linde has suffered and learned from life and Nora does not want to be accused of not having engaged in the human struggle (Johnston). Nora's justification for having borrowed the money, something her husband was opposed to, was that the trip would and did save his life. "It was I who saved Torvald's life...Papa never gave us a penny. It was I who raised the money" (Ibsen 159). Nora is desperate to be taken seriously by someone because her husband has refused to grant her that.

The audience perceives Nora's actions here as something a woman would do for her husband - an extremely humane act, but one that will upset the balance of power that Ibsen established in the opening of the play. The introduction of Mrs. Linde brings the issue to the surface, but it is the visit from Krogstad that will force Nora out of her submissive position. Krogstad's blackmail attempt and fraud charge make Nora realize that she can no longer play the role of the childish pet with her husband. The thought that her role may change sends her into absolute desperation as she violently trims the Christmas tree and declares her exchange with Krogstad "nonsense." Nora struggles to understand her situation as presented to her by Krogstad. She cannot understand why her "heroic" act of saving her husband's life should be viewed in such terrible terms. "Hasn't a daughter the right to protect her dying father from worry and anxiety? Hasn't a wife the right to save her husband's life? I don't know much about the law, but I'm quite certain that it must say somewhere that things like that are allowed" (Ibsen 175-6). Nora has to admit her ignorance and take Krogstad's words as the truth.

In this she realizes her own lowly position in the world as a woman who may not have realized how wrong her action was. Her words also speak to all of humanity. Where is the division between what is right legally and what is right from a human perspective? The audience does not see Nora as evil for what she has done because, as she says, she did it for love; her very ignorance protects her in this case. It is her realization of that ignorance that contributes to the reversal of her position at the end of the play. However, before that reversal can occur, Ibsen has to continue his representation of Nora as a submissive creature. She knows the role is false and has for years. After all, she is a manipulator and a liar. She has lied about everything from borrowing money and economy in the home to eating macaroons when her husband has forbidden it. Yet, the only role she knows is that of quasi-submissive to her husband and she is loathe to relinquish it just as her husband is loathe to relinquish his position as the dominate one in their relationship.

In act two during the awful waiting period for Nora, she clings to her role as submissive. One could argue that she continues to manipulate her husband by convincing him of his role of superiority. That is true, but her motivation is to attempt to maintain her role as a wife. This is nowhere more obvious than in the part of the play when Nora begs her husband to help her rehearse the dance that she is going to perform at the party. In a moment of dramatic irony, the audience realizes that she is trying to distract Torvald from going to the letterbox where Krogstad's revealing letter awaits. Nora dances wildly in front of her husband, Mrs. Linde and Dr. Rank. "But, Nora darling, you're dancing as if your life depended on it!...This is sheer madness - stop, I tell you!...I'd never have believed it - you've forgotten everything I taught you" (Ibsen 204). Torvald must now take her in hand and re-teach the wild Italian dance, the tarantella.

The choice of this particular dance by Ibsen is a stroke of genius as it aptly illustrates the nature of the situation arising within Nora. The dance derives from an Italian belief that the only way to purge the poison of the tarantula was to dance wildly and dance the poison out of the body. "The tarantella is an expression of fear bordering to madness and a sensuous zest for life that also operates as a regenerative process" (Rekdal 168). Within Nora in this dance, the audience sees the fear and madness, but the scene also foreshadows the zest for real life and leads to her regeneration at the end of the play.

Nora has played a role up until this point in the play and done it brilliantly. As a matter of fact, all of the characters have been thoroughly entrenched in their assigned roles. Nora is the centerpiece of Ibsen's concern with roles, but in order to make the larger point about human rights, he wants the audience to see that many characters are trapped into a specific role from which they must break free. For Nora, the role of wife is synonymous with the role of mother. She has played both brilliantly throughout her married life. The children are not seen very frequently on the stage, but the impression is made that they are Nora's play things and as such in a precarious position. From the very beginning of the play when Nora is buying Christmas presents, she comments that "here's a doll and a doll's bed for Emmy. They're rather plain, but she'll soon smash them to bits anyway" (Ibsen 149). The expectation that her daughter will smash her doll things certainly foreshadows Nora's changing role.

Nora's role as mother is most symbolized on the stage by her game of hide and seek with the children in act one. On an obvious symbolic level, the game is used to illustrate how childish Nora sometimes is. The game also exists to cement Nora's role as a middle-class mother who only takes responsibility for her children when she feels like it. However, the game can also be seen as an illustration of Nora's character and the role that she has played. On the surface, she is the respectable mother and wife. However, the scene also serves to illustrate how Nora will be forced to crawl out from underneath her deceitfulness in order to assume a new role at the end of the play. It is interesting to note that it is Krogstad who finds Nora and stops the game as if to point out that he will stop more than one game for Nora (Drake).

Nora is the most obvious representation of motherhood in the play. However, the other two female characters are used to show things about this role in society. Mrs. Linde is childless. When Nora learns this at the beginning of the play, she feels sympathy for Mrs. Linde. "And no children?...But to be so completely alone - that must be terribly sad for you. I have three lovely children" (Ibsen 154). This dialogue appears to represent how Nora feels that she has done things right in her life. She has fulfilled the expectations of society by having a successful husband and three children. Naturally, Nora views Mrs. Linde as barren and undesirable because of what Nora has been forced to imbibe her whole life.

Later, Nora's conception of women without children and children without mothers begins to change. Nora is possibly facing life in this situation due to Krogstad's blackmail. In a conversation with Nurse, Nora questions the traditional ideas of motherhood.

Nurse: You see, they're so used to having their Mamma with them.

Nora: But, Nanny, I can't be with them like I used to.

Nurse: Oh well, young children'll get used to anything

Nora: Do you really think so? Do you thing they'd forget their Mamma if she went away altogether?... Tell me, Nanny...I've often wondered, how did you ever have the heart to hand over your child to strangers?

Nurse: But I had to, so that I could come and be nanny to my little Nora.

Nora: Yes, but how could you want to?

Nurse: When I had the chance of such a good place? Any poor girl who'd got into trouble would be glad to. (Ibsen 182)

Here, we learn that Nora had no mother and it is possible for a mother to live without her child. Both of these things are revealing about Nora. From Ibsen's perspective, the lack of a real mother for Nora may have in some way guided her down the path that she is on. However, the nurse's reassurance that mother and child can be successful separately allows Nora in the end to walk out the door leaving nurse in charge of another generation.

As much as the female characters are struggling with the role of motherhood, the male characters struggle with fatherhood. Dr. Rank, Krogstad, and Torvald all represent something different about fatherhood in their respective roles. Some critics see this play not as an avowal of feminist causes, but "an attack on patriarchy by denigrating its prime symbol, the father" (Rosefeldt). All of this contributes to Ibsen's idea that the play is about the roles people play in society and how that affects them as humans. By expanding those limited roles, Ibsen hopes to bring more humanity to his world.

Much of what Ibsen writes has to do with the sins of the fathers on their children (Rosefeldt). The most obvious character in that regard is Dr. Rank who suffers physically from his father's debauchery. Dr. Rank has inherited syphilis from his father. Although the doctor looks normal on the outside and is successful and wealthy, internally he is terribly flawed (Johnston). With this, Ibsen points to the obvious effect of an inappropriate patriarchal role on the next generation. Incorrect fulfillment of the roles will cause irreversible damage. It may also be a way for Ibsen to illustrate how some are not suited for the role that they are assigned within the middle class society that he establishes in the play.

A similar situation exists regarding Krogstad and his sons. Krogstad has committed some form of fraud in his young years which he has attempted to cover up. Torvald explains to Nora that Krogstad had tried "to wriggle out of it with tricks and subterfuges" (Ibsen 179). When the audience sees Krogstad in the play, he is struggling to keep up appearances so that his sons do not suffer the ignominy that he has. This is to no avail according to Torvald, "Because an atmosphere of lies like that infects and poisons the whole life of a home" (Ibsen 179). Ironically, the problem with Krogstad and his sons is pointed out by Torvald who, in the final act, is more than willing to practice a similar deceit in his attempt to save face or as he says create a "mere facade" (Ibsen 222).

The concept of fatherhood is also tied to the female characters through Mrs. Linde's lack of a father and the problems associated with Nora's father. Mrs. Linde was cast upon the world and made responsible from a young age due to her father's absence. She made an early and loveless marriage in an attempt to support her mother and young brothers. The lack of a father has been the root of her problem and what forced her to follow the conventional path of marriage to escape from her plight (Rosefeldt).

Similarly, Nora's father caused many of her problems and, in the end, shares the blame with Torvald. Early in the play we learn that there was something suspect about Nora's father when Torvald comments that she is "just like your father - always on the look-out for all the money you can get, but the moment you have it, it seems to slip through your fingers...these things are hereditary" (Ibsen 151). Nora seems to have lived under this suspicion all of her married life as is evident at the end when Torvald lambastes her. "All your father's shiftless character has come out in you. No religion, no morality, no sense of duty...So this is what I get for condoning his fault!" (Ibsen 221). Since Nora's father did not play his role in society correctly, Nora is forever tainted in the eyes of her husband.

Torvald has a great love for the roles of society. For him this society is the great middle-class. In his assessment of a Doll's House, Ian Johnston states that "Ibsen's portrayal of that society emphasizes how middle-class life here is limiting, brutal and unforgiving." No one represents the constraints of the middle-class as well as Torvald who is completely governed and driven by the expectations of his society. He must give the impression of respectability in both his public and private lives. Consequently, he has worked hard not to notice any inadequacies in his wife until the moment when he can no longer ignore it. His immediate response to the problem is to maintain the facade of what their life has been so that he does not lose respect or position in the society. "Well, that's all over - it must be; from now on, there'll be no question of happiness, but only the saving the ruin of it - the fragments" (Ibsen 222). When Torvald learns that he really is saved by Krogstad's second letter, he declares, "I'm saved!" (Ibsen 222).