Ibsen\'s \"A Doll\'s House\" in a Doll\'s
In A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, the play's protagonist Nora Helmer has her character defined, in part, by the use of a dramatic foil for her -- her former schoolmate Christina, always addressed as "Mrs.
Ibsen's A Doll's House: Feminism and Modern Tragedy
Now recognized as the "Father of Realism" and one of the founders of the European Modernist movement, Norwegian playwright and poet Henrik Ibsen began life as the child of a well-to-do merchant family in the portside town of Skein. Although Ibsen's first few years of life would be considered rather idyllic, his father's unexpected fall from financial grace into a state of bankruptcy precipitated a tumultuous adolescence defined by Ibsen's father routinely mistreating his family. In the words of one Ibsen biographer, "always an authoritarian, Knud Ibsen became a family tyrant, visiting his bitterness and resentment on his wife and children" (Templeton 4), with this introduction to the powerless state inflicted upon women – and the abuses they suffer in silence – serving as a catalyst for the writer's subsequent literary portrayals of victimized female figures transforming into tragic heroines. The conflicted Ibsen soon began exploring creative outlets for the internalized frustration he felt towards his father, writing deeply reflective prose, along with tragic plays featuring characters who echoed his parent's own tortured marital dynamic. Although many of his initial forays into the world of dramatic literature proved to be fruitless, Ibsen persevered throughout his adolescence and adulthood, penning several works combing tragic elements with the realism of European Modernism. It was not until Ibsen reached his late thirties that his work as a playwright began to pay financial dividends, and only during his self-imposed exile to the European nations of Italy and Germany did he begin to infuse his work with the scathing social commentary that propelled A Doll's House into realm of literary discussion.