Nora's Journey: Identity and Rebellion in A Doll's House

Introduction: Naturalism and the Nineteenth-Century Woman

Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House takes place during the literary movement of Naturalism, which customarily reflected the society of that time. The society of this era was exclusively male-dominated, with women's actions and rights assessed from a male standpoint. In the play, Ibsen fully acknowledges the reality of the nineteenth-century woman's role as a stay-at-home mother whose life focused on raising children and attending to her husband's every need. He is able to convey the struggle that women of this time faced in order to find their authentic identity in the face of dictatorial social conventions. Through his characters Nora Helmer and Torvald Helmer, Ibsen brings to life the reality of a woman's divide between a sense of duty to themselves and their responsibility to others, while attacking women's rights as a matter of importance. Nora's dynamic character, initially oppressed by her husband, presents an inauthentic identity to the audience that eventually reveals the truth of her existence and decides to go against the norm of her society to discover her authentic identity.

Nora as a Dynamic Character: The Inauthentic Identity

In Ibsen's play, Nora is the dynamic character. Throughout the entirety of the play, the audience witnesses the evolution of Nora's identity. They witness her identity transform from one that is inauthentic to one that is authentic. At the beginning of the play, the audience sees her as a woman being oppressed by her husband, one with an inauthentic identity. Nora is seen in this inauthentic way due to the relationship she had with her husband. The relationship with her husband skewed Nora's identity through both spoon-feeding and pampering.

As one scholar notes, "She has been made to believe that she was happy, that she was an ideal wife, and that her husband loves her, and she was living with the belief that an ideal husband like hers would, if the necessity arose, sacrifice his life to save her reputation" (Goonetilleke). She is the perfect image of a doll wife who revels in the thoughts of the luxuries that she can afford because she is married. When Nora speaks to Torvald about their financial situation, she says, "Oh yes, Torvald, we can squander a little now. Can't we? Just a tiny, wee bit. Now that you've got a big salary and are going to make piles and piles of money" (Ibsen, Act I). Nora is seen as very flirtatious. She constantly engages in childlike acts of disobedience, such as telling white lies about whether she bought macaroons. Nora goes through life with the illusion that everything is perfect.