Contents;

=> Biography of Henrik Ibsen

=> Drama “A Doll's House”
• Introduction
• Characters
• Summary
• Analysis
• Themes
• Motifs
• Symbols
• Questions and Answers

Biography of Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)

Exiled Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen wrote 'A Doll's House' and 'Hedda Gabler,' the
latter of which featured one of theater's most notorious characters.

Who Was Henrik Ibsen?

Henrik Ibsen was born on March 20, 1828, in Skien, Norway. In 1862, he was exiled to Italy,
where he wrote the tragedy Brand. In 1868, Ibsen moved to Germany, where he wrote one
of his most famous works: the play A Doll's House. In 1890, he wrote Hedda Gabler, creating
one of theater's most notorious characters. By 1891, Ibsen had returned to Norway a literary
hero. He died on May 23, 1906, in Oslo, Norway.

Childhood
As a child, Ibsen showed little sign of the theatrical genius he would become. He grew up in
the small Norwegian coastal town of Skien as the oldest of five children born to Knud and
Marichen Ibsen. His father was a successful merchant and his mother painted, played the
piano and loved to go to the theater. Ibsen himself expressed an interest in becoming an
artist as well.

The family was thrown into poverty when Ibsen was 8 because of problems with his father's
business. Nearly all traces of their previous affluence had to be sold off to cover debts, and
the family moved to a rundown farm near town. There, Ibsen spent much of his time
reading, painting and performing magic tricks.

At 15, Ibsen stopped school and went to work. He landed a position as an apprentice in an
apothecary in Grimstad. Ibsen worked there for six years, using his limited free time to write
poetry and paint. In 1849, he wrote his first play Catilina, a drama written in verse modeled
after one of his great influences, William Shakespeare.

Personal Life
Unlike many other writers and poets, Ibsen had a long and seemingly happy marriage to
Suzannah Daae Thoresen. The couple wed in 1858 and welcomed their only child, son
Sigurd, the following year. Ibsen also had a son from an earlier relationship. He had fathered
a child with a maid in 1846 while working as an apprentice. While he provided some financial
support, Ibsen never met the boy.

Early Works
Ibsen moved to Christiania (later known as Oslo) in 1850 to prepare for university
examinations to study at the University of Christiania. Living in the capital, he made friends
with other writers and artistic types. One of these friends, Ole Schulerud, paid for the
publication of Ibsen's first play Catilina, which failed to get much notice.
The following year, Ibsen had a fateful encounter with violinist and theater manager Ole
Bull. Bull liked Ibsen and offered him a job as a writer and manager for the Norwegian
Theatre in Bergen. The position proved to be an intense tutorial in all things theatrical and
even included traveling abroad to learn more about his craft. In 1857, Ibsen returned to
Christiania to run another theater there. This proved to be a frustrating venture for him,
with others claiming that he mismanaged the theater and calling for his ouster. Despite his
difficulties, Ibsen found time to write Love's Comedy, a satirical look at marriage, in 1862.

Writing in Exile
Ibsen left Norway in 1862, eventually settling in Italy for a time. There he wrote Brand, a five-
act tragedy about a clergyman whose feverish devotion to his faith costs him his family and
ultimately his life in 1865. The play made him famous in Scandinavia. Two years later, Ibsen
created one of his masterworks, Peer Gynt. A modern take on Greek epics of the past, the
verse play follows the title character on a quest.

In 1868, Ibsen moved to Germany. During his time there, he saw his social drama The Pillars
of Society first performed in Munich. The play helped launch his career and was soon
followed up by one of his most famous works, A Doll's House. This 1879 play set tongues a-
wagging throughout Europe for exploration of Nora's struggle with the traditional roles of
wife and mother and her own need for self-exploration. Once again, Ibsen had questioned
the accepted social practices of the times, surprising his audiences and stirring up debate.
Around this time, he returned to Rome.

His next work, 1881's Ghosts, stirred up even more controversy by tackling such topics as
incest and venereal disease. The outcry was so strong that the play wasn't performed widely
until two years later. His next work, An Enemy of the People, showed one man in conflict
with his community. Some critics say it was Ibsen's response to the backlash he received for
Ghosts. Ibsen wrote The Lady From the Sea (1888) and then soon headed back to Norway,
where he would spend the remainder of his years. One of his most famous works was to
follow, in Hedda Gabler. With Hedda Gabler (1890), Ibsen created one of the theater's most
notorious characters. Hedda, a general's daughter, is a newlywed who has come to loathe
her scholarly husband, yet she destroys a former love who stands in her husband's way
academically. The character has sometimes been called the female Hamlet, after
Shakespeare's famous tragic figure.

Back to Norway
In 1891, Ibsen returned to Norway as a literary hero. He may have left as a frustrated artist,
but he came back as internationally known playwright. For much of his life, Ibsen had lived
an almost reclusive existence. But he seemed to thrive in the spotlight in his later years,
becoming a tourist attraction of sorts in Christiania. He also enjoyed the events held in his
honor in 1898 to mark his seventieth birthday.

His later works seem to have a more self-reflective quality with mature lead characters
looking back and living with the consequences of their earlier life choices. And each drama
seems to end on a dark note. The first play written after his return to Norway was The
Master Builder. The title character encounters a woman from his past who encourages him
to make good on a promise. In When We Dead Awaken, written in 1899, an old sculptor runs
into one of his former models and tries to recapture his lost creative spark. It proved to be
his final play.

Final Years and Death

In 1900, Ibsen had a series of strokes that left him unable to write. He managed to live for
several more years, but he was not fully present during much of this time. Ibsen died on May
23, 1906. His last words were "To the contrary!" in Norwegian. Considered a literary titan at
the time of his passing, he received a state funeral from the Norwegian government.

While Ibsen may be gone, his work continues to be performed around the world. Peer Gynt,
A Doll's House and Hedda Gabler are the most widely produced plays today. Actresses, such
as Gillian Anderson and Cate Blanchett, have taken on Ibsen's Nora and Hedda Gabler
characters, which are considered to be two of the most demanding theatrical roles ever. In
addition to his plays, Ibsen also wrote around 300 poems.

Ibsen's works have held up over the years because he tapped into universal themes and
explored the human condition in a way unlike any of those before him. Author James Joyce
once wrote that Ibsen "has provoked more discussion and criticism that of any other living
man." To this day, his plays continue to challenge audiences.

HENRIK IBSEN’S WRITING STYLE

Ibsen's Career and Changes in the Writing Style

Ibsen’s work is commonly partitioned into three stages by critics.

The first comprises his initial dramatizations written in verses and demonstrated after
sentimental historical tragedy and Norse adventures. These plays include ‘The Feast of
Solhaug’, ‘Lady Inger of Ostraat’, ‘The Vikings at Helgeland’, and ‘Love’s Comedy’. These plays
are noted principally for their particular Norwegian characters and for their developing
components of parody and social analysis.

In ‘Love’s Comedy’, for instance, Ibsen assaulted regular ideas of adoration and investigated
the contention between the craftsmen’s mission and his obligation to other people. ‘Brand’
was the principal play Ibsen composed in the wake of leaving Norway and was the first of his
attempts to acquire both well-known and basic consideration.

The tale of a minister who sets incomprehensible expectations for his assembly, his family,
and himself, ‘Brand’ uncovers the obsession and brutality of solid optimism. While analysts
propose that ‘Brand’ is a brutal and genuinely out of reach character, they additionally
perceive that this play mirrors Ibsen’s questions and individual anguish over his neediness
and absence of progress.

In contrast with ‘Brand’, the hero of Ibsen’s next show, Peer Gynt (1867), while clever,
creative, and enthusiastic, is unequipped for self-investigation. Despite the fact that this play
takes on general centrality because of Ibsen’s utilization of imagination, story, and imagery,
it is frequently depicted as a sociological investigation of the Norwegian individuals.

Ibsen composed prose dramatizations that were worried about social authenticity during
the second period of his writing career. The first of these plays,’ The League of Youth’, was a
harsh parody of the stooping perspectives of the Norwegian privileged. It presented
colloquial discourse and depended upon exchange as opposed to monolog to uncover the
contemplations and feelings of the characters. ‘The League of Youth’ confirms Ibsen’s day of
work from an accentuation on pretentious plot structures to portrayal and relational
connections.

During his stay in Munich, when he was getting progressively mindful of social bad form,
Ibsen composed ‘The Pillars of Society’. This drama was an unforgiving arraignment of the
ethical defilement and wrongdoing coming about because of the journey for cash and force.
This drama gave what Ibsen called a differentiation among capacity and want, among will
and plausibility. The hero, Consul Bernick, while first encourages his child to comply with
traditional profound qualities. He becomes a ‘Pillars of Society’, in the long run, encounters
an internal change.

Ibsen’s next dramatization, A Doll’s House’, is regularly viewed as a gem of pragmatist

theater. The record of the breakdown of a white-collar class marriage, this work, is viewed as
inventive and brave on account of its accentuation on mental strain as opposed to outside
activity. This method necessitated that feeling be passed on through little, controlled
motions, moves in expression, and stops, and in this way founded another style of acting.

‘Ghosts’ and ‘An Enemy of Society’ are the last plays remembered for Ibsen’s pragmatist
period. In ‘Ghosts’ Ibsen utilizes a character tainted with syphilis to represent how stale
propensities and preferences can be passed down from age to age. ‘An Enemy of Society’
exhibits Ibsen’s hatred for what he thought about stale political talk. Crowds acquainted with
the Romantic nostalgia of the very much made play were at first shocked by such dubious
subjects. In addition, when playwrights Bernard Shaw and George Brandes protected Ibsen’s
works, the theater-opening up to the world started to acknowledge shows as social editorial
and not just as amusement.

With ‘The Wild Duck’ and ‘Hedda Gabler,’ Ibsen entered a time of progress during which he
kept on managing current, sensible topics. However, he utilized imagery and similitude. ‘The
Wild Duck’, viewed as one of Ibsen’s most prominent tragi-comical works, investigates the
job of figment and self-double dealing in regular day to day existence. In this play, Gregers
Werle fervently accepts that everybody must be meticulously legit, unintentionally causes
incredible mischief by intruding in others’ undertakings.

Toward the end of this play, Ibsen’s suggestion that mankind can’t endure essential truth is
reflected in the expressions of the character named Relling. ‘Hedda Gabler’ concerns a
disappointed blue-blooded lady and the retribution she dispenses on herself and the people
around her. Occurring totally in Hedda’s living room not long after her marriage, this play
has been lauded for its unobtrusive examination concerning the mind of a lady who can’t
cherish others or stand up to her sexuality.

Ibsen came back to Norway in 1891 and there entered his third with the dramatizations ‘The
Master Builder’, ’Little Eyolf’, ‘John Gabriel Borkman’, and ‘When We Dead Awaken’. In these
last works, Ibsen managed the contention among craftsmanship and life and moved his
concentration from the person in the public arena to the individual alone and disengaged.

It is guessed that ‘The Master Builder’ was written in light of Norwegian essayist Knut
Hamson’s declaration that Ibsen ought to give up his impact in the Norwegian auditorium to
the more youthful age. Depicted as a graceful admission,’ The Master Builder’ is based on an
old essayist, Solness, who accepts he has abused and traded off his specialty. ‘Little Eyolf’,
the record of an injured kid who makes up for his impairment through an assortment of
different achievements, investigates how self-misleading can prompt a vacant, pointless life.

The quest for individual happiness and self-information is an essential subject in John
Gabriel Borkman. It is a play about an investor whose journey for enormity disengages him
from the individuals who love him. In his last play, ‘When We Dead Awaken’, captioned “A
Dramatic Monolog,” Ibsen seems to condemn himself as a craftsman. Thinking over such
inquiries as whether his composing would have been progressively honest on the off chance
that he had carried on with an increasingly dynamic life When We Dead Awaken is viewed as
one of Ibsen’s generally close to home and personal works.
Social Problems
It has been a part and parcel of Ibsen’s writing style that he deals with various social
problems of the society. He had seen many ills of the society and experienced many of the
problems so he incorporated a number of these social problems in plays. Henrik Ibsen’s
accounts in plays incorporate a wide range of battles that were dependent on his youth. In
the play “Ghosts” a case of battle is illegitimate youngsters. The character, Regina, doesn’t
have a spot to live, so she persuades her to be a housekeeper for Mrs. Alving. In Act 1, she
says that she has been raised by her as her own child.

Psychological Issues
Another effortlessly spotted style of Henrik Ibsen is his utilization of psychological issues in
most of his characters. It is possible that they’re settling on poor choices in the story or they
really are mentally different. A genuine case of mental issues is in the play ‘Ghosts’ where
Jakob Engsrand thinks it is a smart thought to attempt to enlist his embraced little girl to
work in his whorehouse or mariners foundation. This is an undeniable example of how
Engsrand has a mental issue. In Act 1, he says that she wouldn’t stop long with him. That
statement was Engsrand attempting to persuade his little girl to work at his house of ill-
repute.

Poverty As His Main Issue

Another major trait to be referenced is the means by which in all of Henrik Ibsen’s work, he
has poverty as a primary thought. In ‘A Doll’s House,’ Nora Helmer needs to act and apply for
a line of credit under her father`s name to spare her significant other. This can be seen in Act
1 and line number 197. The statement indicates that whatever she did was out of poverty
and if her wife realized she needed to work to take care of that he would be distraught.

Skilled Playwright
In spite of the fact that the plays are intriguing for their social message, Ibsenite
dramatization would not endure today were it not for his quintessential aptitude as an
expert. Every drama from Ibsen is cautiously fashioned into a tight development where
characters are plainly portrayed and interrelated, and where occasions have an emblematic
just as real criticalness. The imagery in Ibsen’s plays is seldom exhausted. Deliberately
coordinated to bind together the setting, occasions, and character depictions, the images
are accidental and subordinate to reality and consistency of his image of life.

Having been keen on considering painting as a young, Ibsen was consistently aware of
mentioning exact objective facts. As a playwright, he viewed himself as a photographer too,
utilizing his forces of perception as a focal point, while his completed plays manifested the
evidence of a talented darkroom specialist. The authenticity of his plays, the validity of his
characters, and the promptness of his topics authenticate these photographic aptitudes at
which Ibsen so intentionally worked.

Drama “A Doll's House” by Henrik Ibsen

Introduction
A Doll’s House is a 3-act problem play written when a revolution was going on in Europe. The
play is a landmark in the development of a new genre-realism, which depicts life
appropriately, thus going against, idealism and utopian thoughts of the preceding ages.

The play deals with the fate of a married woman, who lacked opportunities for self-fulfilment
in a male dominated-world at that time.
Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (1879), written while Ibsen was in Rome and Amalfi, Italy, was
conceived at a time of revolution in Europe. Charged with the fever of the 1848 European
revolutions, a new modern perspective was emerging in the literary and dramatic world,
challenging the romantic tradition. It is Ibsen who can be credited for mastering and
popularizing the realist drama derived from this new perspective. His plays were read and
performed throughout Europe in numerous translations like almost no dramatist before. A
Doll’s House was published in Copenhagen, Denmark, where it premiered.

His success was particularly important for Norway and the Norwegian language. Having
been freed from four centuries of Danish rule in 1814, Norway was just beginning to shake
off the legacy of Danish domination. A Doll’s House was written in a form of Norwegian that
still bore heavy traces of Danish. Ibsen deliberately chose a colloquial language style to
emphasize local realism, though Torvald Helmer does speak in what Michael Meyer has
described as “stuffy Victorianisms.” Ibsen quickly became Norway’s most popular dramatic
figure. But it is the universality of Ibsen’s writings, particularly of A Doll’s House, that has
made this play an oft-performed classic (see “A Stage History” for details of the play in
performance).

It is believed that the plot of A Doll’s House was based on an event in Ibsen’s own life. In
1870 Laura Kieler had sent Ibsen a sequel to Brand, called Brand’s Daughters, and Ibsen had
taken an interest in the pretty, vivacious girl, nicknaming her “the lark.” He invited her to his
home, and for two months in the summer of 1872, she visited his home constantly. When
she married, a couple of years later, her husband fell ill and was advised to take a vacation in
a warm climate–and Laura, like Nora does in the play, secretly borrowed money to finance
the trip (which took place in 1876). Laura falsified a note, the bank refused payment, and she
told her husband the whole story. He demanded a separation, removed the children from
her care, and only took her back after she had spent a month in a public asylum.

Laura and Nora have similar-sounding names, but their stories diverge. In Ibsen’s play, Nora
never returns home, nor does she ever break the news to her husband. Moreover—here the
difference is most striking—it is Nora who divorces her husband. The final act of the play
reveals Torvald as generous and even sympathetic.

A Doll’s House was the second in a series of realist plays by Ibsen. The first, The Pillars of
Society (1877), had caused a stir throughout Europe, quickly spreading to the avant garde
theaters of the island and the continent. In adopting the realist form, Ibsen abandoned his
earlier style of saga plays, historical epics, and verse allegories. Ibsen’s letters reveal that
much of what is contained in his realist dramas is based on events from his own life. Indeed,
he was particularly interested in the possibility of true wedlock as well as in women in
general. He later would write a series of psychological studies focusing on women.

One of the most striking and oft-noted characteristics of A Doll’s House is the way it
challenges the technical tradition of the so-called well-made play in which the first act offers
an exposition, the second a situation, and the third an unraveling. This was the standard
form from the earliest fables until the time of A Doll’s House, which helped usher in a new,
alternative standard. Ibsen’s play was notable for exchanging the last act’s unraveling for a
discussion, one which leaves the audience uncertain about how the events will conclude.
Critics agree that, until the last moments of the play, A Doll’s House could easily be just
another modern drama broadcasting another comfortable moral lesson. Finally, however,
when Nora tells Torvald that they must sit down and “discuss all this that has been
happening between us,” the play diverges from the traditional form. With this new technical
feature, A Doll’s House became an international sensation and founded a new school of
dramatic art.
Additionally, A Doll’s House subverted another dramatic tradition. Ibsen’s realist drama
disregarded the tradition of featuring an older male moral figure. Dr. Rank, the character
who should serve this role, is far from a positive moral force. Instead, he is not only sickly,
rotting from a disease picked up from his father’s earlier sexual exploits, but also lascivious,
openly coveting Nora. The choice to portray both Dr. Rank and the potentially matronly Mrs.
Linde as imperfect humans seemed like a novel approach at the time.

The real complexity (as opposed to a stylized dramatic romanticism) of Ibsen’s characters
remains something of a challenge for actors. Many actresses find it difficult to portray both a
silly, immature Nora in the first act or so and the serious, open-minded Nora of the end of
the last act. Similarly, actors are challenged to portray the full depth of Torvald’s character.
Many are tempted to play him as a slimy, patronizing brute, disregarding the character’s
genuine range of emotion and conviction. Such complexity associates A Doll’s House with
the best of Western drama. The printed version of A Doll’s House sold out even before it hit
the stage.

A more obvious importance of A Doll’s House is the feminist message that rocked the stages
of Europe when the play premiered. Nora’s rejection of marriage and motherhood
scandalized contemporary audiences. In fact, the first German productions of the play in the
1880s used an altered ending, written by Ibsen at the request of the producers. Ibsen
referred to this version as a “barbaric outrage” to be used only in emergencies.

The revolutionary spirit and the emergence of modernism influenced Ibsen’s choice to focus
on an unlikely hero, a housewife, in his attack on middle-class values. Quickly becoming the
talk of parlors across Europe, the play succeeded in its attempt to provoke discussion. In
fact, it is the numerous ways that the play can be read and interpreted that make the play so
interesting. Each new generation has had a different way of interpreting the book, from
seeing it as feminist critique to taking it as a Hegelian allegory of the spirit’s historical
evolution. This richness is another sign of its greatness.

Yet precisely what sort of play is it? George Steiner claims that the play is “founded on the
belief…that women can and must be raised to the dignity of man,” but Ibsen himself
believed it to be more about the importance of self-liberation than the importance of
specifically female liberation—yet his contemporary Strindberg certainly disagreed, himself
calling the play a “barbaric outrage” because of the feminism he perceived it as promoting.

There are many comic sections in the play—one might argue that Nora’s “songbird” and
“squirrel” acts, as well as her early flirtatious conversations with her husband, are especially
humorous. Still, like many modern productions, A Doll’s House seems to fit the classical
definition of neither comedy nor tragedy. Unusually for a traditional comedy, at the end
there is a divorce, not a marriage, and the play implies that Dr. Rank could be dead as the
final curtain falls. But this is not a traditional tragedy either, for the ending of A Doll’s House
has no solid conclusion. The ending notably is left wide open: there is no brutal event, no
catharsis, just ambiguity. This is a play that defies boundaries.

Historical Context
• Women’s Legal Rights in Europe in the 1800s
When Mrs. Linde observes to Nora that “a wife cannot borrow without her husband’s
consent,” she sets up a key historical context for the play: the legal rights of women in
Europe in the 1800s. During the early years of the century, women had few legal rights and
were considered the property of their fathers or husbands. Wives rarely had the right to
divorce their husbands, own property, or keep any earned income, and the eldest male child
of a family was the legal owner of any inheritance. Social conventions of the time, such as
that of the dutiful housewife raising good citizens while their father worked outside the
home, famously peaked during the Victorian era of the mid to late 1800s and reinforced
these discriminatory laws.

With the rise of the Industrial Revolution and Darwin’s challenge to the traditional values
imposed by Christian churches, attitudes in Europe about the legal rights of women slowly
began to change. More workers (regardless of gender) were needed in factories, and family
dynamics in lower-income households began to shift. By the mid-1800s, women began to
gain some legal rights, such as the right to equal inheritance, the right to elementary
education, and the right to work in trade and craft professions. By the late 1800s, women
were legally admitted into universities in many countries in Europe, and in some nations,
such as France, wives finally gained the right to keep their own income and open bank
accounts in their own names. Women did not gain full legal suffrage in Norway, the setting
of A Doll’s House, until 1913. Despite these legal changes, cultural attitudes and stereotypes,
especially among the upper classes where women typically still stayed at home, remained
prevalent in European society.

Literary Context
• Prose Drama
Up until A Doll’s House took the theater world by storm, most serious plays were performed
in verse (meaning that each line had a certain meter, or number of syllables, and lines
usually rhymed). From the dramas of the Ancient Greeks to the tragedies of Shakespeare,
characters spoke in verse to show that the theater was an elevated art form. Only comedic
moments or less intelligent lines were spoken in prose, as everyday dialogue was considered
less artistic and thus unsuitable for dramatic, romantic moments or scenes of heartbreak
and death. However, as the 18th and 19th centuries progressed, theater floundered in
Europe while realistic novels, like those of Austen and Dickens, flourished. Then, Ibsen
determined that the realistic action and characters of his plays needed realistic dialogue, or
prose.

Ibsen’s conviction about using prose for his dramas radically changed the future of Western
theater. As industrialization and capitalism grew, a new scholarly class of thinkers emerged,
and with them rose an interest in “thinking” plays that challenged the hypocrisy of
conventional morality in the rapidly changing modern world. Ibsen saw this change and
translated it to theater, writing plays that utilized everyday speech and creating characters
that audiences could relate to. His use of prose allowed for the audience to more easily
recognize its own society, making his condemnation of conventional values all the more
shocking. After A Doll’s House sold out across the European continent, prose drama became
the norm. Today, plays are rarely written in verse, instead following in Ibsen’s footsteps with
prose dialogue.

Other Books Related to A Doll's House

Another significant playwright working in the realist tradition was the Russian writer Anton
Chekhov, whose plays also provide a critical examination of family, society, and morality. The
Swedish playwright August Strindberg was influenced by Ibsen; Strindberg’s plays are in the
naturalist style, a theatrical movement that grew out of and responded to realism.

Key Facts
Full Title: A Doll’s House
Author: Henrik Ibsen
Type Of Work: Play
Genre: Realistic, modern prose drama
Language: Norwegian
Time And Place Written: 1879, Rome and Amalfi, Italy
Date Of First Publication: 1879
Tone: Serious, intense, somber
Setting (Time): Presumably around the late 1870s
Setting (Place): Norway
Protagonist: Nora Helmer
Antagonist: At first Krogstad, then Torvald
Major Conflict: Nora’s struggle with Krogstad, who threatens to tell her husband about her
past crime, incites Nora’s journey of self-discovery and provides much of the play’s dramatic
suspense. Nora’s primary struggle, however, is against the selfish, stifling, and oppressive
attitudes of her husband, Torvald, and of the society that he represents.
Rising Action: Nora’s first conversation with Mrs. Linde; Krogstad’s visit and blackmailing of
Nora; Krogstad’s delivery of the letter that later exposes Nora.
Climax: Torvald reads Krogstad’s letter and erupts angrily.
Falling Action: Nora’s realization that Torvald is devoted not to her but to the idea of her as
someone who depends on him; her decision to abandon him to find independence.

Extra Credit for A Doll's House

A True Story: A Doll’s House is based on the life of Ibsen’s family friend Laura Kieler, whose
actions inspired the story of Nora’s secret debt. In reality, however, Kieler did not forge a
signature, and when her husband, Victor, discovered her secret, he divorced her and forced
her to be committed to an insane asylum. Ibsen, appalled by Kieler’s committal, wrote A
Doll’s House in part as a way of defending her. After two years in the asylum Kieler returned
to live with her husband and children and became a famous author in Denmark.

Scandalous: When it was first performed and for many years afterwards, A Doll’s House
caused quite the scandal for its criticism of 19th-century marriage customs and portrayal of
a woman abandoning her family in order to gain a sense of self. Pressured by several
theatres and even the actress who was supposed to play Nora in a German production of
the play, Ibsen wrote an alternative ending, in which Nora, upon seeing her children,
changes her mind and stays with Torvald. He later regretted doing this, calling the adapted
ending “a barbaric outrage.”

Genre
• Realistic prose drama
A Doll’s House is an example of realism in theater, specifically a realistic prose drama.
Realism in the theater started around the 1870s as a rebellion against theatrical conventions
of the time. Plays before this time period often involved plots that put characters in
situations unlikely to happen in real life, and characters sometimes spoke directly to
audience members through monologues. Realists saw these older plays as artificial and
believed that having characters face real-life challenges would be more compelling.
Consequently, Henrik Ibsen’s plays put ordinary characters through real-world struggles,
and his characters speak in sentences (prose) rather than in rhyming verses. Many critics
consider Ibsen the father of realistic prose drama. His plays revolutionized theater with
characters and settings that were actually relatable to the audience. Ibsen further used his
realistic dramas to question moral standards in the society around him, and this social
commentary has become a staple of the realist genre that he pioneered.

Style
Ibsen uses colloquial dialogue to create a realistic, relatable drama for audiences. His
characters speak in everyday language and in sentences, rather than in metered or rhymed
lines that playwrights used in the past. When Nora greets her children after they come back
from playing outside, for example, the audience can identify with Nora as she tries to talk to
all three children at once, her speech zipping from one topic to the next as the children talk
over each other: “Really? Did a big dog run after you? But it didn’t bite you? No, dogs don’t
bite nice little dolly children. You mustn’t look at the parcels, Ivar. What are they? Ah, I
daresay you would like to know. No, no—it’s something nasty!” Additionally, by having
characters mutter to themselves, like Nora at the end of Act I (“Deprave my little children?
Poison my home? It’s not true. It can’t possibly be true.”), Ibsen is able to show audiences
what his characters are thinking in a realistic way, without having the characters speak
directly to the audience.

Foreshadowing
Ibsen uses the realistic prose of the characters to foreshadow their actions at the end of the
play and to alert audiences to the eventuality that the marriage of Nora and Torvald—a
marriage that is stereotypically gendered and conforms to society’s expectations—cannot
bring true happiness and fulfillment. In A Doll’s House, Nora and Torvald often make grand
statements about how happy they are and how much they love each other, but their
actions—Nora eating the forbidden macaroons and Torvald taking Nora away from the ball
despite her protestations—undermine their words and foreshadow the downfall of their
marriage.

• Torvald's Failure to Help Nora

Nora truly believes that a “wonderful thing” will happen once Torvald reads Krogstad’s letter
revealing how she borrowed money and forged a signature. She is confident that Torvald
will sacrifice his reputation to save hers, yet his selfish and shallow deeds throughout the
play foreshadow that he will not have the courage to save Nora. Torvald likes to view himself
as a “true man” who will help Nora (“So my obstinate little woman is obliged to get someone
to come to her rescue?”), but his actions show that he is much more concerned with
upholding his own status in society than her happiness or feelings. Torvald’s selfish and
jealous control of Nora surfaces many times, like when Nora explains that Torvald did not
recognize Mrs. Linde because he is too jealous to even think of a time when Nora had a life
of her own. Torvald’s unwillingness to save Nora is also foreshadowed by Krogstad, who
sees Torvald’s true character before Nora does. Krogstad, who has been belittled and
rejected by Torvald, recognizes Torvald’s cowardice and unwillingness to do anything that
would harm his own reputation:

Krogstad: Does your husband love you so little then? He knows what I can expose you to,
and yet he ventures—

Nora: How can you suppose that he has any knowledge of the sort?

Krogstad: I didn’t suppose so at all. It would not be the least like our dear Torvald Helmer to
show so much courage—

• Nora's Departure
The shocking end of the play, in which Nora leaves Torvald and their children in order to
gain control over her own life, creates a complete reversal from the beginning, when Nora
enters the home in a cheerful mood. Ibsen subtly hints at the discord in Nora and Torvald’s
marriage from the start, like when Nora denies eating macaroons to Torvald four times,
despite the fact that the audience has just seen her eating them. Nora’s lie about such a silly
matter gives the audience a clue that the marriage is not as sweet and innocent as it seems
when Torvald first enters calling Nora his “little lark” and “squirrel.” Furthermore, Nora’s
dealings with Krogstad, from securing the loan in the first place to her claims that she has
the “strength” to save her family, show that she is not just the “silly” girl that society and
Torvald see.

Point of View
Ibsen employs an objective third-person point of view in telling A Doll’s House, meaning that
the point of view doesn’t belong to one of the characters in the play. Instead, the audience
represents the objective, outside point of view that must come to their own conclusions on
the morality of the characters. Though the play as a whole is told from a third-person point
of view, Nora, as the protagonist, shares the most with the audience, and her world creates
the setting for the play. Furthermore, the instances of dramatic irony (where the audience
knows something that a character doesn’t), such as when Torvald tells Nora that he feels
“physically ill” around dishonest people (while we know that Nora committed forgery and is
lying to Torvald), center around what characters do not know about Nora. This creates the
sense that audience members need mostly concern themselves with Nora’s transformation
and what will happen once other characters learn the truth about her.

Tone
The tone of A Doll’s House is objective and somewhat standoffish. Ibsen uses his characters
to make broader points about society rather than subjecting his characters to moral critique
or making the audience view the characters’ actions in a particular light. For example,
though Krogstad at first appears menacing (Nora tells her children “No, the strange man
won’t do Mother any harm,”), the audience slowly comes to sympathize with Krogstad as
Ibsen reveals what led the man to fall into unsavory ways. Krogstad later fully repents as the
love of Mrs. Linde opens his heart. Ibsen uses a cunning parallel to create a connection
between Nora and Krogstad, who both committed the crime of forgery, drawing no
judgments against either character. Ultimately, Torvald ends up as only character who does
not show multiple sides to his personality, and he represents the conventional society that
Ibsen critiques as unjust.

Dramatic Structure
Notable for their lack of action, Ibsen's dramas are classical in their staticism. Before the
curtain rises, all the significant events have already occurred in the lives of Ibsen's
characters, and it is the business of the play to reap the consequences of these past
circumstances. The tight logical construction of each drama is the most important factor for
the play's plausibility. With this in mind, Ibsen shows how every action of each character is
the result of carefully detailed experiences in the earlier life of the person, whether in
childhood, education, or genetic environment.

The author shows, for instance, that Nora's impetuosity and carelessness with money are
qualities inherited from her father. Krogstad suddenly turns respectable because he needs
to pass on a good name for the sake of his maturing sons. Christine returns to town in order
to renew her relationship with Krogstad. Finally, to account for Nora's secrecy with regard to
the borrowed money, Ibsen shows how Torvald's way of life is devoted to maintaining
appearances at the expense of inner truth.

Characters

In some editions of A Doll’s House, the speech prompts refer to the character of Torvald
Helmer as “Torvald;” in others, they refer to him as “Helmer.” Similarly, in some editions, Mrs.
Linde’s first name is spelled “Christine” rather than “Kristine.”

Nora
The play's protagonist and the wife of Torvald Helmer, Nora has never lived alone, going
immediately from the care of her father to that of her husband. Inexperienced in the ways of
the world as a result of this sheltering, Nora is impulsive and materialistic. But the play
questions the extent to which these attributes are mere masks that Nora uses to negotiate
the patriarchal oppression she faces every day. The audience learns in the first act that Nora
is independent enough to negotiate the loan to make Krogstad's holiday possible, and over
the course of the play, Nora emerges as a fully independent woman who rejects both the
false union of her marriage and the burden of motherhood.

Torvald Helmer
Nora's husband of eight years, Torvald Helmer, at the beginning of the play, has been
promoted to manager of the bank. Torvald has built his middle-class living through his own
work and not from family money. Focused on business, Torvald spends a great deal of his
time at home in his study, avoiding general visitors and interacting very little with his
children. In fact, he sees himself primarily as responsible for the financial welfare of his
family and as a guardian for his wife. Torvald is particularly concerned with morality. He also
can come across as stiff and unsympathetic. Still, the last act of the play makes very clear
that he dearly loves his wife.

Dr. Rank
Friend of the family and Torvald's physician, Dr. Rank embodies and subverts the theatrical
role of the male moral force that had been traditional in the plays of the time. Rather than
providing moral guidance and example for the rest of the characters, Dr. Rank is a
corrupting force, both physically and morally. Sick from consumption of the spine as a result
of his father's sexual exploits, the Doctor confesses his desire for Nora in the second act and
goes off to die in the third act, leaving a visiting card with a black cross to signify that--for
him--the end has come.

Mrs. Linde
Sometimes given as Mrs. Linden (for example, in the 1890 translation by Henrietta Frances
Lord). An old schoolmate of Nora's, Mrs. Christine Linde comes back into Nora's life after
losing her husband and mother. She worked hard to support her helpless mother and two
younger brothers since the death of her husband. Now, with her mother dead and her
brothers being adults, she is a free agent. Pressed for money, Mrs. Linde successfully asks
Nora to help her secure a job at Torvald's bank. Ultimately, Mrs. Linde decides that she will
only be happy if she goes off with Krogstad. Her older, weary viewpoint provides a foil to
Nora's youthful impetuousness. She perhaps also symbolizes a hollowness in the
matriarchal role. Her relationship with Krogstad also provides a point of comparison with
that of Nora and Torvald.

Krogstad
Nils Krogstad is a man from whom Nora borrows money to pay for trip to Italy, an
acquaintance of Torvald's and an employee at the bank which Torvald has just taken over.
Krogstad was involved in a work scandal many years previously; as a result, his name has
been sullied and his career stunted. When his job at the bank is jeopardized by Torvald's
refusal to work with a man he sees as hopelessly corrupt, Krogstad blackmails Nora to
ensure that he does not lose his job.

Ivar, Bob, and Emmy

Nora's young children. Raised primarily by Anne, the Nurse (and Nora's old nurse), the
children spend little time with their mother or father. The time they do spend with Nora
consists of Nora playing with them as if she were just another playmate. The children speak
no individualized lines; they are "Three Children." Ibsen facilitates their dialogue through
Nora's mouth, and they are often cut entirely in performance.
Anne
The family nurse. Anne raised Nora, who had lost her mother, and stayed on to raise Nora's
children. Nora is confident that she can leave her children in Anne's care.

Helen
A housemaid employed by the Helmers.

Porter
A porter who brings in the Christmas Tree at the very beginning.

Summary 1
Henrik Ibsen describes the story of a married woman who considered her life to be quite
satisfied with her husband in their “doll house” of which she is the doll. However, with the
development of the play, she is insulted by her husband for a forgery that she did for his
sake, even after knowing the truth.

When the matter is solved, her husband tried to calm her down, but she becomes aware of
her status in the “doll’s house” and at once leaves it. Thus she is the modern woman who
fights against gender discrimination.

Act 1
As the play opens, Nora enters her home along with a number of gifts as it is Christmas Eve.
Her husband (manager at a bank) who is reading books, chides Nora for spending lavishly
on these things as the last year they were out of money because she spent too much.
However, as Halmer is about to get a promotion, Nora doesn’t find anything wrong with
spending money.

The maid comes and announces that Mrs Linde (A widow who is an old school friend of
Nora) and Dr Rank (a rich family friend who is secretly in love with Nora) have come. While
Halmer goes away, Nora attends Mrs Linde and both ladies start telling about their lives to
each other.

Linde tells about her unhappy life. Her husband died without leaving fortune or children for
her. She further tells Nora that her mother got ill and she had to take care of her brothers as
well. This is why she appears to be older than Nora who seems to be quite young and
innocent.

Nora says that her life was equally difficult. Since one last year, they had a hard time as her
husband got ill and she had to take him to Italy for his recovery. The expenses of treatment
were quite high and she had to borrow money from Krogstad by forging her father’s
signatures without telling him and even her husband.

Since then she is secretly saving to pay off her debt. Also, Halmer became a bank manager
and thus their economic conditions got better. Linda tells Nora that she came in search of a
job.

Nora assures to help her. Krogstad (an employee at Torvald’s bank) appears and goes
straight to Halmer. His appearance makes Nora uneasy.

A little later Halmer comes out and when Nora tells him about Mrs Linde, he at once agrees
to give her a job at his bank. All leave and Nora remains alone.

Just then Krogstad comes and tells Nora that her husband is about to fire him from the job
and asks her to pursue her husband to let him retain his job or else he will disclose her crime
(forgery) to him.

Saying this he leaves. When Halmer returns back, Nora pleads him not to fire Krogstad from
his job but Halmer tells about his hypocrisy and lies and remains unmoved to his decision.

Act 2
The next day Nora being quite worried again pleads her husband not to dismiss Krogstad
adding that he will defame him, but fails to convince Halmer.

Dr Rank comes and as Nora is about to ask for some financial help, he confesses his love for
her as he is about to die of Tuberculosis. Nora is stunned. She gives up the idea of asking for
money from him.

A little later Krogstad comes. Nora asks Dr. rank to go to Halmer’s study room. Nora tells
Krogstad that she tried her best to persuade her husband but he did not change his mind.

At this Krogstad says that he will write a letter to Halmer telling about the forgery. Nora begs
him not to do so but he puts the letter in the Halmer’s mailbox.

Nora tells Linde about the critical situation. Linde reveals that she was in love with Krogstad
before her marriage and even today they love each other. She assures to help Nora by
persuading Krogstad.

When Halmer tries to open his mailbox, Nora uses her charms to prevent him from opening
it saying that he should keep business aside till the next night party.

Halmer agrees. Nora feels guilty and even thinks of committing suicide to save her husband
from the shame of the revelation of her crime.

Act 3
The next night, Linde and Krogstad meet. Linde tells him that she had to marry a rich man
who could support her and her family. She also tells that she is a widow now and also free
from family obligation. She expresses her desire to live with him.

Krogstad is quite pleased. He decides to take back his letter but Linde says that Halmer
should know the truth for the sake of marriage. Nora and Halmer return back. Dr Rank who
secretly followed them finding Nora alone bids final goodbye as his death is near.

Halmer reads Krogstad letter and is quite outraged over his wife’s forgery. He abuses Nora.
Just then maid comes with another letter of Krogstad.

Halmer reads the letter and is overjoyed to learn that Krogstad has had a change of heart
and has returned the bond. He at once forgives his wife.

However, Nora realises that her husband never loved her and she was just a doll whom he
played with. She decides to end up living in Halmer’s house and in spite of his pleas she goes
out ‘slamming the door behind her’.

Summary 2
A Doll’s House opens on Christmas Eve. Nora Helmer enters her well-furnished living
room—the setting of the entire play—carrying several packages. Torvald Helmer, Nora’s
husband, comes out of his study when he hears her arrive. He greets her playfully and
affectionately, but then chides her for spending so much money on Christmas gifts. Their
conversation reveals that the Helmers have had to be careful with money for many years,
but that Torvald has recently obtained a new position at the bank where he works that will
afford them a more comfortable lifestyle.

Helene, the maid, announces that the Helmers’ dear friend Dr. Rank has come to visit. At the
same time, another visitor has arrived, this one unknown. To Nora’s great surprise, Kristine
Linde, a former school friend, comes into the room. The two have not seen each other for
years, but Nora mentions having read that Mrs. Linde’s husband passed away a few years
earlier. Mrs. Linde tells Nora that when her husband died, she was left with no money and
no children. Nora tells Mrs. Linde about her first year of marriage to Torvald. She explains
that they were very poor and both had to work long hours. Torvald became sick, she adds,
and the couple had to travel to Italy so that Torvald could recover.

Nora inquires further about Mrs. Linde’s life, and Mrs. Linde explains that for years she had
to care for her sick mother and her two younger brothers. She states that her mother has
passed away, though, and that the brothers are too old to need her. Instead of feeling relief,
Mrs. Linde says she feels empty because she has no occupation; she hopes that Torvald may
be able to help her obtain employment. Nora promises to speak to Torvald and then reveals
a great secret to Mrs. Linde—without Torvald’s knowledge, Nora illegally borrowed money
for the trip that she and Torvald took to Italy; she told Torvald that the money had come
from her father. For years, Nora reveals, she has worked and saved in secret, slowly
repaying the debt, and soon it will be fully repaid.

Krogstad, a low-level employee at the bank where Torvald works, arrives and proceeds into
Torvald’s study. Nora reacts uneasily to Krogstad’s presence, and Dr. Rank, coming out of the
study, says Krogstad is “morally sick.” Once he has finished meeting with Krogstad, Torvald
comes into the living room and says that he can probably hire Mrs. Linde at the bank. Dr.
Rank, Torvald, and Mrs. Linde then depart, leaving Nora by herself. Nora’s children return
with their nanny, Anne-Marie, and Nora plays with them until she notices Krogstad’s
presence in the room. The two converse, and Krogstad is revealed to be the source of Nora’s
secret loan.

Krogstad states that Torvald wants to fire him from his position at the bank and alludes to
his own poor reputation. He asks Nora to use her influence to ensure that his position
remains secure. When she refuses, Krogstad points out that he has in his possession a
contract that contains Nora’s forgery of her father’s signature. Krogstad blackmails Nora,
threatening to reveal her crime and to bring shame and disgrace on both Nora and her
husband if she does not prevent Torvald from firing him. Krogstad leaves, and when Torvald
returns, Nora tries to convince him not to fire Krogstad, but Torvald will hear nothing of it.
He declares Krogstad an immoral man and states that he feels physically ill in the presence
of such people.

Act Two opens on the following day, Christmas. Alone, Nora paces her living room, filled with
anxiety. Mrs. Linde arrives and helps sew Nora’s costume for the ball that Nora will be
attending at her neighbors’ home the following evening. Nora tells Mrs. Linde that Dr. Rank
has a mortal illness that he inherited from his father. Nora’s suspicious behavior leads Mrs.
Linde to guess that Dr. Rank is the source of Nora’s loan. Nora denies Mrs. Linde’s charge
but refuses to reveal the source of her distress. Torvald arrives, and Nora again begs him to
keep Krogstad employed at the bank, but again Torvald refuses. When Nora presses him, he
admits that Krogstad’s moral behavior isn’t all that bothers him—he dislikes Krogstad’s
overly familiar attitude. Torvald and Nora argue until Torvald sends the maid to deliver
Krogstad’s letter of dismissal.
Torvald leaves. Dr. Rank arrives and tells Nora that he knows he is close to death. She
attempts to cheer him up and begins to flirt with him. She seems to be preparing to ask him
to intervene on her behalf in her struggle with Torvald. Suddenly, Dr. Rank reveals to Nora
that he is in love with her. In light of this revelation, Nora refuses to ask Dr. Rank for
anything.

Once Dr. Rank leaves, Krogstad arrives and demands an explanation for his dismissal. He
wants respectability and has changed the terms of the blackmail: he now insists to Nora not
only that he be rehired at the bank but that he be rehired in a higher position. He then puts
a letter detailing Nora’s debt and forgery in the Helmers’ letterbox. In a panic, Nora tells Mrs.
Linde everything, and Mrs. Linde instructs Nora to delay Torvald from opening the letter as
long as possible while she goes to speak with Krogstad. In order to distract Torvald from the
letterbox, Nora begins to practice the tarantella she will perform at that evening’s costume
party. In her agitated emotional state, she dances wildly and violently, displeasing Torvald.
Nora manages to make Torvald promise not to open his mail until after she performs at the
party. Mrs. Linde soon returns and says that she has left Krogstad a note but that he will be
gone until the following evening.

The next night, as the costume party takes place upstairs, Krogstad meets Mrs. Linde in the
Helmers’ living room. Their conversation reveals that the two had once been deeply in love,
but Mrs. Linde left Krogstad for a wealthier man who would enable her to support her
family. She tells Krogstad that now that she is free of her own familial obligations and wishes
to be with Krogstad and care for his children. Krogstad is overjoyed and says he will demand
his letter back before Torvald can read it and learn Nora’s secret. Mrs. Linde, however, insists
he leave the letter, because she believes both Torvald and Nora will be better off once the
truth has been revealed.

Soon after Krogstad’s departure, Nora and Torvald enter, back from the costume ball. After
saying goodnight to Mrs. Linde, Torvald tells Nora how desirable she looked as she danced.
Dr. Rank, who was also at the party and has come to say goodnight, promptly interrupts
Torvald’s advances on Nora. After Dr. Rank leaves, Torvald finds in his letterbox two of Dr.
Rank’s visiting cards, each with a black cross above the name. Nora knows Dr. Rank’s cards
constitute his announcement that he will soon die, and she informs Torvald of this fact. She
then insists that Torvald read Krogstad’s letter.

Torvald reads the letter and is outraged. He calls Nora a hypocrite and a liar and complains
that she has ruined his happiness. He declares that she will not be allowed to raise their
children. Helene then brings in a letter. Torvald opens it and discovers that Krogstad has
returned Nora’s contract (which contains the forged signature). Overjoyed, Torvald attempts
to dismiss his past insults, but his harsh words have triggered something in Nora. She
declares that despite their eight years of marriage, they do not understand one another.
Torvald, Nora asserts, has treated her like a “doll” to be played with and admired. She
decides to leave Torvald, declaring that she must “make sense of [her]self and everything
around her.” She walks out, slamming the door behind her.

Analysis
A Doll’s House explores the ways that societal expectations restrict individuals, especially
women, as the young housewife Nora Helmer comes to the realization that she has spent
her eight-year marriage, and indeed most of her life, pretending to be the person that
Torvald, her father, and society at large expect her to be. At the beginning of the play, Nora
believes that all she wants is to be happy, which she defines as “keep[ing] the house
beautifully and hav[ing] everything just as [her husband] Torvald likes.” She further defines
freedom as having more than enough money in order to create a life free from care. Yet her
self-sacrificing actions—illegally obtaining a loan to save her husband’s life and then keeping
this loan a secret in order to placate his manly pride—prevent her from attaining this
freedom. As Nora realizes that her selfless actions are now the source of her sorrow, she
begins to question whether the life she leads is capable of providing her with happiness.

The play begins with Nora cheerily returning home from Christmas shopping, but Torvald,
emerging from his office, quickly creates an oppressive atmosphere with the diminutive
titles he bestows on Nora and the ways he controls her life, from her spending to the food
she consumes. Nora appears cheerful and childlike, her enthusiasm about Torvald’s raise
and promotion unbridled even in the face of a downtrodden childhood friend, Mrs. Linde,
arriving for a visit. However, as Nora speaks with Mrs. Linde, she hints at the fact that she is
not as childlike as she may appear, for she saved Torvald’s life by raising the money to take
him to Italy to recuperate from an illness. When Mr. Krogstad, an employee at Torvald’s
bank, arrives, the main action of the play begins. Krogstad lent the money to Nora, and in
order to secure his position at the bank, he will blackmail Nora with the fact that she illegally
signed the contract for her dying father.

The play comes to a climax when Torvald reads Krogstad’s letter. Nora, convinced of
Torvald’s utter love for her, believes that a “wonderful thing” will happen, showing once and
for all that Torvald would sacrifice anything for her well-being. She believes that Torvald will
take the blame for the forgery himself, sacrificing his own reputation for hers and balancing
out the sacrifice she made to save Torvald’s life. But when Torvald reads the letter, he never
considers sacrificing his reputation, as “no man would sacrifice his honor for the one he
loves.” As Torvald rages at her, Nora’s delusions about her marriage and her life suddenly
shatter, and she realizes that Torvald has always viewed and treated her as a doll to be
shaped any way he pleases. In order to understand herself and engage with the world on
her own terms, Nora leaves Torvald and her children to start a new life, where she knows
herself as a human being above all.

Nora craves freedom and happiness, but up until the very end of the play, her definitions of
these things are skewed by the conventional society she grew up in. Though the lie around
the forgery initially threatens Nora’s marriage, its actual destruction comes via the revelation
of the truth. In the face of Torvald’s rage, Nora sees that the real lie is the one she has been
living. Her decision to leave Torvald represents her first chance to find true freedom, which
she now defines as the ability to make her own choices. Nora’s entire outlook on life shifts by
the end of the play, and she now understands that marriage needs equality to work.
Whether Nora ever returns to Torvald and the children remains ambiguous, leaving the
audience to wonder whether true, fulfilling matrimony is possible in a society that holds one
gender in greater esteem than the other.

Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

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 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.

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
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.
The Constrictive Nature of Gender Roles
In A Doll’s House, Ibsen portrays a stereotypically gendered household with Torvald and
Nora Helmer and then shows how characters—both male and female—suffer because of the
roles society expects them to play. The constrictive nature of gender roles is especially
apparent for the main female characters in the play, Nora and Mrs. Linde. Women at this
time were expected to get married, have children, and stay at home to tend to their children
and husband. When a woman actually had a job and earned money, like Nora copying lines
in secret, it was “like being a man.” Women had very few opportunities to make money for
themselves and had to rely on husbands or fathers to provide for their needs. Without a
father or older brothers, Mrs. Linde sought a rich husband, leaving behind the man she truly
loved in order to be financially secure—but even this plan was risky, because she had no way
of knowing his true financial situation. When Nora asks whether the man Mrs. Linde married
was rich at the time, Mrs. Linde can only say that she believed he was. Because of the
expectations to stay home, raise children, and obey their husbands, women missed out on
many opportunities, often needing legal consent from their husbands to perform simple
business matters. By the end of the play, Nora recognizes the destructive nature of these
gender roles, telling Torvald that he and her father, by enforcing societal expectations on
her, are the reason she has “made nothing of [her] life.”

The men in the play also suffer, albeit more subtly and unknowingly, because of the gender
roles they actively uphold. Though Torvald clearly enjoys his role as an enforcer of societal
expectations, he doesn't realize that he can't fully love his wife because he doesn’t truly see
her as a person. Because of his “manly independence,” he can't receive help from anyone
else, especially not a woman, and Nora, therefore, decides that it’s better to lie to her
husband than to wound his pride. Most importantly, Torvald’s inability to break free of
societal gender roles leads to his failure to recognize that the love of his wife is more
valuable than his reputation. As a result, he loses Nora, and will ultimately become the very
thing he feared most: the subject of gossip as a failed man.

Deceit
Throughout A Doll’s House, deceptions are presented as masks that the liar must wear in
order to conceal the truth. When Torvald describes why Krogstad has a bad reputation, he
explains that Krogstad did not take his punishment head-on but got out of the conundrum
by a “cunning trick,” and now, because of his lies, he must “wear a mask in the presence of
those near and dear to him, even before his own wife and children.” That ever-present mask
is even more clearly worn by Nora. In front of Torvald, she wears the mask of a little girl or
innocent woodland creature, willing to play along with his dehumanizing nicknames of
“squirrel” and “skylark” in order to get the things she wants. The masked ball provides
another instance where a mask is necessary to keep others from the truth. Nora dresses up
as a Neapolitan fisher-girl and dances a wild tarantella in order to distract Torvald and keep
him from reading Krogstad’s letter, which details the truth of Nora’s loan and forgery. To
maintain a deception, a person must be willing to hide their true self underneath a mask,
and the more desperate they are to conceal the truth, the more likely it is that their mask
becomes permanent.

Reputation
For both Nora and Dr. Rank, their reputations hinge on the reputations of their parents. Dr.
Rank’s father had a reputation as a man who enjoyed physical pleasures to such a damaging
extent that he passed on a venereal disease to his son that eventually results in his son’s
death. Though Dr. Rank is an upstanding member of society, he is punished for his father’s
misdeeds and pays the ultimate price for his father’s ill-repute. Likewise, Torvald says that
Nora’s ability to wheedle money out of him is “in the blood,” and, in Torvald’s eyes, she has
inherited her father’s reputation as a careless spender. Once Torvald discovers the truth
about the loan and forgery, he further declares that Nora’s “want of principle” is all her
father’s influence.

Interestingly, at the beginning of the play, Torvald introduces the idea that it is “most
commonly” the mother who is a bad influence on children, claiming that “almost everyone
who has gone to the bad early in life has had a deceitful mother.” According to Torvald, a
person’s reputation should be inherited through the mother, yet throughout the play, the
opposite is shown to be the case. Just as a child in this society receives their father’s last
name as their own, they also seem to inherit their father’s reputation, especially when it
comes to negative traits. If their father had a bad reputation, it comes back to haunt them,
regardless of any goodwill they may build up on their own. In this way, Ibsen subtly points
out the poisonous influence of misogyny in this society.

Marriage
Nora and Torvald represent a completely conventional marriage at the beginning of the
play: she stays home and tends to their house and children, and he supports the family
financially. In order to keep their conventional marriage afloat, Nora lies to Torvald at every
turn; she's not only dishonest about silly things like eating macaroons, but about enormous
things as well, like the fact that she secured the loan that saved Torvald’s life. When these
lies come to light, Torvald completely breaks down and drives Nora away. Torvald, as a
conventional husband, feels that he has the right to control his wife; he’s astonished when
Nora says that it’s “nice” of her to do what he wants. This perceived right to control is
another reason their marriage falls apart; Torvald must control every aspect of his
household, even the keys to the letterbox, but he fails to realize that his control comes at a
price. As long as he exerts control over Nora, they can never be equals, and thus cannot be
in true union or partnership.

In contrast, the relationship between Krogstad and Mrs. Linde, while unconventional,
represents the “real wedlock” that Nora desires by the end of the play. Mrs. Linde’s role as
the breadwinner of the family is highly unusual, but it gives her the agency to earn money
and the opportunity to live part of her life outside the home. Furthermore, Mrs. Linde and
Krogstad can speak frankly to each other (something Nora and Torvald find impossible until
their marriage falls apart), meaning that they don’t have to hide behind contrived marital
roles. They see each other as equals, “two shipwrecked people” joining forces. Because they
actually respect each other as equal human beings, their union allows them to grow,
change, and become better people.

Materialism
Torvald in particular focuses on money and material goods rather than people. His sense of
manhood depends on his financial independence. He was an unsuccessful barrister because
he refused to take "unsavory cases." As a result, he switched jobs to the bank, where he
primarily deals with money. For him, money and materialism may be a way to avoid the
complications of personal contact.

Children
Nora is called a number of diminutive, childlike names by Torvald throughout the play.
These include "little songbird," "squirrel," "lark," "little featherhead," "little skylark," "little
person," and "little woman." Torvald commonly uses the modifier "little" before the names
he calls Nora. These are all usually followed by the possessive "my," signaling Torvald's belief
that Nora is his. This pattern seems like more than just a collection of pet names. Overall, he
sees Nora as a child of his.
The Helmer children themselves are only a borderline presence in the play, never given any
dialogue to speak, and then only briefly playing hide-and-seek (perhaps a nod toward the
theme of deception). Ibsen's alternate ending had Nora persuaded not to leave by the
presence of the children. But the play as we have it does not really emphasize their
importance. The story focuses on the parents.

Religion
The play takes place around Christmas. The first act occurs on Christmas Eve, the second on
Christmas Day, and the third on Boxing Day. Although there is a great deal of talk about
morality throughout the play, Christmas is never presented as a religious holiday. Moreover,
religion is directly questioned later by Nora in the third act. In fact, religion is discussed
primarily as a material experience. Once again, what normally are important values for
people and their relationships—children, personal contact, and, here, religion—are
subordinate to materialism and selfish motives.

Corruption
Dr. Rank has inherited his tuberculosis from his father, who lived a morally questionable life,
and in much the same way Nora worries that her morally reprehensible actions (fraudulently
signing her father's name) will infect her children. Corruption, the play suggests, is
hereditary. As he does in other plays, such as The Wild Duck, Ibsen explores the tension
between real life and moral ideals.

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.

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.

Macaroons
Torvald has banned Nora from eating macaroons. Although Nora claims that she never
disobeys Torvald, this is proved false in the very opening of the play when Nora eats
macaroons while she was alone in the living room. The macaroons come to represent Nora’s
disobedience and deceit. She lies to Dr. Rank about having been given some by Mrs. Linde,
and after giving a particularly tempestuous performance of the tarantella asks that
macaroons be served at dinner, indicating a relationship between the macaroons and Nora’s
inner passions, both of which she must hide within her marriage.

The Tarantella
Like the macaroons, the tarantella symbolizes a side of Nora that she cannot normally show.
It is a fiery, passionate dance that allows Nora to drop the façade of the perfect mild-
mannered Victorian wife. Throughout the play, Nora uses performance to please Torvald,
and the tarantella is no exception; he admits that watching her perform it makes her desire
her. However, this is only under very controlled circumstances, and Torvald seems to enjoy
the fact that it is a performance that impresses other people more than anything.

The Doll’s House

There are a few mentions of doll’s houses early on in the play, for example when Nora shows
Torvald the dolls she bought for her daughter, and says that the fact that they are cheap
doesn’t matter because she will probably break them soon anyway. This is interesting as it
suggests that Nora is raising her daughter for a life similar to Nora’s own, yet simultaneously
foreshadows Nora breaking up her family life by leaving Torvald. When Nora plays with her
children she also refers to them as her “little dollies.” However, it is not until the end of the
play that the metaphor becomes explicitly clear. Nora tells Torvald that both he and her
father treated her like a doll, and cites this as one of the reasons why she has become
dissatisfied and disillusioned with her life with him.

Dress and Costume

Nora's fancy dress for the party symbolizes the character she plays in her marriage to
Torvald. Take note of when Nora is supposed to be wearing it and for whom. Note too that
when she leaves Torvald in the last act, she first changes into different clothes, which
suggests the new woman she is to become.

Questions & Answers

1.Why does Mrs. Linde move to Nora’s neighborhood?

Ans: Mrs. Linde moves after her mother’s death in order to find work and someone to care
for. Mrs. Linde spent most of her life sacrificing for others so that they could live more
comfortably. Rather than marrying for love, she married her husband for his money, so that
she could aid her ailing mother and provide care for her younger brothers. Now that her
husband and her mother have died and her brothers have grown up, Mrs. Linde feels that
her life is “unspeakably empty” because there is “no one to live for any more.” She moves to
look for office work and hopes Nora will help her find employment. We later learn that she
also hoped to rekindle a romance with her long-lost love, Krogstad, and become a new
mother for his children.

2.Why does Krogstad want to blackmail Nora?

Ans: Krogstad knows that Nora forged her father’s signature on the loan that he gave her,
and he uses this information to blackmail Nora. He demands that she convince Torvald to
keep him on as an employee at the bank. Now that Torvald is the bank manager, Krogstad
knows Torvald can make or break his career, and when he learns that Mrs. Linde is looking
for office work, he correctly guesses that Torvald will fire him in order to hire Mrs. Linde.
Krogstad threatens to tell Torvald about the forgery in order to scare Nora into influencing
Torvald. When Nora is unable to change Torvald’s mind, Krogstad writes a letter detailing
Nora’s actions and threatening to make them public.

3.What is the “wonderful thing” that Nora believes will happen?

Ans: Nora believes that once Torvald finds out about the loan and the forgery, he will
sacrifice his own reputation in order to save hers. Nora made many sacrifices to save
Torvald’s life, and she assumes that her husband will see the love and devotion in her
actions and show his love in return by “[taking] everything upon [himself] and [saying]: ‘I am
the guilty one.’” Torvald’s willingness to take the blame would have been the ultimate proof
of his love for Nora, and she both longed for and feared it, for it would mean the downfall of
Torvald’s good reputation. However, the “wonderful thing” doesn’t happen, because Torvald
is more in love with his reputation than he is with Nora, and is unwilling to make the
ultimate sacrifice to save her.

4.How are Krogstad and Nora similar?

Ans: Krogstad and Nora, though opposing forces at the beginning of the play, both
committed the crime of forgery for what they saw as justified reasons, and have been living
with the guilt of their crimes ever since. With Krogstad, we see what happens when a crime
becomes public knowledge; his reputation is destroyed, and he must try to raise his children
as an outcast from society. Both Nora and Krogstad have rebelled against what could be
seen as an unjust law, and, as Torvald points out, they have both had to “wear a mask in the
presence of those near and dear to [them].”
5.How do dolls represent Nora as a character?
Ans: Nora believes herself to be a doll because the men in her life see her more as a toy than
a human being. They view her as a pretty object without any thoughts of her own that they
can use as they want. Nora’s father used to call her his “doll child,” and he “played” with her
“as [she] used to play with [her] dolls.” Nora believes that her role in Torvald’s life is “merely
to perform tricks” for him, such as dressing a certain way for the ball. Dolls represent the
delicate, pretty objects that housewives of Nora’s time were supposed to emulate, remaining
quiet about serious matters.

6.Compare Torvald’s and Nora’s attitudes toward money.

Ans: Torvald and Nora’s first conversation establishes Torvald as the member of the
household who makes and controls the money and Nora as the one who spends it. Torvald
repeatedly teases Nora about her spending, and at one point Mrs. Linde points out that
Nora was a big spender in her younger days. These initial comments paint Nora as a shallow
woman who is overly concerned with -material delights. Yet Nora’s generous tip to the
porter in the play’s opening scene shows that she is not a selfish woman. More important,
once the secret of Nora’s loan is made known to the audience, we see that Nora’s interest in
money stems more from her concern for her family’s welfare than from petty desires. We
realize that the excitement she has expressed over Torvald’s new, well-paying job results
from the fact that more spending money means she can finally pay off her debt to Krogstad.

While Torvald seems less enthralled by money because he doesn’t talk about it except to
chastise Nora for her spending, he is obsessed with having a beautiful home, including a
beautiful wife. He considers these things important to his reputation, and keeping up this
reputation requires money. Although Torvald accuses Nora of wasting money, Nora spends
her money mostly on worthy causes, whereas Torvald uses his for selfish, shallow purposes.

7.Why does Torvald constantly reprimand Nora for her wastefulness and foolishness while
simultaneously supporting her behavior? What insight does this contradiction give us into
Torvald and Nora’s relationship?
Ans: Torvald perceives Nora as a foolish woman who is ignorant of the way society works,
but he likes Nora’s foolishness and ignorance because they render her helpless and
therefore dependent on him. It soon becomes clear to us that Nora’s dependence, not
Torvald’s love for Nora as a person, forms the foundation of Torvald’s affection for her. In Act
One, Torvald teases Nora about wasting money but then tries to please her by graciously
giving her more. Similarly, he points out her faults but then says he doesn’t want her to
change a bit. He clearly enjoys keeping Nora in a position where she cannot function in the
world without him, even if it means that she remains foolish.

In general, Torvald disapproves of any kind of change in Nora’s constant, obedient

demeanor because he needs to control her behavior. When Nora begins to dance the
tarantella wildly in Act Two, he is unsettled. In Act One, Nora says that it would humiliate
Torvald if he knew he was secretly in debt to her for his life, indicating that Torvald wants the
power in his marriage to be one-sided rather than mutual.

8.Compare and contrast Mrs. Linde and Nora at the end of the play.
Ans: By the end of Act Three, both Nora and Mrs. Linde have entered new phases in their
lives. Nora has chosen to abandon her children and her husband because she wants
independence from her roles as mother and wife. In contrast, Mrs. Linde has chosen to
abandon her independence to marry Krogstad and take care of his family. She likes having
people depend on her, and independence does not seem to fulfill her. Despite their
apparent opposition, both Nora’s and Mrs. Linde’s decisions allow them to fulfill their
respective personal desires. They have both chosen their own fates, freely and without male
influence. Ibsen seems to feel that the nature of their choices is not as important as the fact
that both women make the choices themselves.

9.What Does the Ending Mean?

Ans: At the end of A Doll’s House, Nora makes the ultimate assertion of her agency and
independence by walking out on her husband and her children in order to truly understand
herself and learn about the world. By leaving her family and disregarding societal norms,
Nora completes the change from being a skylark, squirrel, or doll into a “reasonable human
being” who can make something of her life. Since she was a child, society told Nora that as a
woman, she should conform to what men want and remain ignorant of deeper learning. But
now that she knows that Torvald (and his obsession with maintaining appearances) has only
held her back, Nora understands that she cannot remain with a man who does not treat her
has an equal, and she cannot raise children to be competent human beings without
understanding how to be one herself. In order to continue as husband and wife, Nora insists
that she and Torvald must have a “true wedlock” like that of Mrs. Linde and Krogstad, one
where there is mutual trust and respect. Whether Torvald is capable of changing so
drastically is unclear, but Nora is not optimistic that this can happen. Audiences must decide
for themselves whether or not Nora will ever return.

The end of A Doll’s House created enormous controversy in Ibsen’s time. Many of the
middle-class theater-goers were scandalized that a woman might leave her husband and,
more importantly, her children. Ibsen was forced to create an alternate ending for German
audiences after actress Hedwig Niemann-Raabe refused to perform the play as written. In
the alternate ending, Nora sees her children after the argument with Torvald and collapses
as the curtain falls, implying that she stays at the house. Ibsen was disgusted with this
version of the ending, calling it a “barbaric outrage.” Many critics and scholars now consider
the original ending’s final stage direction, the sound of a door shutting, one of the most
iconic final moments in theater, the “door slam heard around the world.”

Edited by; AAMIR SAQIF (ASK)

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