A Dolls House

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   A Doll’s House is a play written by Henrik Ibsen in 1879. Nora Helmer is the protagonist of the Play and Torvald’s wife.  The play begins around the time of Christmas when Nora Helmer comes back from shopping when her husband begins to scold her for spending so much money on gifts creating an oppressive setting with the demeaning titles he places upon her and how he controls her life.  The conversation later reveals how the family has a past of money issues but Torvald recently obtained a better position at a bank which will allow them to live a bit more comfortably.

   The Helmer's friend Dr.Rank comes over to their home as Noras former school friend Kristine Linde. Nora later mentions how the couple was very poor and had to work extreme hours and on top of that Torvald had become sick so the two had to go to Italy so that Torvald could recover. Nora appears very childlike in front of society yet when she was with a childhood friend, she hints at the fact that she is not as childlike as we assume.   

   Nora reveals to her friend that she illegally borrowed money for the trip that she and Torvald took to Italy even though she had told Torvald that the money had come from her father. For years she worked and saved slowly repaying the debt, secretly. An employee at the bank, Krogstad, where Torvald works is revealed to be the source of Nora’s loan. Krogstad blackmails Nora to ensure his position at the bank remains secure when Torvald wants to fire him, threatening to reveal her forgery of her fathers signature and to bring shame on both Nora and her husband if she does not prevent Krogstad from being fired but Torvald seems to have already made up his mind. Nora actually uses her childish behavior to her advantage, knowing that Torvald likes seeing her as a dainty woman.   

   The play comes to an end when Torvald reads Krogstad’s letter. Nora is convinced of Torvald’s love for her, believing that Torvald would sacrifice anything for her and he Torvald will take the blame for the forgery himself, sacrificing his own reputation for hers and balancing out the sacrifice she made. But when Torvald reads the letter, he never considers sacrificing his reputation because apparently that would be absurd in society. A husband is too selfish for his own needs, that he will not protect his wife? If this happened in modern society the couple would immediately split up, a woman will not stay with a man who chooses their own pride over her.  In Nora and Torvald's final confrontation, she reveals how her father trained her as a doll's child. Nora’s delusions about her marriage and her life shatter and she realizes that Torvald has always viewed and treated her as a doll to be shaped any way he pleases. Nora leaves Torvald and her children to start a new life, where she knows herself as a human being above all and engages with the world on her own terms. When she leaves the children it is absolutely heartbreaking because in this society women had no control over their children, it didn't matter that she cared for them insanely or raised them everyday. Just because of her gender, in order to feel free she had to leave her children. Women in that time period obviously couldn't just divorce their husband or file for custody of the children.  

   A Doll’s House further explores the ways society restricted women. Nora Helmer comes to the realization that she has spent her entire marriage pretending to be the person that her husband, father, and society expects her to be. At the beginning of the play, Nora believes that all she wants is to be happy, which would be catering to her husband's needs and playing housewife. She believes freedom as having enough money in order to create a care-free life, yet her self-sacrificing actions like obtaining a loan to save her husband’s life and then keeping it a secret just for his pride prevents her from attaining this freedom.  

   Through the play Nora realizes that her actions are the reason for her pain, she begins to question whether the life she currently has is enough to provide her with happiness. Her decision to leave represents her chance to find real freedom which is the ability to make her own choices. Nora’s entire outlook on life shifts and she understands that marriage needs equality to work. It makes one wonder whether fulfilling a marriage is possible in a society that holds one gender in greater esteem than the other. Women all around the world live in male dominated societies whether it be in the stem industry or business field, this play addresses the struggles of identity for these women.      

    Nora, Ibsen’s protagonist, makes a daring and unexpected move for her time and her place in society—she leaves her husband and children not as a declaration of war on marriage, but as a declaration of her identity and place in the community of humankind.     

    Nora crawls free from the quarry of domination which dooms her to prescribed forms of behavior and seeks the strength to find her authentic voice. Moved by Nora’s surprising empowerment, I have sought out other women’s literature like: Jane Eyre and A Room of One’s Own. I recognize the value that Nora and other female protagonists of literature offer, and to the extent that I work on making their struggle my own is the value I will derive from my studies and my womanhood.