ISL Qatar

International Baccalaureate DP
English A: Literature
Part 1: A Doll’s House

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Contents

Page

A Doll’s House: An Introduction 3

Biography 3

Historical Context 5

Act by Act Analysis 7

Characterisation 21

Themes 31

Motifs 39

Symbols 40

Language and Style 41

Structure and Staging 44

Critical Essays 47

Appendix 55

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A Doll’s House: An Introduction

A Doll's House was published on December 4, 1879, and first performed in Copenhagen
on December 21, 1879. The work was considered a publishing event, and the play's
initial printing of 8,000 copies quickly sold out. The play was so controversial that Ibsen
was forced to write a second ending that he called "a barbaric outrage" to be used only
when necessary. The controversy centered around Nora's decision to abandon her
children, and in the second ending, she decides that the children need her more than
she needs her freedom. Ibsen believed that women were best suited to be mothers and
wives, but at the same time, he had an eye for injustice, and Helmer's demeaning
treatment of Nora was a common problem. Although he would later be embraced by
feminists, Ibsen was no champion of women's rights; he only dealt with the problem of
women's rights as a facet of the realism within his play. His intention was not to solve
this issue but to illuminate it. Although Ibsen's depiction of Nora realistically illustrates
the issues facing women, his decision in Act III to have her abandon her marriage and
children was lambasted by critics as unrealistic, since according to them, no "real"
woman would ever make that choice.

That Ibsen offered no real solution to Nora's dilemma inflamed critics and readers alike
who were then left to debate the ending ceaselessly. This play established a new genre
of modern drama; prior to A Doll's House, contemporary plays were usually historical
romances or contrived comedy of manners. Ibsen is known as the "father of modern
drama" because he elevated theatre from entertainment to a forum for exposing social
problems. Ibsen broke away from the romantic tradition with his realistic portrayals of
individual characters and his focus on psychological concerns as he sought to portray the
real world, especially the position of women in society.

Source: Drama for Students, ©2013 Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved. Full copyright.

Biography

Ibsen was born March 20, 1828, in Skien, Norway, a lumbering town south of Christiania,
now Oslo. He was the second son in a wealthy family that included five other siblings. In
1835, financial problems forced the family to move to a smaller house in Venstop
outside Skien. After eight years, the family moved back to Skein, and Ibsen moved to
Grimstad to study as an apothecary's assistant. He applied to and was rejected at
Christiania University. During the winter of 1848, Ibsen wrote his first play, Catiline,
which was rejected by the Christiania Theatre; it was finally published in 1850 under the
pseudonym Brynjolf Bjarme and generated little interest. Ibsen's second play, The Burial
Mound, was also written under the pseudonym Brynjolf Bjarme and became the first
Ibsen play to be performed when it was presented on September 26, 1850, at the
Christiania Theatre.

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Henrik Ibsen

In 1851, Ibsen accepted an appointment as an assistant stage manager at the Norwegian

Theatre in Bergen. He was also expected to assist the theatre as a dramatic author, and
during his tenure at Bergen, Ibsen wrote Lady lnger (1855), The Feast at Solhoug (1856),
and Olaf Liljekrans (1857). These early plays were written in verse and drawn from Norse
folklore and myths. In 1857, Ibsen was released from his contract at Bergen and
accepted a position at the Norwegian Theatre in Christiania. While there, Ibsen
published The Vikings at Helgeland and married Suzannah Thoresen in 1858. The
couple's only child, Sigurd, was born the following year.

By 1860, Ibsen was under attack in the press for a lack of productivity—although he had
published a few poems during this period. When the Christiania Theatre went bankrupt
in 1862, Ibsen was left with no regular income except a temporary position as a literary
advisor to the reorganized Christiania Theatre. Due to a series of small government
grants, by 1863 Ibsen was able to travel in Europe and begin what became an intense
period of creativity. During this period, Ibsen completed The Pretenders (1863) and a
dramatic epic poem, "Brand" (1866), which achieved critical notice; these works were
soon followed by Peer Gynt (1867). The first of Ibsen's prose dramas, The League of
Youth, published in 1869, was also the first of his plays to demonstrate a shift from an
emphasis on plot to one of interpersonal relationships. This was followed by Emperor
and Galilean (1873), Ibsen's first work to be translated into English, and Pillars of Society
(1877). A Doll's House (1879), Ghosts (1881), and An Enemy of the People (1882) are
among the last plays included in Ibsen's realism period. Ibsen continued to write of
modern realistic themes in his next plays, but he also relied increasingly on metaphor
and symbolism in The Wild Duck (1884) and Hedda Gabler (1890).

A shift from social concerns to the isolation of the individual marks the next phase of
Ibsen's work. The Master Builder (1892), Little Eyolf (1894), John Gabriel Borkman
(1896), and When We Dead Awaken (1899) all treat the conflicts that arise between art

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and life, between creativity and social expectations, and between personal contentment
and self deception. These last works are considered by many critics to be
autobiographical. In 1900, Ibsen suffered his first of several strokes. Ill health ended his
writing career, and he died May 23, 1906.

Although Ibsen's audiences may have debated the social problems he depicted, modern
critics are more often interested in the philosophical and psychological elements
depicted in his plays and the ideological debates they generated.

Source: Drama for Students, ©2013 Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved. Full copyright.

Historical Context

Women's Rights

In 1888, married women in Norway were finally given control over their own money, but
the Norway of Ibsen's play predates this change and provides a more restrictive
environment for women such as Nora Helmer. In 1879, a wife was not legally permitted
to borrow money without her husband's consent, so Nora must resort to deception to
borrow the money she so desperately needs. Ibsen always denied that he believed in
women's rights, stating instead that he believed in human rights.

The issue of women's rights was already a force in Norway several years before Ibsen
focused on the issue, and women had been the force behind several changes. Norway
was a newly liberated country in the nineteenth century, having been freed from Danish
control in 1814; therefore, it is understandable that issues involving freedom—both
political and personal freedom—were important in the minds of Norwegians. Poverty
had already forced women into the workplace early in the nineteenth century, and the
Norwegian government had passed laws protecting and governing women's
employment nearly five decades before Ibsen's play. By the middle of the century,
women were granted the same legal protection as that provided to male children.
Women were permitted inheritance rights and were to be successful in petitioning for
the right to a university education only three years after the first performance of A Doll's
House. But many of the protections provided to women were aimed at the lower
economic classes. Employment opportunities for women were limited to low-paying
domestic jobs, teaching, or clerical work. Middle-class women, such as Nora, noticed
few of these new advantages. It was the institution of marriage itself that restricted the
freedom of middle-class women.

Although divorce was available and inexpensive, it was still socially stigmatized and
available only if both partners agreed. The play's ending makes clear that Torvald would
object to divorce, so Nora's alienation from society would be even greater. There was no
organized feminist movement operating in Norway in 1879. Thus Nora's exodus at the
play's conclusion is a particularly brave and dangerous act. There was no army of

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feminist revolutionaries to protect and guide her; she was completely alone in trying to
establish a new life for herself.
Christmas Celebrations

Christmas was an important family holiday in Norway and was viewed as a time of family
unity and celebration. Thus it is ironic that the play opens on Christmas Eve and that the
Helmer family unity disintegrates on Christmas Day. Christmas Day and the days
following were traditionally reserved for socializing and visiting with neighbors and
friends. Costume parties, such as the one Nora and Torvald attend, were common, and
the dance Nora performs, the tarantella, is a dance for couples or for a line of partners.
That Nora dances it alone signifies her isolation both within her marriage and in the
community.

Sources

Nora's forgery is similar to one that occurred earlier in Norway and one with which Ibsen
was personally connected. A woman with whom Ibsen was friendly, Laura Kieler,
borrowed money to finance a tap that would repair her husband's health. When the
loan came due, Kieler was unable to repay it. She tried to raise money by selling a
manuscript she had written, and Ibsen, feeling the manuscript was inferior, declined to
help her get it published. In desperation, Kieler forged a check, was caught, and was
rejected by her husband, who then sought to gain custody of their children and have his
wife committed to an asylum. After her release, Kieler pleaded with her husband to take
her back, which he did rather unwillingly. Ibsen provides Nora with greater resilience and
ingenuity than that evidenced by Kieler. Nora is able to earn the money to repay the
loan, and her forgery is of her father's signature on a promissory note and not of a
check. Lastly, Nora is saved by Krogstad's withdrawal of legal threats so is not cast out by
her husband. Instead, she becomes stronger, and her husband is placed in the position
of the marital partner who must plead for a second chance. Ibsen provides a careful
reversal of the original story that strengthens the character of the "doll" wife.

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Act by Act Analysis

Act One (Pages 23-28 Summary)

● Nora Helmer arrives home with her Christmas shopping.

● Nora and her husband, Torvald, discuss household expenses.
● He teases her about eating sweets as visitors arrive.

Act One (Pages 23-28 Analysis)

Ibsen's title suggests the location is important, and while Nora is making her way
upstairs the audience is able to observe the 'house' without the characters. Stage
naturalism - the representation of plausible situations on sets designed to look as
realistic as possible was still relatively new in 1879 and this is only Ibsen's second play of
contemporary life. The upper middle-class room would have been novel for his first
audience, used to more aristocratic locations for drama, and they would have responded
to clues already visible. This is a household with pretensions to culture - the engravings
point to an interest in art. The piano, an expensive item of furniture, suggests a
reasonable prosperity, as does Nora's Christmas tree a little later. Although Norway is a
land of pine forests, this was a luxury item for Scandinavian families of the period.

The audience might also have expectations on observing that the room has four doors.
Popular drama of the period depended on intrigue, and so many entrances to a single
living room suggests this will feature in the plot: in fact, doors will be a key image. The
bell that rings before Nora's entrance is a clue that she does not possess her own key.
Her first word is 'Hide'. The festive tree, her high spirits and her generosity to the porter
imply that this will be a domestic comedy and its intrigues light-hearted. This is
reinforced by the first real laugh. Helmer has no intention of leaving his study till he
registers the word 'bought', which brings him popping out like a bird from a cuckoo
clock. This is a variation on a comic device, the double take, where someone briefly
ignores important information before shock suddenly dawns; the laughter springs from
the actor's rapid change of expression. Here his rush to the door, marks Helmer as a
potential figure of fun, fussy about money. However, there seems to be no threat of
poverty.

The difference in male and female attitudes to spending is at the level of comedic
stereotyping still evident in the more old-fashioned kind of TV sitcom. Helmer's names
for his wife - 'skylark' and 'squirrel!' - may sound patronising, and she has no nickname
for him; however, her line 'if you only knew that expenses we skylarks and squirrels
have' suggests the animal names are a private joke in a happy relationship. If Helmer
labours the point that Nora is impractical - he derides her attempts to make Christmas
decorations - this is consistent with a light comedy about a dizzy young wife with a

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sensible husband. Indeed, Ibsen's first Nora, Betty Hennings, was famous for this kind of
role.

However, there are indications of deeper issues beneath the comic surface. Not only is
Nora without a key, her reluctance to open or knock on Helmer's door implies that she
does not have access to all of her house. And while Helmer's interrogation about cakes
seems playful- any husband might tease a wife breaking her diet - the line 'you've given
me your word' suggests a disturbing lack of trust.

Act One (Pages 28-39 Summary)

● Mrs Linde asks Nora to use her influence to get her a job.
● Nora tells Mrs Linde her secret
● Krogstad comes to see Helmer

Act One (Pages 28-39 Analysis)

Initially, the two female characters are sharply contrasted. Although they were at school
together, Mrs Linde looks older. We can infer that her clothes show she is poor, and a
widow - nineteenth-century mourning conventions were strict and it is likely that she
would wear shabby black or grey. She makes a contrast to Nora – her rather envious
remarks suggest she considers Nora stylishly dressed - although we will learn that there
is a secret behind the elegant dress, and clothes will have an important role in the play.
Mrs Linde's garments also indicate that she has been travelling, while the housewifely
Nora fusses about chairs and - as she often does – gravitates to the stove, the source of
domestic warmth and comfort. Mrs Linde's function in the scene is a traditional one -
she is a confidante whose function is to listen to the heroine's secrets. However, Ibsen
gives her a more active role: she has her own story. Not only has she faced the poverty
and bereavement with which Helmer jokingly threatens Nora, she values work for its
own sake. This makes her a mirror in which Nora can view herself, not as what she is but
as what she could become.

The ensuing revelations change our understanding of Nora. We see she is competent at
handling money, and the silliness she assumes in cajoling money from Helmer is a
conscious performance; she may different to us, as we re-evaluate her attractive clothes
rather than extravagances. Two of her confidences to Mrs. Linde suggest that Nora's own
image of herself is undergoing alterations: Nora can envisage a time when Helmer is
tired of her; she has also greatly enjoyed earning money, 'like being a man.' But we also
change our view of Helmer. It is to Nora the doctors turned to explain his condition:
Helmer lacked the strength of character to deal with such information and she does not
think his pride could cope with financial dependency on her. We also re-evaluate the
house itself as a place of secrets as well as happiness.

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Act One (Pages 39-44 Summary)

● Dr Rank, Mrs Linde and Nora discuss Krogstad and corruption.

● Helmer offers Mrs Linde a job.
● Nora plays with her children and then receives a shock.

Act One (Pages 39-44 Analysis)

After the quiet duologues the stage is suddenly busy. The arrivals and departures seem
at first to have little dramatic purpose beyond prolonging suspense: the audience is
curious to know why Nora is uncomfortable at the presence of Krogstad and she is
clearly not going to explain this to her guests. However, a theme is emerging: that of
responsibility. Dr Rank and Mrs Linde conduct a short debate which uses Krogstad as an
example: should a responsible society tolerate his moral weakness and give him a
chance to redeem himself through honest work? Or does this merely deprive a better
man of a job?

Nora claims to be bored by this rather abstract discussion. However, as she starts to
distribute macaroons, her guests are confronted with a dilemma: will they take
responsibility for telling Helmer about the forbidden sweets, or will they conceal the
truth? Despite the upright tone of their debate, both of them gobble the macaroons and
keep quiet. This tiny comic moment suggests that taking responsibility for one's actions,
or owning up to a lie, is not easy. (Helmer will shortly hold forth about Krogstad's failure
to 'freely' confess his guilt as if it were a simple matter.) Nora's greed - 'just a little one.
Or two at the most' – is funny, and her sudden urge to swear makes her amusingly like a
child with a sugar rush. However, excessive eating can also be a symptom of suppressed
rage. Nora never does swear in front of Helmer - but perhaps here she is symbolically
'eating her words' instead.

The arrival of the children opens up the question of responsibility to the family. While
fathers of the period had less engagement with childcare than today, Helmer seems
comically anxious to offload them, hastening off with 'this is no place for anyone but a
mother!' Nora, on the other hand, is keen to be with them, dancing with them, cuddling
them and taking off their wet things. This reflects her childlike nature; but at the same
time, her concern for the nurse's comfort shows her to be a considerate employer.
Ibsen's lines and detailed stage directions should be taken as a series of cues for the
actress to improvise with the children; they allow her to give an impression of ease and
spontaneity, indicating that Nora is a devoted and practised mother rather than simply
indulging a whim.

Act One (Pages 44-51 Summary)

● Krogstad is revealed as the moneylender.

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 ● He asks Nora to use her influence with her husband to help him keep his job, and
threatened to tell Helmer what she has done.
● We learn that Nora forged her father’s signature on the I.O.U.

Act One (Pages 44-51 Analysis)

Blackmail, compromising documents and villainous moneylenders were the

stock-in-trade of the prolific playwright Eugene Scribe. (1791-1861), popular throughout
nineteenth-century Europe; he coined the term piece bien faite (well-made play) to
describe the structure he had devised to maximise the thrills, and discipline the often
very extravagant and emotional style, of the drama of his time Ibsen directed dozens of
these plays and, though he despised them, Krogstad's sudden entry after tantalising
hints shows the same adroit manipulation of suspense. However, the tone of this scene
is different; there are no heroes or villains, but complex and fallible characters. Nora
reveals a snobbish discourtesy towards Krogstad as a member of an inferior class: 'one
of my husband's subordinates.' She tells the children he is a 'strange man;' we have
already heard Helmer lecture her about paying one's creditors, and her response: 'Who
bothers about them? They're just strangers.' The compassion she has shown to Mrs
Linde, Dr Rank and the nurse is instinctive, not a principle she applies to the world at
large - as she says, 'What do I care for your dreary old community?' Krogstad's reminder
of their arrangement is a deft piece of exposition which provides us with important
information; however, the painstaking way he takes her through the story step by step
also helps us to realise that her horizons have been narrowed by her upbringing - she
genuinely believes that motive is as important as legality.

While Krogstad is implacable, he is also desperate. Blackmailers in well-made plays of

the period demanded large sums of money, or sex, from the helpless heroine; all
Krogstad wants is respectability in fact, ironically enough, he wants to be just like
Helmer. He tries to make clear to Nora that she has committed a crime; his hint that he
did 'nothing more - and nothing worse' (p. 175) suggests that, like Mrs Linde, Krogstad is
a mirror in which Nora can view herself: if the independent woman showed her what
she could become, Krogstad is the scared and deceitful criminal she will be if she does
not face her problem. It is not surprising that his exit prompts a flurry of activity on
Nora's part. She decorates the Christmas tree not only to distract herself from anxiety,
but to perform the role of the pretty and carefree wife Helmer wants her to be.

Act One (Pages 51-54 Summary)

● Helmer lectures Nora for lying and she diverts him with talk of the coming party.
● Helmer offers Mrs Linde a job.
● Nora plays with her children and then receives a shock

Act One (Pages 51-54 Analysis)

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Helmer's entry comes as a surprise, just as Krogstad's did; the space is beginning to
resemble a trap in which Nora is helpless. His questions reinforce this impression; he
clearly knows that has been there. As he continues to pressure Nora, she even admits
things that are not the case: Krogstad did not ask her to conceal his visit. Helmer seems
more anxious to put Nora in the wrong than to think about Krogstad. His use of the
'songbird' image stresses her status as a pet - and as a creature in a cage – underlining -
the idea that a submissive and therefore truthful wife is an important part of the
furniture of his peaceful home.

The way Nora weaves the subject of Krogstad in and out of a discussion of her projected
fancy dress is interesting. She begins conversation about the party as a topic that will
please and distract Helmer. However, the line 'Everything seems so stupid and pointless'
suggests that she is offering him a cue to enter a different conversation - perhaps about
Krogstad, perhaps about what she has been doing, or perhaps even about wider issues
raised by Dr Rank and Mrs Linde. Whatever her intent, Helmer crushes it with his
patronising reply: 'So little Nora's realized that?' As Helmer reveals his radical strategy to
reorganise the bank, we see her realise something else - that Krogstad too is under
pressure. Her 'poor Krogstad' may reflect dawning compassion for the 'stranger',
as well as an attempt to influence her husband.

Nora's instant switch to the topic of fancy dress at Helmer's 'Hm!' suggests that she has
had a great deal of practice in manipulating her husband and will know exactly the right
moment to return to Krogstad. The irony of Helmer's talk about liars shows Ibsen
handling with great assurance one of the developing conventions of naturalistic theatre:
apparently casual words spoken by one character which have a devastating effect on
another. From Helmer's viewpoint, his remark is just an opportunity to show off his skill
in argument, which he expects Nora to admire. She, however, fresh from the debate
between Dr Rank and Mrs Linde, is genuinely afraid that she could corrupt her children.
Ibsen's stage direction tells the actress playing Nora to come 'closer behind him,' hence
her husband cannot see the look on her face, but we can.

Helmer then effectively manipulates Nora into promising that she will drop the subject;
by forcing her to shake hands, he is making her give her word to do so. He has previously
made her give her word not to eat sweets. It seems that he expects to control her
behaviour in serious as well as trivial matters. Nora, however, is physically and mentally
agitated, complaining how 'hot' it is. When she refuses to allow the nurse to bring the
children In to see her, it is clear that Nora is now not just afraid of what
Krogstad may do; she is afraid of herself.

As the curtain falls, the audience will not only wonder how the blackmail plot will play
out, but how this woman who has already begun to change will deal with the new and
frightening idea that her crime may have made her an unfit mother for her children.

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Act Two (Pages 55-60 Summary)

● Nora asks her old nurse whether she misses her child.
● Nora shows Mrs Linde her costume for the party.
● They discuss Dr. Rank’s illness. Mrs Linde warns Nora about her closeness with
the doctor.
● Nora explains that Rank is not the source of the loan.

Act Two (Pages 55-60 Analysis)

The sight of the Christmas tree stripped of presents indicates that time has passed and it
is Christmas Day; the presence of Nora's cloak suggests she might want to go out. But as
she speaks 'A thing like that couldn't happen' - she is virtually repeating what she said at
the close of Act 1, implying that she has spent twenty-four hours in paralysing terror. The
burnt-out candles reflect this mood. Nora is evidently contemplating leaving her children
seriously enough to hint that she trusts the nurse with them.

Although the nurse features little in the play, this scene is of great importance. Firstly, it
shows us a moment of genuine love in contrast to the complex game-playing and
self-deception at the heart of the Helmers' marriage. Secondly, it brings into the play the
wider world of female experience. The nurse's story is tragic, but her matter-of-fact tone
about girls who 'got into trouble' and her touchingly low expectations (two letters in a
period as long as Nora's own lifetime) remind us that such stories are common in the
'community' everyone has been glibly discussing. Finally, although the nurse has never
enjoyed Nora's material advantages, both are equally powerless under the law: if there
were a divorce, Helmer could take the children from her. The nurse is yet another figure
in the hall of mirrors in which Nora finds herself trapped.

Nora's irritation with her fancy dress - 'I should like to tear it all to pieces' - reflects her
earlier comment to Helmer that 'Everything seems so stupid and pointless' (Act 1) and
suggests that the dress is acquiring a symbolic significance for her. Helmer's choice of a
Neapolitan fisher-girl's outfit may reflect his sense of social superiority to Nora; the
dress is also a souvenir of the Italian holiday for which Nora has gone into debt. When
Mrs Linde says that she would like to see her 'all dressed up' in it, Ibsen employs the
same word used to describe the Christmas tree. Nora is perhaps growing weary of
'dressing up' for Helmer as his social and sexual inferior, and of being 'dressed up' like a
doll by him. We may see her as vulnerable to the same fate as the tree she bought
earlier, now stripped of its finery and unwanted.

Act Two (Pages 60-64 Summary)

● Nora asks Helmer to give Krogstad a job and he refuses.

● When she presses him he sends Krogstad a note of dismissal.

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 ● Helmer promises Nora that he can cope with any consequences.

Act Two (Pages 60-64 Analysis)

A clue is dropped so subtly in this episode that it is easy to miss: Nora's father would
evidently have lost his job if Helmer had not been 'so kind and helpful.' Is this a
euphemism for a willingness to cover up underhand dealing? If so, Helmer may, even
unconsciously, have seen Nora as his reward for silence. Ibsen's comedy is especially
sharp in this episode; however, this is not comic relief for its own sake. Each outburst
about Krogstad is prompted by a stimulus from Nora; their exchanges make it
increasingly apparent that the couple are moving in opposite directions. Nora begins in
her usual wheedling tone; but then her argument becomes logical as she questions his
fear of seeming subject to her influence; finally, she uses overtly critical language about
Helmer for the first time, calling him 'petty.' She may even be laughing at him. The
audience certainly will, as under her gaze his pomposity blooms like some great exotic
flower until he blurts his childish 'There, little Miss Stubborn!'

While the action hitherto has shown Nora's relationship to the womanly ideal of her
time, it now begins to explore the construction of masculinity. Helmer's pompous
self-assurance about his 'courage and strength' is funny but suggests he is living out a
stereotype rather than truly knowing himself. He is not 'strong' - he has previously
collapsed from overwork; and he is not courageous enough to deal with the presence of
a subordinate, Krogstad, who reminds him that the class divide between them was once
much narrower.

Act Two (Pages 64-70 Summary)

● Dr Rank arrives and tells Nora he is dying.

● They flirt over her costume and she is on the verge of asking him for money.
● He confesses his love for her and she realises that she cannot.

Act Two (Pages 64-70 Analysis)

For the first time in the play we see an adult encounter, refreshing after the relentless
infantilising of Nora by Helmer and even Mrs Linde. The audience too are expected to
think like adults. The presence of an invalid in literature of the period often indicated
that a character like Nora, who had sinned in some way, was to get a chance to redeem
herself through selflessly nursing him. Nora's selfish relief when Rank's bad news turns
out to be about his illness indicates that the play will not indulge in such a sentimental
cliché. Rank also crucially confirms our growing suspicion of Helmer.

We may until now have seen Nora's concern for him as fussy; Rank is the only person in
the play with the same status and power as Helmer, yet he too is a member of the

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'Torvald Helmer Protection Society' and wishes to keep his 'sensitive' nature from
unpleasant truths.

This scene is an example of subtext: unspoken ideas and emotions pulsing beneath
commonplace words and actions. Rank and Nora speak in a code that reveals both
themselves and their world. First, it makes clear that Nora understands Rank's situation,
and he knows it. It also stresses that this is knowledge forbidden to her sex and class;
when Nora mentions 'asparagus and foie gras' she parrots the kind of lie with which an
enquiring woman might be fobbed off; her tag question to Rank - 'isn't that it?' –
challenges him to repeat such a lie with a straight face. When he counters it with
'truffles' he indicates that he approves of her worldly knowledge (Helmer, one imagines,
would prefer women to be innocent and ignorant). Nora's riposte about 'oysters' –
reputedly an aphrodisiac - shows her awareness that Rank's father had syphilis; 'What a
shame that all those nice things should attack the bones' brings Rank back to his original
complaint that his own spine is paying the price, despite never having had 'the least
enjoyment.' This develops the theme of heredity introduced by Helmer's strictures on
Nora's father.

Rank's role has previously been that of the stock nineteenth-century character the
raisonneur, the intelligent bystander who helps the audience interpret the action.
Suddenly he becomes not only a character with his own story, but another mirror of
Nora. Both are victims of corrupt parents. Her reply, however, alters the direction of this
exchange. 'Yes, that's the saddest part of all' is a truism, but Rank's response suggests
that Nora's expression has changed. He searches her face hoping, perhaps, for
confirmation that she means 'the saddest part is that therefore we cannot be lovers'.
Their hasty retreat into laughter, and her rapid mention of 'Torvald', implies mutual
awareness of skirting a dangerous corner. Rank's appeal for pity - 'those who go away
are quickly forgotten' - unwittingly plunges Nora back into contemplating the departure
on her mind since her conversation with the nurse. She obviously feels that she can still
ask Rank for the money, perhaps because she has in her own mind a clear definition of
real love: Helmer 'wouldn't hesitate for a moment to give his life for me.' But by
abandoning subtext and speaking plainly, she has now put love, not sex, back on the
agenda and Rank falls gratefully on the opportunity to do the same.

This, rather than Krogstad's threats, is the most intense moment of crisis for Nora. It
shows clearly Ibsen's method of transcending a stock situation. The heroine of a
well-made play might face the choice between unwanted sexual attentions or financial
ruin, and the audience could respond sentimentally to her 'fall' or her piety. The
audience here may be in suspense, wondering if Nora will compromise herself. It is for
the actress to choose exactly how she will show Nora reach her decision not to ask the
'favour', but it is moment of moral growth, not melodrama. Does her 'slight start'
indicate a first shocked realisation? Or has she begun to sense what Rank is going to say
earlier in the scene? Does she at some point become aware that she is attempting to
manipulate her friend for money, as she has habitually manipulated her husband?

14
Nora's request for the lamp is a definite change of gear and an example of Ibsen's subtle
use of staging. She exploits the new lighting symbolically; by saying to Rank, 'Aren't you
ashamed of yourself, now that the lamp's come in?', she closes the subject definitively,
implying that his declaration belongs to the dark rather than the light of goodness.
Because the lamp is real, however, the tone is kept graciously at the level of banter, not
reproof. This is a woman who is beginning to make decisions for herself. The sequence
sets a moral standard by which we will now judge Helmer and his response to Krogstad's
threat. The lamp also reminds us that the day is wearing on, and there is little time left.

Act Two (Pages 70-79 Summary)

● Krogstad enters and informs Nora that the price of his silence is a better job at
the bank. He drops a letter in the box explaining this to Helmer.
● Nora tells Mrs Linde who offers to intercede with her former admirer.
● Nora tries to distract Helmer by rehearsing her dance for the party.

Act Two (Pages 70-79 Analysis)

Krogstad's entrance via the back stairs shows a new bravado; Ibsen marks this with
costume. In Act 1, on legitimate business with Helmer, Krogstad waited deferentially
while the maid took his coat. Here he is in outdoor clothes, suggesting that he has
pushed past her. His boots and fur cap indicate that it is freezing outside, reminding the
audience of the darkness and cold - both real and metaphorical - into which Nora will
step at the end of the play.

Krogstad's language is now less respectful, even presumptuous but, interestingly, this
disrespect is largely directed towards 'our worthy Torvald Helmer,' ‘who daren't so much
as murmur.' Krogstad is the only person who expresses such outright contempt, and its
straightforwardness contrasts with the complexity of his attitude to Nora. His sense that
Nora may contemplate suicide suggests that his insistence on their similarity is more
than a desire to rub Nora's nose in her criminal status. He seems actively 'relieved' that
she has renounced suicide. While the previous act showed Krogstad to be more than a
stage villain, he now offers an almost metatheatrical comment on the crudity of stock
characters. His brisk deflation of Nora's image of heroic suicide with a graphic
description of her corpse - 'ugly, hairless, unrecognizable' - would have shocked a
nineteenth-century audience used to idealist images of noble women.

Krogstad's exit is a piece of carefully crafted suspense. The audience is briefly teased
with the possibility that he may not leave the letter. Then it arrives, to provide a visual
reminder of Nora's danger. This device is commonplace, but here it develops our
awareness of the boundaries of the 'house'; the space is not just a handy setting for the
action but reflects Nora's physical and spiritual confinement. Krogstad's noisy footsteps –
nobody else walks audibly - are not followed by the sound of the front door closing. It is,

15
in a sense, left 'open' until Helmer forcefully locks it in the next act. However, the
wildness of Nora's tarantella shows her like an animal in a trap, caught between two
men who love her but fail her. Rank's aside to Helmer - 'There isn't anything...? I mean,
she's not expecting...?' – shows even this loving friend does not understand her. The
passion of the music and the energy of her movement underline that the action is
moving towards the strong curtain with which the well-made play typically closes its
penultimate act.

Act Three (Pages 80-88 Summary)

● Krogstad comes to see Mrs Linde at the Helmers' and they reach a 'new
understanding.
● Krogstad wishes to take back his letter but Mrs Linde urges him not to.
● Helmer brings Nora home after her dance.
● Helmer tries to make love to Nora but they are interrupted.

Act Three (Pages 80-88 Analysis)

The opening of this act teases the audience. Because the tension has been escalating,
they expect it to begin, like the previous one, with Nora and her mounting panic. Instead
the curtain rises on Mrs Linde. For a brief moment, Ibsen seems to indulge the desire for
tense emotion as she watches anxiously for Krogstad; but on his arrival the audience
must accept that they are going to be watching two people quietly discussing their own
concerns. This increases the suspense but also acts as a salutary reminder that everyone
has a story of their own: the villain and the confidante - not a combination generally
seen in plays using stock characters – are stepping out of their dramatic functions to take
the stage in their own right.

The entrance of Nora and Helmer shows Ibsen's keen sense of visual spectacle. Their
appearance contrasts sharply with Mrs Linde; both are in fancy dress that befits the way
both 'perform' what society expects of their gender. His cloak over ordinary evening
clothes suggests that he wants to give the impression of being above anything so
childish as 'dressing up' - although, of course, this choice reflects a fantasy about himself
as much as any fancy costume could. He sees the costume he has chosen for Nora as
that of a 'capricious little Capri girl' (p. 213) - a changeable child from an alien culture,
not part of the 'real' world of money, morality and decision-making. The way he takes
Nora's shawl off to display her for Mrs Linde's admiration is a visual sign of Nora's
developing problems: in Act 1 she spoke proudly of saving money by buying cheap
dresses; here, literally dressed by Helmer, she is losing even that small independence.

We have just heard Mrs Linde's optimistic assumption that the truth will somehow help
their marriage. However, her attempt to tell Nora is juxtaposed with an episode which
suggests that Helmer and reality are strangers: his hilarious demonstration of how to
embroider and knit. This offers a physically adept actor a piece of stage business as

16
interesting as Nora's tarantella; while she performed a sexualised image of femininity,
this large man in his evening suit demonstrates how to be a domestic goddess, a drag act
in miniature that he would never have attempted if not decidedly tipsy. Mrs Linde's face
as he bustles her out will be an interesting contrast to her speech as polite employee,
calling him 'Mr Helmer.'

While the actors are given considerable freedom as to how they play Helmer's advances
and Nora's resistance, Helmer should probably not seem too much of a predator here.
Drunkenness seems unfamiliar to him and he acts like an adolescent, his sexual fantasies
of the bride-Nora so vivid that he is oblivious to the irony in remarks like 'I know that
you're always thinking of me.' The real Nora, exhausted and anxious, is invisible to him.

Act Three (Pages 88-95 Summary)

● Dr Rank calls. Nora asks about his last test and he tells her that his death is
certain. He leaves after a final goodbye.
● Helmer finds Rank’s cards with the black cross. He still presses Nora to make
love, but she tells him to read his letters, intending to kill herself.
● Helmer discovers Krogstad’s letter and erupts into a rage.

Act Three (Pages 88-95 Analysis)

A moment ago it seemed inevitable that Helmer's insistence would trigger the final
confrontation. Instead the audience is teased with another postponement which proves
to be one of the most extraordinary sequences in the play. Rank's bland reply to
Helmer's lack of courtesy, 'I thought I heard you talking,' makes it painfully clear he has
heard Helmer's advances and Nora's rejection of them. In this dark and very modern
comedy of embarrassment, Nora's remarks about champagne and high spirits draw Rank
into an alliance against Helmer. Their private code is still outwardly frivolous; but this
time it is charged with intense sadness and repeatedly punctuated by silly remarks from
an uncomprehending Helmer, the butt trapped between them in a reverse image of the
Act 2 trio where the men watched the tarantella. Nora's gesture of lighting the cigar
takes on a ritual quality picked up by Rank with his comment 'thank you for the light.' It
simultaneously connotes truth, virtue and the idea that she 'lights up' his life; the word
can also be translated as 'fire' with all its overtones of warmth and passion: these will in
any case be present through the sight of the flame she carries.

Helmer's desire to 'risk everything' for his wife is a drunken boast, but it is a crucial
moment for Nora, and her body language and expression as she insists that he read his
letters are important. His speech provides confirmation that she can expect a 'miracle' of
noble sacrifice from Helmer, and yet in this scene she has seemed close to despising
him. The fragmented rhythm of her soliloquy on suicide - carefully reflected in this
translation - and her instinctive choice of Helmer's garment to wrap around her suggest
real and painful feelings; but the phrases themselves are clichés and the shawl over her

17
head suggests a heroine of melodrama. It is as if she is forcing herself against all reason
to take Helmer's heroics at face value because she cannot imagine a bearable alternative
- even if it means she must act her correspondingly noble part to a fatal end.

As Helmer emerges from his study, the stage picture mirrors the beginning of Act 1 when
he popped out to reprove his 'little featherbrain.' One of the cruellest ironies of the
scene is his repetition of a new and more insulting description for Nora: 'shiftless’.
Literally meaning 'without resources' and carrying connotations of idleness, it
nevertheless denotes the flighty child-wife he has wanted Nora to be. By locking the
door and proclaiming, 'Here you shall stay until you've explained yourself,' he underlines
his part in confining her to the 'doll's house'.

Equally ironic is Helmer's failure to realise that Nora intends to take responsibility for her
action and carry out her suicide, while his own heroics of a few minutes ago are only
'fine phrases.' The only future he can imagine is one which will be all 'acting', where
Nora will continue the role of loving wife to save his reputation. By allowing Helmer
explicitly to use the word 'melodrama' for the first time in the play, Ibsen seems to be
forcing his nineteenth-century audience to realise that the simplistic moral codes of the
previous generation of playwrights are being tested to destruction. Nora and Helmer
themselves have frequently resorted to the language of melodrama. Indeed, it is difficult
for them to find a vocabulary in which to express their deepest feelings which does not
rely on sexual stereotypes. This is the real weakness of their relationship - although it
has also, perhaps, kept them together.

Act Three (Pages 95-104 Summary)

● A letter arrives from Krogstad returning the document with the forged signature.
● Helmer rejoices that he is saved, but ignores his wife.
● He goes on to forgive her at great length, while she changes her clothes.
● Nora emerges in everyday dress and says that she is leaving him.

Act Three (Pages 95-104 Analysis)

Ibsen's stagecraft is striking here. While every well-made play involves a compromising
document - a letter, a note, a will - the IOU here gathers more sinister significance by
ceasing to be a threat; its return does not form the centre of a happy tableau
demonstrating the result of Krogstad's change of heart. Instead we see the half-dressed
and obviously puzzled maid, expected to work in the middle of the night but stopped by
Helmer from doing her job; the silent Nora humiliated in front of the servant; and
Helmer grabbing what is, after all, the property of his wife.

Krogstad has written to Nora - the person he sees as his mirror rather than his despised
employer. Not only does Helmer interpret the letter as his salvation rather than Nora's,
he has no interest in Krogstad's change of heart - even though this event has taken place

18
in his own living room. The whole episode, for Helmer, proves that people behave
according to stereotype. Unconsciously he is denying the very possibility of individual
change by burning the letter that describes it, and he feels able to forgive his 'songbird'
as a stereotypical hero should. (Though one might ask what, exactly, he is forgiving: her
action has not harmed him and its motive was to do him good.)

Helmer's rhetoric allows the actress time to take 'off my fancy dress.' But it also gives
the audience a challenging space to consider what they want to see next. Many of
Ibsen's first audience would have expected a meek entrance in nightwear by a wife
prepared to confine herself still more closely in the home; twenty-first-century
audiences, perhaps, might hope that the very extravagance of Helmer's speech will alert
Nora to the impossibility of doing so.

The 'reckoning' at the table is structured with great care; points are raised and discussed
almost as if we are in the courtroom where Helmer once worked, and the arguments
move from the house itself to the wider world into which Nora will emerge. It begins
with Nora's domestic unhappiness - which Helmer hopes to change by changing her with
an 'education' he can administer. Then it moves to the political: Helmer appeals to all
aspects of male hegemony: public opinion, patriarchy, the Church, the law. Nora
counters these with the right of the individual not to change these but to interrogate
them. Then - after one last attempt by Helmer at heroic generalisation about what men
do - the conversation returns to the personal, but this time the subject is Helmer
himself. Still unable to grasp that he needs to change as much as Nora, he tries to
suggest what 'we' might do before the loss of her love renders his situation tragically
specific.

This slow but inexorable dismantling of the relationship makes a solid frame for what
must be read as a scene of real emotional intensity in which both characters are in pain.
Nora and Helmer have both done their best within their limited understanding of love,
and while Nora wants, to redefine it, she is not trying to punish the man who has
'wronged" her; she even accepts her share of responsibility for the 'tricks.' But she has
already taken off the fancy dress while Helmer is still 'dressed up'. It will be harder for
him to abandon his illusions, simply because society will be on his side - as Nora points
out, he is 'legally freed from all his obligations to her.'

As the scene moves to its close, Helmer is more and more physically isolated in the doll's
house as Nora gathers her possessions together to leave. Finally it is 'Empty!' and all he
has left is the idea of a 'miracle.' In Ibsen's first draft Helmer cried, 'I believe in them.' In
the final draft he cries, 'I'll believe in them' (Egil Tornqvist, A Doll's House, 1995, pp.
39-40, my italics). What he has to believe in is the possibility that both he and Nora can
become individuals capable of moral choice. Ibsen's ambiguous wording does not
suggest optimism. However, Helmer is alone, quietly talking to himself as Nora did at the
start of the play, when her journey began. At this early point it suggested loneliness, as it

19
does with Helmer now. But it was only alone that Nora was able to set out on her
journey at the start of the play.

20
Characterisation

Nora

Nora is one of the longest and most complex female dramatic roles, and Ibsen's
characterisation was often misunderstood by his early audiences. The early nineteenth
century perceived 'character' as a fixed set of traits peculiar to the individual and
displayed with consistency throughout the narrative. They might learn from experience,
but they did not take charge of their own growth as Nora chooses to do. The change
from the flighty girl of Act 1 to the sober figure seated at the table with Helmer in Act 3
seemed incredible. (As recently as 1977 the American director Harold Clurman admitted
in his study of Ibsen that for a long time he had seen it as a flaw in the play.) Throughout
the action, however, we see latent strengths in Nora; the real energy of the play lies in
her process of self-discovery.

Ibsen rapidly establishes Nora as a figure with great zest for life: she takes pleasure in
the Christmas tree, the taste of macaroons and champagne. She is physically expressive
and at ease, frequently touching and kissing Helmer affectionately and playing with her
children (given the restrictions of nineteenth-century clothing for women, this suggests
she is quite athletic). Her instinct is to reach out to people, and we see her embrace the
nurse, Mrs Linde and Dr Rank. She has a kind of natural democracy; her cheerful
admission that she preferred the talk of the servants in her father's house is a refreshing
contrast to her husband's bluster about Krogstad's use of Christian names.

All this not only endears her to the audience but means that she is constantly seen in
motion; her physical vitality reflects the dynamic nature of her inner journey. Nora's
tarantella also makes clear that she has the instincts of a natural performer, turning to
dance as a means of expressing what she cannot say; this alerts us to her dawning
awareness that she is 'performing' the role of wife which society has scripted for her. The
Nora perkily acting out the role of 'skylark' or 'squirrel' in Act 1 may well enjoy the game
and even the power she has to wheedle money out of Helmer by 'playing with his
waistcoat buttons' (Act 1). But already she thinks this is a precarious power that will
wane 'When I'm not pretty any more' (Act 1), and at some point she may feel
resentment at the 'tricks' (Act 2 and Act 3) she has to perform in order to ask Helmer for
anything - her predicament is, after all, the result of his stubborn refusal to look after his
health. The actress playing Nora has considerable freedom in deciding how and when
she will make this apparent. The conversation with Mrs Linde, in which Nora expresses
her pleasure in 'working and earning money...like being a man' (Act 1), may trigger new
feelings in Nora about the flattery she uses moments later to get her friend a job at the
bank – feelings which the performer can reflect I n her face. Alternatively the actress
may prefer to express Nora's disquiet later, in the scene where she tries to introduce the
topic of Krogstad while coyly requesting help with her fancy dress. Her body language
and facial expression, unseen by Helmer as she dresses the Christmas tree, may indicate
dislike for the 'performance' she is giving.

21
But at some point, Nora's feelings and her outward behaviour start to be at odds. Ibsen's
'Notes for the Tragedy of Modern Times', his first jottings towards the play, indicate that
he was interested in the idea of 'two kinds of conscience, one for men and one, quite
different, for women' (quoted in Egil Tornqvist, A Doll's House, 1995, p. 15; Michael
Meyer, Ibsen, 1985, p. 321). But while Helmer is governed by the rules of society and
Nora habitually follows her heart, it could be argued that neither of them has a
conscience adequate to make them rational and ethical human beings at the beginning
of the play. It is clear from the care with which the text imparts an understanding of
Nora's background that she is a product of her upbringing and its limitations. Her naivety
in assuming that the law will 'understand' her motivation, her snobbish attitude to
Krogstad and her smug refusal to consider the problems of 'strangers' (Act 1) are not
attractive qualities, but they stem from an ignorance of the world that, by the end of the
play, she intends to put right. She is aware that she knows nothing beyond the
'play-room' (Act 3) which both her father and Helmer have seen as her natural sphere.

Central to Nora's developing self-awareness is the idea of authenticity. She is shocked at

Helmer's strictures on 'lying mothers' (Act 1) because she has just had a rude awakening
from Krogstad about the law's view of forgery. Rapidly she becomes obsessed with the
idea that she might 'poison' the minds of her own children; and at once, she does what
she feels is right and cuts herself off from them. But although Helmer's point strikes
home, she does not instantly manage to link the idea of lying to the way in which she
'performs' the role of submissive wife or dancing temptress as a substitute for
expressing her true feelings. Her upbringing in the 'doll's house' has taught her to see
this kind of role playing as a way of making her marriage work. It never occurs to her
that it actually damages her relationship with Helmer.

Alongside this socially constructed femininity, however, Nora has a desire to do right.
She has acted decisively to save her husband's life; she does what she can for Mrs Linde.
And in her relationship with Dr Rank she passes from sexual manipulativeness to
honesty, at some cost to herself. It is clear that by the middle of Act 2, when she
considers asking Dr Rank' for help only to desist as soon as he declares his love, she is
making an ethical choice: she will betray neither her marriage nor the integrity of Rank's
love by asking for money. After this, she finds it almost impossible to return to her old
behaviour with Helmer: the tarantella is a more complex message than her usual
flatteries. Her faith that Helmer will prove his love by attempting to take the blame on
himself is a product of sentimental social conditioning (his as well as hers); but her
behaviour with Rank is honourable and tactful and entitles her to expect more from
Helmer than hypocritical cowardice.

By the end of the play, Nora is aware that her personality has been largely constructed
by others - by the men who love her, and beyond that by a hegemony of male authority
from the law to the Church. To all of them she has been an object to be played with or
looked at; in order to become a subject, she must shape a new self. Her plans have the

22
same clear-sightedness as her farewell to Dr Rank. She replaces fantasies of marital
heroism with modest expectations. The decision to stay the night with Mrs Linde and
find work (presumably of the kind she has already been doing) indicates that she does
not expect her life to be better than that of her old school friend. She is also profoundly
aware of the emotional costs. She has already made the break with her children; now
she also considers that neither she nor Helmer feels real love for the other. She pays
tribute to his kindness, admits that she will' often think of' him, and in her wry response
to his suggestion that they could live as brother and sister - 'You know quite well that
that wouldn't last' - even implies that her desire for him has not died (Act 3). But for the
first time she speaks of 'duty' (Act 3) rather than simply of love; she has become a
person with the beginnings of a considered moral code rather than loving instincts.

At the start of the play Nora gravitates to the warmth and safety of the stove. When
facing the dilemma posed by Dr Rank's declaration of love she calls for light; in the last
act she is herself a giver of light. Ibsen once remarked to a woman who likened herself to
Nora because she had run away with her lover: 'My Nora went alone.' It is Nora's
unflinching solitude at the end of the play that marks her, with all her faults, as a heroine
unique in her century.

Torvald

It is sometimes difficult for a twenty-first-century audience to realise that as

nineteenth-century husbands go, Torvald Helmer is not an unappealing prospect. Even
on the point of leaving, Nora says, 'you've always been so kind to me' (Act 3). He is sober
(unlike Knud Ibsen, Ibsen's father) and industrious almost to a fault, overworking himself
to the point of illness in order to achieve promotion and provide for his family. He is
gentle: in an age where marital violence was barely considered grounds for divorce, he
never attempts to harm Nora even when enraged. His horror of debt seems neurotic in
its intensity. Even if he was not aware his illness could be fatal, a holiday in a warmer
climate was a standard prescription and most men in his position would not have
hesitated to borrow the fare; it suggests that his homily to Nora - 'suppose I borrowed a
thousand kroner today and you went and spent it all by Christmas, and then on New
Year's Eve a tile fell on my head' (Act 1) - expresses real anxiety as well as playful
exaggeration. Such anxiety was not uncommon in the nineteenth century: welfare
systems were embryonic, and if rapid industrial growth could bring vast fortunes it could
also bring terrible losses. In spite of this Helmer, to his credit, can still be generous: Nora
seems genuinely pleased with the amount of money he gives her for Christmas
shopping, and he appears to enjoy the prospect of hanging 'something in gold paper' on
the Christmas tree (Act 1).

Helmer sincerely believes that he loves Nora, and that he and her father are 'The two
people who loved you more than anyone else in the world' (Act 3). Even when, furious
that she has ruined his reputation, he is planning to keep Nora's children from her and
preserve only the shell of a marriage for the sake of respectability, he cannot quite

23
manage to say that he no longer cares. She is 'someone I've loved so much - someone I
still...' (Act 3). He certainly continues to feel desire for her after years of marriage; the
repeated allusions to songbirds and squirrels, together with Nora's promise to 'be a fairy
and dance on a moonbeam' (Act 2), suggest that he often expresses it in a playful, spirit.
However, he can also be insistent to the point of insensitivity: not only does he enjoy the
fantasy that Nora is his new bride as she dances the tarantella, but he continues to try to
pursue it and 'be with my darling wife' (Act 3) even when they have received the calling
cards warning them of Dr Rank's imminent death. Helmer is possessive: he enjoys
showing off Nora's beauty - 'worth seeing, if you ask me!' (Act 3) - but once she has been
admired he has little interest in the company of other people. Nora tells Mrs Linde that
his desire to 'keep me all to himself' (Act 2) has led to a refusal to let her talk about her
old friends. And while he clearly trusts his wife to be alone with Rank, Helmer also
reflects, after learning that they will no longer see him, how good it is 'now that you and
I have no one but each other' (Act 3).

Helmer's tragedy is that he does not know himself. He is clearly intelligent enough to
succeed as a barrister and a bank manager, but both are professions in which the rules
of conduct are clearly laid down. He enforces these rules and, as Nora says, 'won't touch
any case that isn't absolutely respectable' (Act 1). This convinces him that he is a person
of integrity, entitled to sit in judgement on a man like Krogstad. In fact he is simply a
conformist: it does not occur to him to question the rules of society, and he is notably
absent from the debate about moral health and the community in Act 1. A real concern
for ethics might lead him to condemn Nora; a focus on Christian mercy (he feels that
religion should shape her conduct) might lead him to understand that she acted out of
love. Instead he gives her no opportunity to explain herself, and it is ironically only with
Krogstad that she can discuss the complexity of her motivation. Helmer appears to have
been willing to bend the rules to help Nora's father in the past (see Act 2), and has
evidently never been found out; when he thinks he is in the power of Krogstad as a
result of Nora's forgery, his chief concern is for how he will appear to others. Though his
real preoccupation is with reputation, not morality, he seems blind to this distinction:
when Nora condemns his refusal to reinstate Krogstad because he dislikes being
addressed by his Christian name, Helmer is comically but quite genuinely shocked. It
does not occur to him that he is being 'petty' rather than exercising legitimate authority
(Act 2).

In the same way he takes the rules of society for granted, Helmer also assumes that a
significant title - such as 'husband' or 'employer' - endows him with a kind of wisdom
that cannot be questioned. He issues orders about the use of Christian names, the
eating of macaroons or the way to dance the tarantella with absolute confidence in his
expertise. He perceives himself as a man of culture and education - an idealist, in fact.
He feels competent to stage-manage Nora's dance and lecture Mrs Linde about the
relative aesthetic effects of a woman knitting or embroidering. This conviction persists
through all the traumas of the final act; he is still confident that he can educate his wife
into a new maturity, announcing, 'Play-time's over, now comes lesson-time' (Act 3). He

24
never realises that he is more interested in power than in the rights and wrongs of a
situation; Nora is almost bitter about his refusal to pander to her '''whims and fancies'"
(Act 1) by taking the Italian holiday - which he never actually admits was responsible for
his present blooming health.

Phrases such as 'We won't have any melodrama' (Act 3) and 'No rhetoric, please!' (Act 3)
suggest that Helmer imagines himself to stand for common sense and plain speaking. In
reality he is as prone to self-dramatisation as Nora. His remark that 'I've often wished
that you could be threatened by some imminent danger so that I could risk everything I
had - even my life itself - to save you' (Act 3) conforms to a stereotyped image of
masculine heroism straight out of Scribe. The pose comically disintegrates as he reads
Krogstad's letter and cries, 'I'm saved!' (Act 3), but he rapidly adopts a new posture, that
of the forgiving spouse, in which he luxuriates in an embarrassingly prolonged scene of
reconciliation and forgiveness rather than simply offering to forget the past. His chosen
imagery - 'I shall protect you like a hunted dove that I've saved from the talons of a
hawk' (Act 3) contrasts absurdly with the craven egotism of 'I'm saved!' He has not
learned from his experience but instead uses it to convince himself that he is the saviour
in this situation. While by the end of Act 3 Nora is able to look back more coolly on her
expectation that he would take the blame on himself, Helmer continues to trot out
another cliché of melodrama: 'no man would sacrifice his honour for the one he loves' -
a phrase generally applied to situations more perilous and complex than the forging of a
signature.

Helmer is probably the least admirable character in the play and is clearly self-centred.
However, if he is contrasted with a more obvious villain, such as the murderous husband
in Patrick Hamilton's Gaslight (1939), it is plain that he is not consciously selfish in
seeking his own gain at the expense of others. For him as for many a nineteenth-century
man secure in his privileged status as bourgeois male - getting his own way is
synonymous with doing the right thing. While he sings the virtues of honesty and
condemns both Krogstad and 'lying mothers' (Act 1), he is blissfully unaware of how
powerfully he is protected from harsh realities: his doctors keep his illness from him, his
friend will not expose him to the horrors of his deathbed, and his wife even bustles Mrs
Linde out of the room so that he will not have to see her sewing. Nora has learned how
to flatter and cajole him; in a domestic setting he enjoys this process and gives way -
over the Christmas money for example. Sometimes he seems unaware that he has been
manipulated: he sees his decision to employ Mrs Linde as a result of her arriving 'at just
the right moment' (Act 1). Nora would rather lie to him than challenge him, even over
something as trivial as a bag of macaroons. This might prompt the audience to
indignation on his behalf if he were ever shown making a rational choice; in fact,
whenever Helmer acts for himself, it is on very confused moral grounds. Sometimes it is
out of childish spite, like his dismissal of Krogstad; or from panicky concern for his own
reputation, as when he discovers Nora's crime. He is, in fact, more pampered and
indulged than Nora herself, a 'doll' protected from reality - by women out of deference
to his masculinity; by men out of concern for his weakness.

25
Ibsen does not specify Helmer's age, but his first choice for the Swedish production of A
Doll's House was the handsome young matinee idol Gustaf Fredricksen. If Helmer is
played by a young actor, some of the phrases he uses - like his assertion that to forgive
his wife will make her 'both his wife and his child' (Act 3) - will emphasise the play-acting
element in his character and the naivety that goes with it. It helps the actor to develop
the comic aspects of the role - and it is rare for an audience not to feel some affection
for a figure of fun. While Helmer has not outgrown his posturing and pomposity at the
end of the play, it is worth noting that he no longer fusses about his own reputation but
only about Nora's feelings for him. Perhaps it is still possible that he can change and that
the 'greatest miracle of all' (Act 3,) will occur.

Mrs Linde

Kristina Linde is a quiet and polite woman who is qualified to work in a bank. It is clear
that the actress is expected to play her as less blooming than Nora, who finds her pale,
thin and not at once recognisable as her old school friend. She is even a little frail, telling
Dr Rank that she has to take the stairs 'very slowly' (Act 1) and is feeling the strain of
overwork. At this stage it seems that she is primarily a foil to Nora; she speaks of a hard
life which she has clearly borne courageously, but there is no sense that she experienced
any interior conflict over her marriage of convenience. Her air of tired experience makes
Nora seem empty-headed in comparison - although far livelier and a more entertaining
companion.

If Mrs Linde is a little patronising with remarks such as 'a little bit of sewing and that sort
of thing!' (Act 1), she perhaps has a right to be, although, if the actress so chooses, she
may also imply a degree of envy: anyone in Mrs Linde's position might covet children of
her own and generous spending money, even if Nora has had to sacrifice the latter
temporarily. Helmer clearly finds her worthy but dull, and she seems content that this is
so, grateful for the job he has offered. As she interrogates Nora about the loan, her
curiosity seems to be simply that of a concerned friend – essentially fulfilling the
function of a confidante in allowing vital information to emerge. Her kindness is
apparent in her concern for 'moral invalid[s], (Act 1) in her debate with Dr Rank. This is,
however, allied to stern moral principles; Mrs Linde is worried that Nora's naivety may
lead her into a sexual scrape over the loan, which she imagines is from Dr Rank. Her
determination to help is strong - she firmly maintains that Krogstad 'must ask for his
letter back' (Act 2) - but she is equally intent on learning the whole truth of the situation
and plays a part in helping it to emerge.

Nevertheless, there is a subversive side to this quiet figure. Mrs Linde has a passion for
work - it is her 'one great joy' (Act 3). This gives her an independence that makes her
highly unusual. Helmer, with his dislike of even the sight of a woman doing something
useful, like knitting, cannot imagine this kind of female, and she may well serve to fan
the flames of Nora's pleasure in being 'almost like' a man (Act 1). We also learn in the

26
last act that she is further than Nora on the road to self-determination. Not only has she
chosen the partner of her future life in Krogstad, but she has no shame in telling him
that she has come miles especially to find him and propose that they 'join forces' (Act 3).
Fully aware of what he has done, she is also certain of her own ability to see the best in
him and help him change his life. She wants to be a mother, and she will mother his
children. Mrs Linde, in short, has already made herself an individual capable of choice.
She has, as she bitterly explains, exercised that capability previously, when she first
rejected Krogstad for a wealthier man to help her mother and brothers. She cannot say
for certain whether it was the right choice - as she admits, 'I've often asked myself ... I
really don't know' (Act 3). But she is clear that 'when you've sold yourself once for
the sake of others, you don't do it a second time' (Act 3).

Mrs Linde, therefore, is not the passive victim she appeared in Act 1: she owns her
experience and the self it has made her. It is this, perhaps, that makes her so determined
that there should be complete understanding' (Act 3) between Nora and Helmer. She
may want to shake them both out of dependency - Nora on her ability to lie and perform
'tricks' (Act 2 and Act 3) to keep her marriage tranquil, and Helmer on the myth of Nora's
helplessness. The actress may locate her motivation for telling Krogstad to leave his
letter in the box in envy, or excessive optimism, or genuine benevolence, but in any case
she will prove the deceptively dull Mrs Linde to be one of the most vital and active
characters in the play.

Krogstad

Krogstad's name means 'crooked', and his function in the external aspects of the plot is
that of a stock villain: many of the early Krogstad’s found themselves unable to play the
part any other way. But in terms of the psychological development of the play, Krogstad
is a complex figure. Nora rejects the idea that he resembles her, despite their similar
crimes, because she cannot imagine his motives to have been 'brave' like hers (Act 1, p.
175). However, his unwillingness to go into the question is not furtive but a clear-sighted
recognition that what matters in the world is not motive but the fact of transgression.
What he has forfeited by his action is the appearance of respectability in a world run by
men like Helmer, to whom appearance is everything. Krogstad has been working on the
edge of legality. The agreement he has drawn up with Nora is clearly legally binding, but
he has carefully not asked too many questions about the name on the note, or about the
fact that a woman (with no right to sign the note herself) has been engaged in the
business. Harassing a client, as he does Nora, may be routine in his role as loan shark.
Certainly he seems to have the status of a pariah - even the disinterested Dr Rank knows
and disapproves of what he does.

Krogstad does not see Helmer as a moral superior; indeed, as the play progresses he
seems increasingly to despise him, aware that Helmer will go to considerable lengths to
preserve his respectability. But he is driven by a powerful motive to make himself like
Helmer: his sense of fatherhood. His determination to 'fight to keep my little post at the

27
Bank as I'd fight for my life' comes from a sense of responsibility to his children - as he
tells Nora, 'My sons are growing up, and in fairness to them I must try to win back as
much respect as I can in the town' (Act 1). Helmer preaches to Nora about Krogstad
'poisoning his own children with lies and deceit' (Act 1), but his motives for the dismissal
are not out of concern for them - as Krogstad remarks, neither Helmer nor Nora
expresses any interest in them (see Act 2). Tellingly, while Krogstad invariably refers to
'my children', Helmer typically speaks of 'the children' or sometimes 'your [Nora's]
children'. It is only when Krogstad is thwarted that his blackmail threats escalate into a
demand for a 'better' job (Act 2).

The contempt Krogstad increasingly feels towards Helmer, however, is not extended to
Nora. He spells out her criminal status to remedy her ignorance rather than to hit back
at the snobbish disdain with which she treats him; he is oddly compassionate in his
warning against suicide: 'Most of us think of that at first' (Act 2). He may be brutal, but it
is an apologetic kind of brutality which never reaches the level of Helmer's fit of rage
against Nora in Act 3. It takes Krogstad some time to accept that Mrs Linde cares for him.
As he says, 'Life has taught me not to believe in fine speeches' (Act 3) - which one can
well believe after he has been exposed to so many by Helmer. Once secure in the
knowledge he is loved, he is decisive, immediately returning Nora's note of hand. Given
that this now means he has no evidence of the loan, he is reaching out to the person
whom he has seen throughout the play as his double - Nora - at some cost to himself. If
it also benefits the man for whom he has such contempt, his admirable lack of bitterness
appears to accept this.

Dr Rank

In Act 1 the witty and urbane doctor virtually quotes a writer much admired by Ibsen -
Voltaire - when describing Krogstad: 'He's rotten to the core, but the first thing he said -
as if it were something really important - was that he must live.' This suggests that Dr
Rank shares Voltaire's cynical approach to life and that his function in the play is to act as
a detached observer, possibly offering advice to the protagonists but doing little to
change the course of the action - a role familiar in well-made plays and one often given
to a doctor as the wise man of the community. His discussion with Mrs Linde, in which
he complains that in a society obsessed with caring for the morally sick, 'The honest man
probably finds himself left out in the cold' (Act 1), makes him seem both harsh and
flippant, yet quite impersonal, as if he enjoys argument for its own sake. It is not until
the second act, when Nora mentions his hereditary illness, that we realise Rank himself
is just such an 'honest man', cut off from participating fully in life because of the moral
sickness of his father. The mental and physical pain of his disease is clearly on his mind
all the time - Mrs Linde alludes to his depression during the Christmas celebration we do
not see – but it is only occasionally that he articulates his feelings about it. Helmer,
presumably, is no more capable of dealing with such emotions in his 'poor old friend'
(Act 3, p) than he is with the physical aspects of Rank's disintegration. Rank seems to
bear no malice about this limitation in his friend, and the hedonistic front he keeps up

28
before Helmer probably reflects the spirit in which he attempts to approach the time he
has left: 'Why shouldn't one enjoy everything the world has to offer - at any rate, as
much as one can and for as long as one can?' (Act 3).

Only to Nora does Rank articulate the real depth of his bitterness and rage. Unlike
anyone else in the play, she shares his ability to play with language; at times they slip
into private codes with the ease of professional comedians. When they indulge in bawdy
innuendo with the stockings, it is this sense of being a double act that seems the real
source of their pleasure. Humour not only allows Rank to discuss the forbidden subject
of his illness, but it also reflects his sense that this is appropriate because 'the whole
thing's nothing but a joke!' (Act 2). He evidently draws no comfort from religion or
philosophy; what he does value is the sense of belonging, of not being out in the cold,
and he expresses a real need to retain till the end his place in the Helmer household.
Nora determinedly adds a reminder that he is 'at home with us' (Act 2, my itallics) rather
than 'me', and his affection for Helmer is clear - but it is also clear that Rank cherishes a
fantasy of being Nora's husband. His devotion is rooted in more than desire, and we
have no reason to suppose he is not perfectly sincere in his wish to 'give his life' for her
(Act 2).

If Rank does not radically affect the action of the play, this is not because he wants to
settle for the role of observer; he is deprived of the chance to help Nora by her own
sense of moral responsibility, just as he is deprived by his illness of leaving behind much
more than 'a passing regret' (Act 2).

The Nurse (Anna-Maria)

Although she has few lines, the role of the nurse is important. We first see her
surrounded by happy children (Act 1): it is clear that she is good at her job, and Nora's
concern at how cold she is suggests that Anna-Maria is more interested in the children's
enjoyment than her own comfort. She may well see herself as the most authoritative
figure in the nursery - Nora asks to be allowed to take off the children's coats as a kind of
treat rather than assuming that she can do so. She is clearly aware of the boundaries
between servant and mistress; although obviously concerned when Nora begins to avoid
the children, she asks no questions. However, there is evident affection between Nora
and the nurse - to all intents and purposes, as she says, Nora 'hadn't any other mother
but me', and Nora thinks that she has been 'wonderful' in this role (Act 2).

It is the nurse who is probably responsible for the fact that Nora feels most comfortable
with people who are not authority figures, such as her father's servants or Dr Rank. The
pride she feels in Nora's beauty as they get her costume ready for the party suggests
that her motherly feelings are still very much alive. So does her response to Nora's
peevishness about the state of her fancy dress the nurse will not countenance its
wasteful destruction and says reprovingly, 'it only needs a little patience' (Act 2). The
actress playing her may choose to develop the subtext of this to suggest a concern for

29
Nora's marriage. Whether or not Anna-Maria is aware of the situation, it is clear that
Nora trusts her old nurse to bring up her children in her absence. The audience's
response to the nurse will be important in the final act; although she does not appear,
we will judge Nora on leaving her children less harshly if it is clear they are in good
hands.

Of all the characters in A Doll's House, Anna-Maria has suffered the most. She has known
poverty and disgrace. Betrayed by 'that blackguard of a man' (Act 2), she had no option
but to give up her own child. Her suffering contrasts sharply with that of the main
characters, whose concern is ultimately over a piece of paper. Even Krogstad has
managed to keep his children. The dignity and optimism with which she has made a new
life and accepts its limitations provide a clear comment on Nora and Helmer's future
prospects: it is possible to change and live differently, but it is also undeniable that the
world can be a harsh and unforgiving place.

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Themes

The Individual and Society

A doll is not a person. Its character is determined by its owner according to what
functions it is expected to serve: baby or fashion model for example. It does not have a
role in public - even small children do not generally take their dolls to school. When Nora
claims that 'before everything else I'm a human being' (Act 3), she is also claiming the
right to make a self. Although Ibsen professed not to have read his work, the issues at
stake for Nora reflect the ideas of the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55),
sometimes known as the father of existentialism. Existentialism is the idea that a person
is not born with innate characteristics but shapes a self through the choices that they
make. For Kierkegaard this process was threatened by taking any religious or
philosophical creed for granted. It was vital to understand that the individual was free to
choose his or her beliefs and actions. Once this was understood, it was possible to shape
the self by exercising personal responsibility in making such choices.

At the beginning of the play Nora's identity is determined by others. For Helmer she is a
pet animal, a sexual partner, a mother and a housekeeper, and we see her adopt all
these roles as necessity arises. She makes one choice - in forging her father's name - but
it is instinctive and, significantly, secret. She assumes it will have no effect on who she is
(despite committing forgery she cannot conceive of herself as a criminal) as long as it
remains so. Engagement with the world outside the home is a form of play or disguise:
'being a man' (Act 1). She has no sense of responsibility towards 'strangers' (Act 1), a
term which includes creditors and even Krogstad and his children. Her lack of interest in
'your dreary old community' (Act 1) means that she does not participate in the debate
between Mrs Linde and Dr Rank as to how the world is or should be organised. For many
nineteenth-century thinkers this would have been understandable: it was for the male to
achieve self-definition through 'struggle with the external world and with himself' (Toril
Moi, Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism: Art, Theater, Philosophy, 2006, p. 245),
while the status of 'wife' or 'mother' expressed a particular function - to care for the
husband and give birth to and bring up children rather than a set of choices through
which a woman might become an individual in her own right.

Act 2, however, marks Nora's dawning awareness that the most private choices have
wider moral implications. She realises that while Dr Rank could save the situation,
without Helmer's knowledge, choosing to take his money would redefine their
relationship as one grounded in power, not affection. In acting as a morally responsible
individual Nora throws into relief Helmer's panic at the sight of Krogstad's letter: her
husband is neither instinctively heroic nor honest enough to make a moral choice.
Instead he opts to appease Krogstad while preserving a respectable facade which will
involve Nora acting out the roles of wife and mother. Once 'saved' (Act 3), he thinks he
can grant her the real roles once more - indeed, he thinks them her 'sacred duties'

31
(Act 3). But Nora can no longer accept him as spokesman for the powerful forces in
society that have failed her: as a lawyer he fostered her ignorance of the law; in
appealing to religion he is a hypocrite - significantly he calls it 'your religion' (Act 3), as if
it is not something men need. She cannot allow him to define wifehood or motherhood,
but plans to learn for herself. Already beginning to shape an individual self beyond these
generic roles, she will find her own moral code in the 'community': that is, with the help
of Mrs Linde, now inextricably linked to the former 'stranger' Krogstad; and in her 'old
home' (Act 3) - not in the role of daughter, as her parents are dead, but as a woman in a
'community' where she can work and learn.

The Sacrificial Role of Women

In A Doll’s House, Ibsen paints a bleak picture of the sacrificial role held by women of all
economic classes in his society. In general, the play’s female characters exemplify Nora’s
assertion (spoken to Torvald in Act Three) that even though men refuse to sacrifice their
integrity, “hundreds of thousands of women have.” In order to support her mother and
two brothers, Mrs. Linde found it necessary to abandon Krogstad, her true—but
penniless—love, and marry a richer man. The nanny had to abandon her own child to
support herself by working as Nora’s (and then as Nora’s children’s) caretaker. As she
tells Nora, the nanny considers herself lucky to have found the job, since she was “a poor
girl who’d been led astray.”
Though Nora is economically advantaged in comparison to the play’s other female
characters, she nevertheless leads a difficult life because society dictates that Torvald be
the marriage’s dominant partner. Torvald issues decrees and condescends to Nora, and
Nora must hide her loan from him because she knows Torvald could never accept the
idea that his wife (or any other woman) had helped save his life. Furthermore, she must
work in secret to pay off her loan because it is illegal for a woman to obtain a loan
without her husband’s permission. By motivating Nora’s deception, the attitudes of
Torvald—and society—leave Nora vulnerable to Krogstad’s blackmail.
Nora’s abandonment of her children can also be interpreted as an act of self- sacrifice.
Despite Nora’s great love for her children—manifested by her interaction with them and
her great fear of corrupting them—she chooses to leave them. Nora truly believes that
the nanny will be a better mother and that leaving her children is in their best interest.

Parental and Filial Obligations

Nora, Torvald, and Dr. Rank each express the belief that a parent is obligated to be
honest and upstanding, because a parent’s immorality is passed on to his or her children
like a disease. In fact, Dr. Rank does have a disease that is the result of his father’s
depravity. Dr. Rank implies that his father’s immorality—his many affairs with
women—led him to contract a venereal disease that he passed on to his son, causing Dr.
Rank to suffer for his father’s misdeeds. Torvald voices the idea that one’s parents
determine one’s moral character when he tells Nora, “Nearly all young criminals had

32
lying -mothers.” He also refuses to allow Nora to interact with their children after he
learns of her deceit, for fear that she will corrupt them.
Yet, the play suggests that children too are obligated to protect their parents. Nora
recognized this obligation, but she ignored it, choosing to be with—and sacrifice herself
for—her sick husband instead of her sick father. Mrs. Linde, on the other hand,
abandoned her hopes of being with Krogstad and undertook years of labor in order to
tend to her sick mother. Ibsen does not pass judgment on either woman’s decision, but
he does use the idea of a child’s debt to her parent to demonstrate the complexity and
reciprocal nature of familial obligations.

Death, Disease and Heredity

'Well, I must take you as you are - it's in your blood. Oh yes, Nora, these things are
hereditary', announces Helmer in response to Nora's first request for money (Act 1), and
by the end of the play he is convinced that 'all your father's shiftless character has
Come out in you. No religion, no morality, no sense of duty' (Act 3). He never wavers
from his conviction - shared by many in the new world of Charles Darwin - that moral as
well as physical qualities can be inherited. Between these two statements, however, we
have learned that Nora is only pretending to share her father's extravagance: the money
she appears to be wasting goes towards her debt to Krogstad. And while her father may
have been knowingly involved in fraud or corruption, her 'crime' is due to ignorance.
She says, defiantly, that '1 wish 1'd inherited more of papa's good qualities' (Act 1), but
we do not know what these might be Helmer never names them and perhaps does not
like to discuss the subject. For Helmer 'inheritance' seems to deny the individual any
possibility of self-transformation. This former barrister does not appear to believe that
one can choose to obey the law, or even to disobey it, on moral grounds; criminality is in
the blood or not.

The one figure entitled to speak with authority on heredity, the doctor of medicine, is
also its victim. Nora passes judgement on the man responsible for his plight: 'his father
was a horrible man who had mistresses and that sort of thing' (Act 2). Dr Rank, on the
other hand, is surprisingly forgiving, referring to his father merely as a 'gay young
subaltern' (Act 2). The anger that he does feel is not purely for himself but at the
injustice of hereditary disease - that 'there isn't a single family where some such
inexorable retribution isn't being exacted' (Act 2). However, Rank's inheritance is
biological, not moral. He seems to have remained unmarried, so that his illness will die
with him. His love for Nora is proclaimed when he has 'less than a month' (Act 2) to live
and could never act on it - indeed, he only presumes to use the word in the past tense:
'To have loved you as deeply as anyone else - was that horrid?' (Act 2). He stands, in fact,
as a visible repudiation of all Helmer's theories about Nora's father, although
Helmer cannot see it.

33
Both Helmer and Rank use the metaphor of corrupt behaviour as moral sickness. But for
Helmer this sickness invariably spreads, and its source is the home; he instructs Nora
about 'lying mothers' who infect their houses and their children with 'the germs of evil'
(Act 1), presumably reinforcing the work of heredity. Rank uses the expression 'a moral
invalid' but sees it as denoting an individual, to whom society should act with limited
compassion; he has little patience with Mrs Linde's argument that society has a
responsibility Linde and Dr Rank never continue their discussion, Krogstad's redemption
by Mrs Linde forms a coda to this argument with a clear indication that moral sickness
can be healed.

The play is full of startlingly graphic images of death. Rank describes his own body
'rotting in the churchyard' (Act 2), and is in no doubt how appalling the last stage of his
illness will be. Nora also intends to die, in water 'black, and cold as ice' (Act 3). However,
she is not allowed to romanticise this image - Krogstad's mocking evocation of her
corpse floating up bald and hideous in the thaw takes care of that (Act 2). Krogstad and
Helmer - with the latter's rather selfish point that her suicide wouldn't help his
reputation - for all their differences, share the opinion that suicide is not a noble
sacrifice, even if it constitutes an admission of responsibility. The play moves the
audience too towards that unidealist conclusion. Dr Rank's final resentment at leaving
his life without even being able to offer 'the smallest token of gratitude' (Act 2) to
change the life of someone he loves reminds us that - unlike victims of heredity like
Rank - even morally 'sick' individuals such as Krogstad hold the possibility of their own
change and cure in their hands as long as they hold on to life.

Theatricality

Ibsen often told his actors to avoid 'theatrical accents' and copy the life they saw around
them, not other actors (Toril Moi, Henrik lbsen and the Birth of Modernism: Art, Theater,
Philosophy, 2006, p. 116). He wanted his audience to respond to 'Nora' or 'Krogstad'
rather than 'ingenue' or 'villain'. But Nora and Helmer themselves have to think about
the idea of performance. 'Theatrical' in everyday language is often equated with
insincerity, lies or transforming the self into a commodity; it is no coincidence that
actress' was for many years a euphemism for 'prostitute'. It is in this spirit that Helmer
says, 'We won't have any melodrama' (Act 3), because he thinks Nora is being insincere.

However, it is when Nora and Helmer are most conscious that they are performing that
they express themselves and their relationships most clearly. The fancy dress party
offers a focus for their need to 'stage' their lives in order to make sense of them.
Throughout the play there is an unspoken debate about the meaning of Nora's Capri
dress and the dance she performs in it. Helmer's choice of costume for Nora shows
exactly what he wishes her to be: his economic inferior; a symbol of his sexual and social
status in possessing a beautiful wife (both Rank and Nora are aware of the significance
of the silk stockings). Helmer sees Nora's dance as an expression of his own artistic
ability; he assumes the role of Pygmalion, the legendary sculptor who produced a statue

34
so beautiful that he fell in love with it and it came to life. He forgets something
important about the nature of performance: first, it requires mundane work as well as
inspiration (Helmer is offended at the sight of women working, including Mrs Linde
mending the dress); second, it involves more than one person in making choices. Nora's
dance is an outlet for the panic and terror she feels, and she chooses to dance it in a
style Helmer condemns as 'a trifle too realistic' (Act 3).

It is after this experience that Nora is able to articulate the role performance has played
throughout her married life. Her 'tricks' (Act 2 and Act 3) - the 'skylark' and 'squirrel'
games, the flirtatiousness - are harmless in themselves, but they have allowed her to
hide the problems in her marriage from herself as well as her husband. She is no longer
quite certain who she is: 'You arranged everything to suit your own tastes, and so I came
to have the same tastes as yours ... or I pretended to. I'm not quite sure which' (Act 3).
Rank remarks to Nora that at the next fancy dress party she should play a 'mascot' - a
talisman, a bringer of happiness - simply by being herself (Act 3). This is a graceful
compliment, and an expression of gratitude for what she has meant to him. But it is also
a reminder that she is an individual as well as a wife. It is partly through moments like
her dance, or through the conscious choice of a garment or a role, that Nora has been
able to move from acting out stereotypes to exploring what it means to express herself -
to discover who she is 'in her everyday things' (Act 3).

The Unreliability of Appearances

Over the course of A Doll’s House, appearances prove to be misleading veneers that
mask the reality of the play’s characters and -situations. Our first impressions of Nora,
Torvald, and Krogstad are all eventually undercut. Nora initially seems a silly, childish
woman, but as the play progresses, we see that she is intelligent, motivated, and, by the
play’s conclusion, a strong-willed, independent thinker. Torvald, though he plays the part
of the strong, benevolent husband, reveals himself to be cowardly, petty, and selfish
when he fears that Krogstad may expose him to scandal. Krogstad too reveals himself to
be a much more sympathetic and merciful character than he first appears to be. The
play’s climax is largely a matter of resolving identity confusion—we see Krogstad as an
earnest lover, Nora as an intelligent, brave woman, and Torvald as a simpering, sad man.
Situations too are misinterpreted both by us and by the characters. The seeming hatred
between Mrs. Linde and Krogstad turns out to be love. Nora’s creditor turns out to be
Krogstad and not, as we and Mrs. Linde suppose, Dr. Rank. Dr. Rank, to Nora’s and our
surprise, confesses that he is in love with her. The seemingly villainous Krogstad repents
and returns Nora’s contract to her, while the seemingly kindhearted Mrs. Linde ceases to
help Nora and forces Torvald’s discovery of Nora’s secret.
The instability of appearances within the Helmer household at the play’s end results
from Torvald’s devotion to an image at the expense of the creation of true happiness.
Because Torvald craves respect from his employees, friends, and wife, status and image
are important to him. Any disrespect—when Nora calls him petty and when Krogstad

35
calls him by his first name, for example—angers Torvald greatly. By the end of the play,
we see that Torvald’s obsession with controlling his home’s appearance and his repeated
suppression and denial of reality have harmed his family and his happiness irreparably.

Money

A Doll's House could be described as the story of twelve hundred dollars. This is the sum
that Nora borrows in order to save her husband's life - in other words, to do something
useful. However, within the play this sum is represented not by gold or legal tender but
by Nora's note of hand, a piece of paper that is evidence of a crime and a tool for a
blackmailer. It stands for pretences, false promises and the misuse of power - a fitting
symbol of the Helmer marriage.

Nora's action has made her a criminal. She could not, of course, legally borrow money
without Helmer's consent, and could only turn to a lender with a reputation for
dishonest dealing. Hence it was inevitable that at some point she would find herself
being blackmailed. Krogstad has clearly been suspicious about the signature on the note
from the outset. However, her criminal act has also brought her out of the domestic
sphere in which she has been confined into a world that is new to her, and she seems to
take some pride in this. When she says, defiantly, 'I wrote Papa's name' (Act 1), she is
not only admitting forgery but proclaiming her place in a world of “quarterly payments"
and "instalments" (Act 1) - a world which belongs to men alone and in which they do not
behave with the honesty that they seem to expect of women.

Helmer is quick to condemn Nora, but she is in this situation because he is afraid of the
power of money; although his job at the bank must involve borrowing and lending, he
cannot cope with debt even to save his own life. However, in accepting the twelve
hundred dollars as a gift from his father-in-law, a man he knew to be involved in
underhand financial dealings, Helmer has been more than a little hypocritical. Nora
remarks to Mrs Linde that 'Torvald has to live properly' (Act 1). This involves some
luxuries the black Havana cigar which Dr Rank requests in Act 3 would not be cheap.
While Helmer may talk airily about sacrifices in Act 1, Nora is the one who has had to
retrench in order to meet her payments to Krogstad. She struggles to make these
honestly. This is all the more difficult because for those closest to her money seems to
be inextricably bound up with sexuality. Mrs Linde assumes that the loan has come from
Dr Rank. Helmer is generous with the housekeeping but does not seem to regard it as
Nora's right as mistress of the household. Rather he views it as something he enjoys
being coaxed into giving, a gift in gold paper rather than a recognition that letting him
'live properly' costs money.

Nobody in the play produces anything of value. Helmer earns his money in a bank,
controlling the flow of cash in the community. As a loan shark Krogstad does the same as
Helmer, on a rather more dishonest level; all the other characters, with the exception of

36
Dr Rank, are in some way in the service of the bank: as clerks, like Mrs Linde, and
Krogstad in his more respectable job; as servants to the bank manager; or, in Nora's
case, as his wife. Helmer no longer practises law, and Dr Rank is now unable to practise
medicine on anyone but himself. The 'community' which is the subject of debate in Act 1
is controlled by money and debt, and this proves to dominate relationships until the end
of the play.

Betrayal

Betrayal becomes a theme of this play in several ways. Nora has betrayed her husband's
trust in several instances. She has lied about borrowing money, and to repay the money,
she must lie about how she spends her household accounts and about taking odd jobs to
earn extra money. But she also chooses to lie about eating sweets her husband has
forbidden her. However, Nora trusts in Torvald to be loyal to her, and in the end, he
betrays that trust when he rejects her pleas for understanding. Torvald's betrayal of her
love is the impetus that Nora requires to finally awaken to her own needs.

Deception

Deception is an important theme in A Doll's House because it motivates Nora's behavior

and through her the behavior of every other character in the play. Because Nora lied
when she borrowed money from Krogstad, she must continue lying to repay the money.
But, Nora thinks she must also lie to protect Torvald. Her deception makes her
vulnerable to Krogstad's blackmail and casts him in the role of villain. And although Nora
does not lie to Mrs. Linde, it is Mrs. Linde who forces Nora to confront her deceptions.
Dr. Rank has been deceiving both Nora and Torvald for years about the depth of his
feelings for Nora. Only when she attempts to seek his help does Nora finally see beneath
the surface to the doctor's real feelings. Torvald, who has been deceived throughout
most of the play, is finally revealed in the final act to have been the one most guilty of
deception, since he has deceived Nora into believing that he loved and cherished her,
while all the while he had regarded her as little more than his property.

Growth and Development

In Act I, Nora is little more than a child playing a role; she is a "doll" occupying a doll's
house, a child who has exchanged a father for a husband without changing or maturing
in any way. Nevertheless, through the course of the play, she is finally forced to confront
the reality of the life she is living. Nora realizes in the final act of A Doll's House that if
she wants the opportunity to develop an identity as an adult, she must leave her
husband's home. When Nora finally gives up her dream for a miracle and, instead,
accepts the reality of her husband's failings, she finally takes her first steps toward
maturity. When Nora realizes the inequity of her situation, she also recognizes her own
self-worth. Her decision to leave is a daring one that indicates the seriousness of Nora's
desire to find and create her own identity.

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Honor

Honor is of overwhelming importance to Torvald; it is what motivates his behavior. Early

in the play, Torvald's insistence on the importance of honor is the reason he offers for
firing Krogstad, asserting that because he once displayed a lack of honor means that
Krogstad is forever dishonored. When he learns of his wife's mistake, Torvald's first and
foremost concern is for his honor. He cannot appreciate the torment or sacrifice that
Nora has made for him because he can only focus on how society will react to his
family's shame. For Torvald, honor is more important than family and far more
important than love; he simply cannot conceive of anyone placing love before honor.
This issue exemplifies the crucial difference between Nora and Torvald.

Pride

Like honor, pride is an important element in how Torvald defines himself. He is proud of
Nora in the same way one is proud of an expensive or rare possession. When her failing
threatens to become public knowledge, Torvald is primarily concerned with the loss of
public pride. Nora's error reflects on his own sense of perfection and indicates to him an
inability to control his wife. Rather than accept Nora as less than perfect, Torvald instead
rejects her when she is most in need of his support. His pride in himself and in his
possessions blinds him to Nora's worth. Because she has always believed in Torvald's
perfection, Nora is at first also unaware of her own strengths. Only when she has made
the decision to leave Torvald can Nora begin to develop pride in herself.

Sexism

Sexism as a theme is reflected in the disparate lives represented in this play. Nora's
problems arise because as a woman she cannot conduct business without the authority
of either her father or her husband. When her father is dying, she must forge his
signature to secure a loan to save her husband's life. That she is a responsible person is
demonstrated when she repays the loan at great personal sacrifice. In the nineteenth
century, women's lives were limited to socially prescribed behaviors, and women were
considered to be little more than property; Nora embodies the issues that confronted
women during this period. Torvald's injustice cannot be ignored, and Nora's sympathetic
loss of innocence is too poignant to be forgotten. Thus, the controversy surrounding
sexual equality becomes an important part of the play.

38
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and
inform the text’s major themes.

Nora’s Definition of Freedom

Nora’s understanding of the meaning of freedom evolves over the course of the play. In
the first act, she believes that she will be totally “free” as soon as she has repaid her
debt, because she will have the opportunity to devote herself fully to her domestic
responsibilities. After Krogstad blackmails her, however, she reconsiders her conception
of freedom and questions whether she is happy in Torvald’s house, subjected to his
orders and edicts. By the end of the play, Nora seeks a new kind of freedom. She wishes
to be relieved of her familial obligations in order to pursue her own ambitions, beliefs,
and identity.

Letters
Many of the plot’s twists and turns depend upon the writing and reading of letters,
which function within the play as the subtext that reveals the true, unpleasant nature of
situations obscured by Torvald and Nora’s efforts at beautification. Krogstad writes two
letters: the first reveals Nora’s crime of forgery to Torvald; the second retracts his
blackmail threat and returns Nora’s promissory note. The first letter, which Krogstad
places in Torvald’s letterbox near the end of Act Two, represents the truth about Nora’s
past and initiates the inevitable dissolution of her marriage—as Nora says immediately
after Krogstad leaves it, “We are lost.” Nora’s attempts to stall Torvald from reading the
letter represent her continued denial of the true nature of her marriage. The second
letter releases Nora from her obligation to Krogstad and represents her release from her
obligation to Torvald. Upon reading it, Torvald attempts to return to his and Nora’s
previous denial of reality, but Nora recognizes that the letters have done more than
expose her actions to Torvald; they have exposed the truth about Torvald’s selfishness,
and she can no longer participate in the illusion of a happy marriage.
Dr. Rank’s method of communicating his imminent death is to leave his calling card
marked with a black cross in Torvald’s letterbox. In an earlier conversation with Nora, Dr.
Rank reveals his understanding of Torvald’s unwillingness to accept reality when he
proclaims, “Torvald is so fastidious, he cannot face up to -anything ugly. “By leaving his
calling card as a death notice, Dr. Rank politely attempts to keep Torvald from the “ugly”
truth. Other letters include Mrs. Linde’s note to Krogstad, which initiates her
-life-changing meeting with him, and Torvald’s letter of dismissal to Krogstad.

Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or
concepts.

39
The Christmas Tree
The Christmas tree, a festive object meant to serve a decorative purpose, symbolizes
Nora’s position in her household as a plaything who is pleasing to look at and adds
charm to the home. There are several parallels drawn between Nora and the Christmas
tree in the play. Just as Nora instructs the maid that the children cannot see the tree
until it has been decorated, she tells Torvald that no one can see her in her dress until
the evening of the dance. Also, at the beginning of the second act, after Nora’s
psychological condition has begun to erode, the stage directions indicate that the
Christmas tree is correspondingly “dishevelled.”

New Year’s Day

The action of the play is set at Christmastime, and Nora and Torvald both look forward to
New Year’s as the start of a new, happier phase in their lives. In the new year, Torvald
will start his new job, and he anticipates with excitement the extra money and
admiration the job will bring him. Nora also looks forward to Torvald’s new job, because
she will finally be able to repay her secret debt to Krogstad. By the end of the play,
however, the nature of the new start that New Year’s represents for Torvald and Nora
has changed dramatically. They both must become new people and face radically
changed ways of living. Hence, the new year comes to mark the beginning of a truly new
and different period in both their lives and their personalities.

40
Language and Style

In 1883 the Swedish actor-director August Lindberg, the first person to produce Ghosts,
received a letter in which Ibsen made his priorities clear:

The dialogue must seem perfectly natural, and the manner of expression must
differ from character to character. Many changes in the dialogue can be made
during rehearsals, where one can easily hear what sounds natural and unforced,
and also what needs to be revised over and over again until finally it sounds
completely real and believable.
(Quoted in J. L. Styan, Modern Drama in Theory and Practice: Realism and
Naturalism, 1981, p. 28)

This was a new way of thinking about dialogue. Earlier nineteenth century drama was
more interested in obtaining emotional effects than in reflecting the rhythms of
everyday speech. Ibsen was happy to listen and learn from actors as they relaxed into a
role; the freshness this imparted allowed his text to appear as if every line was being
spoken for the first time. He had given them a very solid basis on which to work: the
characters speak so distinctively that most people faced with some random lines could
probably attribute them to the correct speaker. Helmer, for instance, seems almost
incapable of even a brief speech without using the imperative voice - and he does not
make many brief speeches. Nora, even making what must be the most considered
statement of her whole life as she leaves him, talks at far less length. She has, however,
more variety of tone and mood; her language differs subtly with each person she
addresses. The cajoling tone she adopts with Helmer is very different from the brisk and
friendly equality apparent in remarks such as: 'You're a fine one, Dr Rank!' (Act 2), or
from her imperious tone to Krogstad in Act 1. Helmer's language is consistent; he
lectures Mrs Linde, for example, just as he does Nora.

One of the most important aspects of vocabulary for Helmer is titles. In

nineteenth-century Norway professional titles were regularly used as a form of address,
so that Helmer would be addressed as 'Advocat' (Lawyer) or 'Direktor' (Bank Manager)
Helmer, as Mrs Linde politely calls him in Act 3. Krogstad upsets him by addressing him
as 'du' ('thou') as if they were close friends. There is no exact equivalent of this in English
- 'Christian name' does not really reflect the level of familiarity. (One wonders whether
Krogstad is doing it to annoy.) Helmer nearly always refers to Nora by a nickname or
patronising adjective like 'little' generally prefaced with a possessive 'my'.

Spontaneity and colloquial ease are not easily achieved in naturalistic dialogue; the
audience has to be given certain information which the characters clearly know already.
Ibsen manages it with great economy - for example in the rapidity with which we learn
about the family finances through the perfectly natural discussion that arises over the
Christmas tree in Act 1. However, Ibsen's language is more complex than this; he was

41
perhaps the first playwright to realise the possibilities of subtext, of the energies that
pulse beneath the words and come alive through the actors' performance of the text.
Sometimes characters are conscious that they mean more than they say: Nora and Dr
Rank discuss the forbidden topic of syphilis in language about food, showing not only an
awareness of the scandalous nature of the subject but also how they enjoy the
closeness of their friendship and the exercise of their wit. But if they are proud of their
control of language - as in the way they flirt outrageously over the silk stockings - they
can be taken by surprise by their own directness: Rank's declaration of love is something
he cannot repress. Finally, in the last act, they say a loving farewell through their
allusions to 'light.' The word has acquired a symbolism for them over the three days of
the action - although, perhaps, they are still unaware of some of the connotations it will
have for us.

While her awareness of multiple layers of language permits Nora to grow, Helmer's
rigidity is reflected in the way he takes discussions like these at face value and never
looks below the surface of his own language. For instance, he repeatedly employs the
endearments 'skylark' and 'squirrel' without reflecting that these are wild creatures -
that Nora's domestic setting has become a cage. The audience, however, realises that
Helmer has built a kind of linguistic prison, not just for Nora but for himself. He is
completely at a loss in their final confrontation, and it is entirely up to her to find
language to articulate the possibility of change in their relationship. When Nora
expresses a longing to say "'Well I'm damned!'" (Act 1), she is being frivolous; but it is
also indicates the importance she places on freedom of speech in a house where
Helmer's refusals to discuss subjects of importance with her constitute a kind of
censorship.

Scattered throughout the play are moments when the language seems to resemble that
of the melodramas Ibsen despised: in particular, Nora has a number of soliloquies,
ranging from casual remarks such as 'Yes, he's in' (Act 1) to a speech that would not
seem out of place in Scribe at the end of Act 2: 'Seven hours till midnight. Then
twenty-four hours till midnight tomorrow. Then the tarantella will be over. Twenty-four
and seven...thirty-one hours to live.' Ibsen prided himself on getting rid of this device in
The League of Youth (1869), and it is clear that these moments are not, in plot terms,
strictly necessary. However, these speeches tell us something about Nora's imagination.
She is
behaving as if she is living in a world of melodrama, where men make noble sacrifices for
women and women make even nobler ones for men. Ibsen's original audience may have
been partially aware that life is not really like that, but their imagination too was very
much shaped by those same literary stereotypes. They would probably have been in no
doubt that Nora should indeed commit heroic suicide, or be saved by Helmer. When
instead she slams the door and walks into an unknown future, she is showing that her
understanding of the world has changed and she no longer expects a 'miracle' or a
happy ending as if she lived in a world scripted by Scribe - and Ibsen is challenging his
audience too to abandon such simplistic expectations of a play.

42
Naturalism

Naturalism was a literary movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
and is the application of scientific principles to literature. For instance, in nature,
behavior is determined by environmental pressures or internal factors, none of which
can be controlled or even clearly understood. There is a clear cause and effect
association: either the indifference of nature or biological determinism influences
behavior. In either case, there is no human responsibility for the actions of the
individual. European Naturalism emphasized biological determinism, while American
Naturalism emphasized environmental influences. Thus, Torvald's accusation that all of
her father's weakest moral values are displayed in Nora is based on an understanding
that she has inherited those traits from him.

Realism

Realism is a nineteenth-century literary term that identifies an author's attempt to

portray characters, events, and settings in a realistic way. Simply put, realism is attention
to detail, with description intended to be honest and frank at all levels. There is an
emphasis on character, especially behavior. Thus, in A Doll's House, the events of the
Helmers's marriage are easily recognizable as realistic to the audience. These are events,
people, and a home that might be familiar to any person in the audience. The sitting
room is similar to one found in any other home. Nora is similar to any other wife in
nineteenth-century Norway, and the problems she encounters in her marriage are
similar to those confronted by other married women.

43
Structure and Staging

Acts

Acts comprise the major divisions within a drama. In Greek plays, the sections of the
drama were signified by the appearance of the chorus and were usually divided into five
acts. This is the formula for most serious drama from the Greeks to the Romans, and to
Elizabethan playwrights like William Shakespeare. The five acts denote the structure of
dramatic action; they are exposition, complication, climax, falling action, and
catastrophe. The five-act structure was followed until the nineteenth century when
Ibsen combined some of the acts. A Doll's House is a three-act play; the exposition and
complication are combined in the first act when the audience learns of both Nora's
deception and of the threat Krogstad represents. The climax occurs in the second act
when Krogstad again confronts Nora and leaves the letter for Torvald to read. The falling
action and catastrophe are combined in Act III when Mrs. Linde and Krogstad are
reconciled but Mrs. Linde decides to let the drama play itself out and Torvald reads and
reacts to the letter with disastrous results.
Structure

A Doll's House follows Scribe's prescription for a well-made play very clearly. The
exposition sets up the situation; through the conversations in Act 1 with Helmer, Mrs
Linde and Nils Krogstad we are supplied with all the information that we need to
understand what has already happened, and we are made aware that the situation has
become pressing - in fact, Nora can already be said to be in crisis, and the action moves
with far greater speed than a nineteenth-century audience would have been expecting.
The curtain falls on a note of high suspense with Krogstad's first demand. The
development and complication in Act 2 see Nora struggling to find a way out, first by
changing Helmer's mind, then by asking for Dr Rank's help, only for the action to reach
its major crisis when all her possible solutions fail and Krogstad makes even more
serious demands. Nora's desperation - using her tarantella to postpone the inevitable -
makes a strong curtain. Act 3 drives towards the climax; Ibsen develops the suspense
further by hinting at a possible resolution - the new-found goodwill of Krogstad could
mean that the letter is destroyed - and then teasingly closes that possibility with Mrs
Linde's determination to reveal the truth. He builds up further suspense by making Dr
Rank delay Helmer's reading of the letter, before reaching what Scribe called the scene a
faire - the scene the audience has been eagerly expecting and will consider an important
part of the evening's entertainment: the confrontation between Nora and Helmer.

At the denouement, the revelation of all secrets, the audience are conditioned to expect
something like Helmer's luxurious meditation on forgiveness: shockingly, they only get it
after his more Spontaneous display of selfishness has rendered it meaningless. The
resolution, the point at which the well-made play is expected to tie up all loose ends,
proves to be a reversal of expectation. Nora's quiet announcement that she is leaving

44
her marriage comes like a cold shower; her final exit is not so much an ending as the
beginning of a new story.

The play also has a more individual structure, mimicking the changes within Nora's own
psyche. The action takes place over three days; frequent reminders of the passage of
time increase the suspense. However, each act takes place at a different time of day.
Days in a Norwegian winter are very short, and Christmas is close to the shortest day of
the year. We may infer that Nora's shopping trip before the curtain rises on Act 1 makes
the most of the available daylight and that it is not long after the late morning sunrise. In
Act 2 Nora calls for the lamp during her conversation with Dr Rank: It is evidently
mid-afternoon and growing darker. Act 3 takes place at night: the party upstairs audibly
breaks up, suggesting it cannot be much earlier than midnight; the final conversation
therefore takes place in the small hours of the next day. Despite the passage of time, the
sense is that Nora is living through a single day; this adds to the pace but, more
importantly, gives us the impression of a journey from light into profound darkness -
with, perhaps, the hope of a return to the light at the end. The Christmas setting adds to
this sense of spiritual death and rebirth; although the possibility of the 'greatest miracle
of all' (Act 3) seems remote, Nora's own life is beginning anew.

Setting

The time, place, and culture in which the action of the play takes place is called the
setting. The elements of setting may include geographic location, physical or mental
environments, prevailing cultural attitudes, or the historical time in which the action
takes place. The location for A Doll's House is an unnamed city in nineteenth-century
Norway. The action begins just before Christmas and concludes the next evening, and all
three acts take place in the same sitting room at the Helmers's residence. The Helmers
have been married for eight years; Nora is a wife and mother, and her husband, Torvald,
is a newly promoted lawyer and bank manager. They live in comfortable circumstances
during a period that finds women suppressed by a social system that equates males with
success in the public sphere and females with domestic chores in the private sphere. But
this is also a period of turmoil as women demand greater educational opportunities and
greater equality in the business world. Accordingly, A Doll's House illuminates many of
the conflicts and questions being debated in nineteenth-century Europe.

Staging

Ibsen's advice to writers was 'Use your eyes' (quoted in Michael Meyer, Ibsen, 1985, p.
501), and the visual dimension of his play is as important as the lines. Most
nineteenth-century theatres had a proscenium arch stage, but the actors interacted with
the audience, speaking some of their lines directly to them, rather than treating the
audience as a fly on an invisible wall; instead of practical furniture, sets used a backcloth
with everything painted on it. Not only does Ibsen show life going on in the Helmer
house as if we are not there to watch, but he uses real objects and gives them significant

45
functions: a piano, a Christmas tree, a lamp, a table where serious conversation takes
place. Costume is equally eloquent: the clothing of those with money, Rank and Helmer,
differs in quality and function from the dress of Helmer's employees, Krogstad and Mrs
Linde. Nora's stylish but comparatively cheap dress and her Capri outfit both
demonstrate aspects of her married life - her secret economies and the possessiveness
of the man who dresses her like a doll.

Space itself is used to illustrate Nora's journey to independence. The focus is the living
room, but there is a way out into the hall and two entrances to Helmer's study. Nora
never enters through either of Helmer's doors, and while others come and go freely in
the hall she becomes increasingly confined; we see her confidently entering the hall just
once, at the rise of the curtain; later she almost isolates herself in the room, sending the
children away; and later still she is locked in by Helmer. Her final transit through the
house is a slow reclamation of freedom. The script carefully locates the Helmer home in
a set of apartments: at the end she leaves the room; we see her pass the self-imposed
barrier of the hall; we mark her passage down the stairs and into the outer hall, as
Helmer continues to hope she will change her mind; and then, with the last echoing
slam of the door, we hear her leave the house.

46
Critical Essays

A Doll’s House – A Critical Overview

In Norway, A Doll's House was published two weeks before its first performance. The
initial 8,000 copies of the play sold out immediately, so the audience for the play was
both informed, excited, and eagerly anticipating the play's first production. The play
elicited much debate, most of it centered on Nora's decision to leave her marriage at the
play's conclusion. Reaction in Germany was similar to that in Norway. Ibsen was forced
to provide an alternative ending by the management of its first German production,
since even the actress playing Nora refused to portray a mother leaving her children in
such a manner. Ibsen called the new ending, which had Nora abandoning her plans to
leave upon seeing her children one last time, "a barbaric outrage to be used only in
emergencies." The debate was focused not on women's rights or other feminist issues
such as subordination or male dominance; instead, people were consumed with the
question, "What kind of a wife and mother would walk out on her family as Nora does?"
The play's reception elsewhere in Europe mirrored that of Norway and Germany with
the debate still focused largely on social issues and not on the play's challenge to
dramatic style.

Another issue for early reviewers was Nora's transformation. Many critics simply did not
accept the idea that the seemingly submissive, flighty woman of the first two acts could
display so much resolve and strength in the third act. According to Errol Durbach in A
Doll's House: Ibsen's Myth of Transformation, one review of the period stated that Ibsen
had disgusted his audience by "violating the unconventional." Many reviewers just could
not visualize any woman displaying the kind of behavior demonstrated by Nora. It was
beyond their comprehension that a woman would voluntarily choose to sacrifice her
children in order to seek her own identity. Durbach argued that the audience and the
critics were accustomed to social problem plays but that Ibsen's play presented a
problem without the benefit of a ready or acceptable solution. In fact, the critics
identified with Torvald and saw his choice of so unstable a wife as Nora as his only real
flaw. In 1879 Europe, A Doll's House was a problem play, but not the one Ibsen
envisioned. Instead, the problem resided with the critics who were so consumed with
the issue of Nora's decision that they ignored the deeper complexities of the play. Early
in the first act, it becomes clear that Nora has a strength and determination that even
she cannot acknowledge. When her eyes are opened, it is not so much a metamorphosis
as it is an awakening.

In England, the play was embraced by Marxists who envisioned an egalitarian mating
without the hierarchy of marriage and an end to serfdom when wives ceased to be
property. But many other Englishmen were more interested in the aesthetics of the play
than in its social content. Bernard Shaw embraced Ibsen's dramatic poetry and
championed the playwright's work. Since the first performance of A Doll's House in
England occurred ten years after its debut in Norway, the English were provided with

47
more time to absorb the ideas presented in the play. Thus the reviews of the period
lacked the vehemence of those in Norway and Germany. Rather, according to Durbach,
Ibsen was transformed into a liberal championed by English critics more interested in his
dramatic poetry than the nature of his argument. In her 1919 book, Ibsen in England,
Miriam Alice Franc declared that Ibsen "swept from the stage the false sentimentality
and moral shams that had reigned there. He emancipated the theatre from the thraldom
of convention."

Initial responses in America were even less enthusiastic than in Europe. Many critics
dismissed Ibsen as gloomy and pessimistic and as representing the "old world." But by
1905, a production starring Ethel Barrymore was embraced by early feminists. Durbach
noted that Barrymore's performance occurred within the context of the American
woman's efforts at emancipation, and Ibsen became an "Interpreter of American Life."
In his introduction to The Collected Works of Henrik Ibsen, which was published between
1906 and 1912, William Archer remarked: "It is with A Doll's House that Ibsen enters
upon his kingdom as a world-poet." Archer added that this play was the work that would
carry Ibsen's name beyond Norway. In a 1986 performance review, New York Times
contributor Walter Goodman declared that A Doll's House is "a great document of
feminism, and Nora is an icon of women's liberation."

Ibsen's Use of Drama as a Forum for Social Issues

Henrik Ibsen elevated theatre from mere entertainment to a forum for exposing social
problems. Prior to Ibsen, contemporary theatre consisted of historical romance or
contrived behavior plays. But with A Doll's House, Ibsen turned drama into a respectable
genre for the examination of social issues: in exposing the flaws in the Helmer marriage,
he made the private public and provided an advocacy for women. In Act III, when Nora
slams the door as she leaves, she is opening a door into the hidden world of the ideal
Victorian marriage. In allowing Nora the right to satisfy her need for an identity separate
from that of wife and mother, Ibsen is perceived as endorsing the growing "women
question." And although the play ends without offering any solutions, Ibsen has offered
possibilities. To his contemporaries, it was a frightening prospect.

Bjorn Hemmer, in an essay in The Cambridge Companion to Ibsen, declared that Ibsen
used A Doll's House and his other realistic dramas to focus a "searchlight'' on Victorian
society with its "false morality and its manipulation of public opinion." Indeed, Torvald
exemplifies this kind of community. Of this society, Hemmer noted: "The people who live
in such a society know the weight of 'public opinion' and of all those agencies which
keep watch over society's 'law and order': the norms, the conventions and the traditions
which in essence belong to the past but which continue into the present and there
thwart individual liberty in a variety of ways." It is the weight of public opinion that
Torvald cannot defy. And it is the weight of public opinion that condemns the Helmer's
marriage. Because Torvald views his public persona as more important that his private,
he is unable to understand or appreciate the suffering of his wife. His reaction to the

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threat of public exposure is centered on himself. It is his social stature, his professional
image, and not his private life which concern him most. For Nora to emerge as an
individual she must reject the life that society mandates. To do so, she must assume
control over her life; yet in the nineteenth century, women had no power. Power resides
with the establishment, and as a banker and lawyer, Torvald clearly represents the
establishment.

Deception, which lies at the heart of A Doll's House, also provides the cornerstone of
Victorian life, according to Hemmer. Hemmer maintained that it is the contrasts
between reality and fiction that motivated Ibsen to tackle such social problems as
marriage. Victorian society, Hemmer stated, offered a "clear dichotomy between
ideology and practice." The facade of individuality was buried in the Victorian ideal of
economics. In the hundred years since the French Revolution economic power had
replaced the quest for individual liberty, and a married woman had the least amount of
economic power. When Nora rejects her marriage, she is also rejecting bourgeois
middle-class values. In this embracing of uncertainty rather than the economic
guarantee of her husband's protection, Nora represents the individual, who, Hemmer
asserted, Ibsen wanted to make "the sustaining element in society and [who would]
dethrone the bourgeois family as the central institution of society." Nora's rebellion at
the play's conclusion is a necessary element of that revolution; it is little wonder that
Ibsen was so disgusted at the second conclusion he was forced to write. In making Nora
subordinate her desires as an individual to the greater need of motherhood, Ibsen is
denying his reason for creating the conflict and for writing the play.

The question of women's rights and feminist equality is an important aspect of

understanding A Doll's House. Ibsen himself stated that for him the issue was more
complex than just women's rights and that he hoped to illuminate the problem of
human rights. Yet women have continued to champion both Ibsen and his heroine, Nora.
Social reform was closely linked to feminism. In her discussion of the role Ibsen played in
nineteenth-century thought, which appeared in The Cambridge Companion to Ibsen, Gail
Finney explained: "The most prominent socialist thinkers of the day, male and female,
saw that true sexual equality necessitates fundamental changes in the structure of
society." Thus, in embracing women's equality in A Doll's House, Ibsen is really arguing
for social justice. Ibsen supported economic reform that would protect women's
property and befriended a number of notable Scandinavian feminists. Finney argued
that Ibsen's feminist wife, Suzannah, provided the model for Nora as a strong-willed
heroine.

Finney devoted part of her essay to the feminist reception of early stage productions of
A Doll's House, which Finney maintained, "opened the way to the turn-of-the-century
women's movement." Nineteenth-century feminists praised Ibsen's work and "saw it as
a warning of what would happen when women in general woke up to the injustices that
had been committed against them," according to Finney. Finney indicated that in Ibsen's
own notes for this play the playwright asserted that "a mother in modern society is 'like

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certain insects who go away and die when she has done her duty in the propagation of
the race.'" That the prevailing view is that women have little worth when their
usefulness as mothers has ended is clear in Torvald's repudiation of Nora when he
discovers her deception; she can be of no use to her children if her reputation is stained.
That he wants her to remain under his roof—though separate from the family— defines
his own need to protect his reputation within the community. Her use, though, as a
mother is at an end. Until, that is, Torvald discovers that the threat has been removed. If
Nora wants to define her worth, she can only do so by turning away from her children
and husband.

Finney refutes early critical arguments that Nora's transformation in Act III is
unbelievable or too sudden. Nora's childlike response to Torvald in which she states "I
would never dream of doing anything you didn't want me to" and "I never get anywhere
without your help'' contrast sharply with the reality of her situation, which is that she
has forged a signature and saved her husband's life and has also shown herself capable
of earning the money necessary to repay the loan. Thus Nora's submissiveness is as
much a part of the deception as other elements of Nora's personality. Finney also
argued that Nora's repeated exclamations of how happy she is in Act I and her
out-of-control practice of the tarantella are indicative of a woman bordering on hysteria.
This hysteria further demonstrates that Nora is a more complicated woman than the
child-like doll introduced at the beginning of Act I. Finney noted that Ibsen stated late in
his life that "it is the women who are to solve the social problem. As mothers they are to
do it. And only as such can they do it." Finney posited that rather than arguing that
women are suited only for motherhood, Ibsen really saw motherhood as a vocation that
women perform best when it is offered as a choice. When Nora states that she must
leave to find her identity because she is of no use to her children as she is, she is giving
voice to Ibsen's premise: Nora must have the right to choose motherhood and she
cannot do that until she has the freedom to choose.

Errol Durbach was also concerned with Nora's role of mother. In a discussion in his A
Doll's House: Ibsen's Myth of Transformation that focuses on the critical reception that
greeted Nora's decision to leave her children, Durbach offered the review of Clement
Scott, an Ibsen contemporary. Scott held that Nora "committed an unnatural offense
unworthy of even the lower animals: 'A cat or dog would tear anyone who separated it
from its offspring, but the socialistic Nora, the apostle of the new creed of humanity,
leaves her children without a pang.'" But Durbach maintained that for Nora to
subordinate her own needs to the function of motherhood would be a greater offense,
and cited Ibsen's own words to support his claim: "These women of the modern age,
mistreated as daughters, as sisters, as wives, not educated in accordance with their
talents, debarred from following their mission, deprived of their inheritance, embittered
in mind—these are the ones who supply the mothers for the new generation. What will
be the result?'' Nora's decision, then, can be described not as an offense, but as a
display of strength. Rather than take the easy path, she recognizes that to be a good
mother requires more than her presence in the home; she cannot be a model for her

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children, especially her daughter, if she cannot claim an identity as an individual. Clearly
this principle exemplifies Ibsen's stated position that if women are to be mothers of a
new generation, they must first achieve a measure of equality as human beings.

Of Ibsen's approach to marriage, Durbach asserted it would be a mistake to read A Doll's

House and extrapolate from the play that Ibsen was striking a "militant blow against the
institution of marriage." For although Nora slams the door on marriage, Kristine opens
the same door. In the same way that a mirror reverses a reflection, Kristine reflects the
opposite of Nora. Kristine has already suffered in marriage and has been provided with a
second opportunity with the death of her husband. She has the freedom that Nora now
seeks. Where Nora has known security and happiness, Kristine has known deprivation
and a loveless marriage. As Durbach illustrated, Kristine is clearly a non-doll to Nora's
doll. Durbach argued that if feminists want to embrace Ibsen's Nora as a symbol for
women's equality, they must also address the problem of Kristine; her choice is the
opposite of Nora's and coming to terms with that choice only reveals the complexities of
Ibsen's play. As nineteenth-century critics noted, Ibsen presents no solutions, only
questions.

Source: Sheri Metzger, in an essay for Drama for Students, Gale, 1997. Metzger is an
adjunct professor at Embry-Riddle University.

Henrik Ibsen

The Doll's House is one of the strongest plays that Ibsen has produced. In the way of
character-painting, and artful and artistic handling of the situations, he has done nothing
better. It is a pity that we could not have had The Enemy of Society, with its strong
autobiographic suggestiveness, first; but there is no more characteristic play upon the
list, nor one more indicative of the author's mind and power—if only it be read with
fairness and appreciation—than the one selected. The heroine of The Doll's House is its
light-hearted pretty little mistress, Nora Helmer. She has been eight years the wife of
Torvald Helmer, and is the mother of three bright vigorous children. She is her husband's
doll. Torvald Helmer calls her his little lark, his squirrel, provides for her every fancy,
hugely enjoys her charms of person, forgets that she has a soul—and is sure he loves her
most devotedly. Nora has always been a child; her father, a man of easy conscience, has
brought her up entirely unsophisticated. She knows nothing of the serious side of
life—of its privileges, its real opportunities—nothing of the duties of the individual in a
world of action. Nora is passive, she submits to be fondled and kissed. She is happy in
her "doll-house," and apparently knows nothing outside her home, her husband, and
her children. Nora loves her family with an ideal love. Love, in her thought, is an
affection which has a right to demand sacrifices; and in turn is willing to offer up its own
treasures, whether life, honor, or even its soul, be the stake. She is not merely ready for
such a sacrifice—poor sentimental Nora!— she has already, though in part ignorantly,
made it, and has committed a crime to save her husband's life.

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There is much machinery to carry on the plot; but in spite of the abstract nature of the
theme, the episodes are so dramatic and the dialogue so brisk and natural that the
drama moves without perceptible jar, and our interest intensifies and the suspense
increases until the denouement occurs. Herein lies the secret of the success of this and
all the other of Ibsen's kindred dramas. Along with the poet's insight and the cold clear
logic of the philosopher, he possesses in an eminent degree the secret of the
playwright's art, and knows well how to clothe his abstract dialogue on themes
philosophical or psychological, so that the observer follows every incident and every
word with an interest that grows more and more intense.

It is impossible to tell all of Nora's story here. Miss [Henrietta Frances] Lord's translation
will do that best, if only curiosity may be aroused concerning it. Suffice it to say that the
catastrophe falls in a situation characteristically dramatic. The curtain descends just as
Nora, the wife and mother, turns her back upon husband and children, and passes, by
her own free choice, nay, in accord with her relentless insistence, out from her
doll-home into the night, and—whither? This is the question that all the hosts of Ibsen's
censors are repeating. Whither? And did she do right to leave her children and her
husband? And what a revolutionary old firebrand Ibsen must be to teach such a moral,
and proclaim the doctrine that all those unfortunate mismated women who find
themselves bound to unsympathetic lords may, and should, turn their back on the home
and abandon their offspring to the mercies of strangers! But alack, this isn't the moral of
Nora Helmer's story. It was the doll-marriage and the relation between Torvald Helmer
and his doll-wife that was at fault. Nora's abandonment was an accidental, though a
necessary, episode. It is the denouement of the play, to be sure; but the end is not yet.
There is an epilogue as well as a prologue to the drama, though both are left to the
reader's imagination to perfect. "A hope inspires" Helmer as he hears the door close
after Nora's departure; and he whisperingly repeats her words—"the greatest of all
miracles!"

This particular phase of wedded life—and perhaps it is becoming not so very infrequent
a phase even on this side the water—is a problem which confronts us in society. Is this
your idea of marriage? demands Ibsen. Is it a marriage at all? No; he declares bluntly. It
is a cohabitation; it is a partnership in sensuality in which one of the parties is an
innocent, it may be an unconscious, victim.

Nora goes forth, but we feel she will one day return; her children will bring her back.
Neither she nor Torvald could have learned the bitter lesson had Nora remained at
home. It is the wife at last who makes the sacrifice. How strange it is that so many of the
critics fail to see that Nora's act is not selfishness after all! There is promise of a splendid
womanliness in that "emancipated individuality" that Ibsen's enemies are ridiculing.
There will be an ideal home after the mutual chastening is accomplished: an ideal
home—not ideal people necessarily, but a home, a family, where there is complete
community, a perfect love.

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Source: W. E. Simonds, "Henrik Ibsen," in the Dial, Vol. X, No. 119, March, 1890, pp.
301-03.

Ibsen's Social Dramas

No work of Ibsen's, not even his beautiful Puritan opera of Brand, has excited so much
controversy as A Doll's House. This was, no doubt, to a very great extent caused by its
novel presentment of the mission of woman in modern society. In the dramas and
romances of modern Scandinavia, and especially in those of Ibsen and Bjornson, the
function of woman had been clearly defined. She was to be the helper, the comforter,
the inspirer, the guerdon of man in his struggle towards loftier forms of existence. When
man fell on the upward path, woman's hand was to be stretched to raise him; when man
went wandering away on ill and savage courses, woman was to wait patiently over her
spinning-wheel, ready to welcome and to pardon the returning prodigal; when the eyes
of man grew weary in watching for the morning-star, its rays were to flash through the
crystal tears of woman. But in A Doll's House he confronted his audience with a new
conception. Woman was no longer to be the shadow following man, or if you will, a
skin-leka attending man, but an independent entity, with purposes and moral functions
of her own. Ibsen's favourite theory of the domination of the individual had hitherto
been confined to one sex; here he carries it over boldly to the other. The heroine of A
Doll's House, the puppet in that establishment pour rire ["not to be taken seriously"], is
Nora Helmer, the wife of a Christiania barrister. The character is drawn upon childish
lines, which often may remind the English reader of Dora in David Copperfield. She has,
however, passed beyond the Dora stage when the play opens. She is the mother of
children, she has been a wife for half a dozen years. But the spoiling of injudicious
parents has been succeeded by the spoiling of a weak and silly husband. Nora remains
childish, irrational, concentrated on tiny cares and empty interests, without self-control
or self-respect. Her doctor and her husband have told her not to give way to her passion
for "candy'' in any of its seductive forms; but she is introduced to us greedily eating
macaroons on the sly, and denying that she has touched one when suspicion is aroused.

Here, then in Nora Helmer, the poet starts with the figure of a woman in whom the
results of the dominant will of man, stultifying the powers and gifts of womanhood, are
seen in their extreme development. Environed by selfish kindness, petted and spoiled
for thirty years of dwarfed existence, this pretty, playful, amiable, and apparently happy
little wife is really a tragical victim of masculine egotism. A nature exorbitantly desirous
of leaning on a stronger will has been seized, condemned, absorbed by the natures of
her father and her husband. She lives in them and by them, without moral instincts of
her own, or any law but their pleasure. The result of this weakness—this, as Ibsen
conceives, criminal subordination of the individuality—is that when Nora is suddenly
placed in a responsible position, when circumstances demand from her a moral
judgment, she has none to give; the safety, even the comfort, of the man she loves
precede all other considerations, and with a light heart she forges a document to shield
her father or to preserve her husband's name. She sacrifices honour for love, her

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conscience being still in too rudimentary a state to understand that there can be any
honour that is distinguishable from love. Thus Dora would have acted, if we can conceive
Dora as ever thrown into circumstances which would permit her to use the pens she was
so patient in holding. But Nora Helmer has capacities of undeveloped character which
make her far more interesting than the, to say the truth, slightly fabulous Dora. Her
insipidity, her dollishness, comes from the incessant repression of her family life. She is
buried, as it were, in cotton-wool, swung into artificial sleep by the egotistical fondling of
the men on whom she depends for emotional existence. But when once she tears the
wrappings away, and leaps from the pillowed hammock of her indolence, she rapidly
develops an energy of her own, and the genius of the dramatist is displayed in the rare
skill with which he makes us witness the various stages of this awaking. At last, in an
extraordinary scene, she declares that she can no longer live in her doll's house;
husband and wife sit down at opposite ends of a table, and argue out the situation in a
dialogue which covers sixteen pages, and Nora dashes out into the city, into the night;
while the curtain falls as the front door bangs behind her.

The world is always ready to discuss the problem of marriage, and this very fresh and
odd version of L'ecole des Femmes [The School for Wives] excited the greatest possible
interest throughout the north of Europe. The close of the play, in particular, was a riddle
hard to be deciphered. Nora, it was said, might feel that the only way to develop her
own individuality was to leave her husband, but why should she leave her children? The
poet evidently held the relation he had described to be such an immoral one, in the
deepest and broadest sense, that the only way out of the difficulty was to cut the
Gordian knot, children or no children. In almost Nora's very last reply, moreover, there is
a glimmer of relenting. The most wonderful of things may happen, she confesses; the
reunion of a developed wife to a reformed husband is not, she hints, beyond the range
of what is possible. We are left with the conviction that it rests with him, with Helmer, to
allow himself to be led through the fires of affliction to the feet of a Nora who shall no
longer be a doll. (pp. 113-15)

Source: Edmund Gosse, "Ibsen's Social Dramas," in the Fortnightly Review, Vol. XLV, No.
CCLXV, January 1, 1989, pp. 107-21. Gosse was a prominent English man of letters during
the late nineteenth century. A prolific literary historian, biographer, and critic, he is best
known for his work Father and Son: A Study of Two Temperaments (1907), an account of
his childhood that is considered among the most distinguished examples of Victorian
spiritual autobiography. Gosse was also a major translator and critic of Scandinavian
literature, and his importance as a critic is due primarily to his introduction of Ibsen to
an English-speaking audience.

Source: Drama for Students, ©2013 Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved

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APPENDIX

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