Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House explores many social themes such as strict gender roles, social hierarchy, and women’s subordinate social position. The power differential between men and women is evident in how Torvald treats Nora, in Krogstad’s power over Nora, and the characterization of the female leads Nora and Mrs. Linde. During the course of the play, Nora realizes her subservient position and undergoes an awakening that leads to a drastic decision. When she realizes her status versus her potential, Nora does what she must and sets herself free. Nora’s transformation is the most important theme in the play. She begins the play naively content and ends as a seeker of her own freedom and happiness.
At the beginning of the play, Nora is portrayed as a diminutive character, trivial and child-like. This characterization emphasizes her inferior status within her marriage, family and society. For example, Torvald uses many pet names that impose gendered roles of fragility and inferiority such as: “my little sky-lark” (3, 5, 44, 65), “my little squirrel” (3, 5, 33, 45), and “my little singing bird” (33, 36, 81, 85). Nora is thus portrayed as a childlike and delicate female character, one who is in need of male protection and stewardship, which is embodied by Torvald.
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As the story progresses, Nora becomes aware of her contrived existence and begins to crave freedom and independence. Nora’s life is a controlled, artificial, puppet-like, bourgeois life. This life is outwardly comfortable, but contains no real substance. Her husband keeps her content, but keeps her in his possession and treats her as a child. His power over her is typical of the time period, where husbands maintained their wives and women adhered to strict social roles. As such, Nora’s life is “a doll’s house”, which is artificial, insipid, but attractive and comfortable.
Another place in the play where Nora exhibits her growing freedom and strength is in deceiving her husband and standing up to Krogstad. She could have easily buckled under the pressure with Krogstad, but she remains strong. Krogstad makes serious threats against Nora: “If I get thrown into the gutter for a second time, I shall take you with me” that would have scared any woman of her status from that period (50). As a woman, Nora could have easily cowered, fearing the loss of her social position and reputation. One would suspect that her subordinate role as a housewife would have shaped her responses to be more timid, but she does not fear him. Krogstad’s threat of blackmail serves to provide the necessary friction for Nora to awaken and find her own freedom.
The very end of the play showcases the climactic finale and last stage of Nora’s awakening. At the end of Act II, when Torvald finds out about Nora’s forgery he recommends: “From this moment on, happiness is not the question. All that concerns us is to save the remains, the fragments, the appearance…” (83). Torvald’s idea is to cope with the scandal by continuing with their mundane domestic life as if nothing had happened. The idea of trying to salvage and return to an empty life as if it were normal is not appealing to Nora. She later retorts: “In all these eight years—longer than that—from the very beginning of our acquaintance, we have never exchanged a word on any serious subject” (86). This signifies a turning point in her awareness and desire for something more substantial in a marriage partner.
Nora’s need to experience freedom for the first time becomes the most important thing in her awareness. She is presented with a crossroads: to stay in an empty marriage for appearance’s sake or leave it behind and find herself (79). She does not acquiesce to her husband’s pleas that she “rest on him” because she is a “little scared helpless darling”, but takes the challenge, closes the domestic chapter of her life and leaves her home and family (85). Nora can take this bold step because she has suddenly become aware of the falseness she was living under: “No, I have never been happy. I thought I was, but it has never really been so.” (81). After realizing the sham that her life is, she knows she cannot return to it.
While social norms and expectations were unyieldingly strict in the 19th century, Ibsen portrays a single woman’s liberation from her contrived, controlling life and the oppressive roles of the period. The play touches on a variety of themes such as love, duty, freedom and independence and serves as social commentary on the injustices that are created through a marriage partnership. Ibsen’s play is a reflection of the social norms of the early 19th century, and has not lost its current relevance with female audiences. Today, women have many rights that would have been considered absurd in Ibsen’s time, such as an education, suffrage, freedom to marry or not, and sexual freedoms. However, despite these freedoms and advancements women around the world still contend with prescribed gender roles that perpetuate inequality and a range of injustices like abuse, rape, income gaps and discrimination. Therefore, Ibsen’s play continues to give valuable lessons to modern audiences in the 21st century.
- Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House. New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, 2013. Print.
