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A Doll s House The play A Doll s House, written by Henrik Ibsen, was written during a time period where society thought it was ok to oppress women and treat them like property. In the play, the main story deals with a stereotypical middle class household and the values inside which relate directly to the values of the society during the time period. Nora, the main character in the story, is anticipating her husband getting a high paying job and living fairly wealthy in an upper class household with two kids. Nora has all the material objects she could want in her marriage, but lacks individual freedom and a husband who loves her like she loves him. The main theme in A Dolls House is how a woman breaks out of her role as a housewife that her husband gave her and becomes an individual.
At the beginning of the story, Nora is portrayed as being weak minded and under the total control of her husband. By the end of the story, Nora breaks out of her role that she was playing and decides that she needs to leave her current life as a mother and wife and be the individual that she wants to be. At the beginning of the story, Nora s character and personality is shown by Torvalds narrow views of women and her role as a good housewife and mother. Torvalds views on what a woman s role in the household should be is a reflection of how women were treated in society during this particular time period.
These views that Torvald had can be described by which he felt that women were helpless and that they need to rely on their husband and live the life that he would want her to have. In the beginning of the story, Nora is content with her husband s views and only wants to do what is correct according to the social standards on what a good housewife should be during this period in time. During this time in the story, Nora is very passive and faithful to her husband and it is evident that her only goal in her life is to live up to her social standard and be the wife that Torvald wants her to be. Compared to how things generally were in society, Torvald is described as the man of the house, and whatever he believes is right and Nora should obey him always. One of the ways that Nora is shown to be weaker than her husband is by the little nicknames that he is constantly calling her throughout the story.
Torvald uses names such as squirrel, little songbird and little skylark which are used many times throughout the story when referring to his wife. Torvalds constant use of the term little before the names he s given Nora suggests his superiority to Nora. The idea that he uses terms such as squirrel and skylark shows how he thinks Nora is very weak by using references of small, weak forest animals. These nicknames that Torvald uses when talking to Nora show how he feels they are not equal and that she is definitely not an individual but rather property of her husband. Another example that shows how Nora is not her own person and that she is just playing a role is when she was practicing dancing before the big dance. Torvald was very serious about Nora getting her dance steps down right and that they were exactly how he wanted them to be.
When Nora said that she had forgotten how to do the dance routine, Torvald became very upset and made sure she practiced her moves down until she got them the way he wanted it. This part in the play is a reflection on how Torvald wanted Nora to be the wife he wanted her to be. This was shown by Nora having to dance and look good like Torvald wanted her to, just like the way she was living her life in the household being Torvald s wife. During most the story Nora seems to be content with her role, but showed some signs that she wanted to be her own person and be more of an individual. Evidence in the story that shows she didn t want to play out her role as a housewife was when she flat out lied to Torvald about eating some cookies and the lie about Krogstad being in the house.
Even though these lies weren t that big of a deal, they are showing that Nora is going against her role as an obedient housewife and being more of an individual. The big lie in the story though, is the lie about how she really felt about her marriage and how the way she was living her life with Torvald. Nora kept the lie about how she felt about the marriage deep inside and it didn t become evident until the end of the story when she realized what kind of life she was living. This big lie was how Nora was just playing a role in her marriage and how she really was not happy with the past eight years of her life.
The main point in the story when Nora realized this was when she said, You don t understand me. And I have never understood you, either until tonight. pg. 1164 For a large part of Nora s life, she was living out a role which was given to her by her husband and society. Instead of being an individual, Nora was trying to be the stereotypical housewife and good mother. Throughout Nora s marriage, her and Torvald were just playing out roles which didn t fit the way Nora wanted to live and didn t allow her to be an individual. Works Cited Ibsen, Henrik, A Dolls House, Kennedy X.
J. and Georgia, (New York: Longman), 2000
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