ipl-logo

A Doll's House Analytical Essay

2255 Words10 Pages

The play “A Doll House” by Henrik Ibsen focuses on late nineteenth century life in a middle-class Scandinavian household, in which the wife is expected to be contentedly passive and the husband paternally protective. Nora Helmer, however, has subverted this model. At that time, a woman could not sign a legal contract alone, thus, when her beloved husband, Torvald, became ill, Nora secretly obtained a loan by forging her father’s signature so that they could travel to a warmer climate. A wife was not legally permitted to borrow money without her husband's consent, so Nora must resort to deception to borrow the money she so desperately needs. The play takes place during Christmas and New Year time. These times both stand for rebirth and renewal, …show more content…

Tragedies recount an individual’s downfall: they usually begin high and end low.” Nora was put in an extraordinary position, even though some of severe circumstance was self-imposed. She also lived and suffered through a moral dilemma, again self-imposed. She was put in a subordinated position initially by her father as he gave her away in marriage to Torvald. She was passed from a situation where she was protected and controlled by her father to her husband where he also severely controlled her life. Even though Torvald did not perceive he was doing anything detrimental to Nora, she suffered from her lack of freedom nonetheless. He felt he was protecting her, and she needed his protection and nothing else, such as being free to be her own person, with her own interests in life. She was being emotionally suffocated. She could no longer live in the role that her husband put her in and society expected her to stay in. She felt that there was nothing to their marriage late in the story and she had to decide whether to live a superficially happy marriage or leave and gain her identity. The tragedy came at the end of the story when Nora had an awakening and started a move to a new life without Torvald. Nora states, “But you neither think nor talk like the man I could join myself to.” (Ibsen 113) She saw there was no way to grow emotionally in the family and social situation she was in. She was so set on a new beginning that she was willing to leave their children with her

Show More
Related
800 Words | 4 Pages

He bans Nora from ever seeing and playing with the kids even though Nora did so for his benefit. He also demands her to sit down and not go anywhere subjecting her to follow his orders. After they have a serious talk Torvald says that a man can never sacrifice his reputation for anyone not even his wife. Nora tell him that hundreds of thousands of women have. She later leaves Torvald, giving up being with her kids to discover who she truly is.

Read More
666 Words | 3 Pages

Nora is a married woman and has children to take care of. She really has little freedom because of the way Torvald treats her. She is not even I feel as if deep down she knows she is not free and wants something more in her life then to be a entertaining puppet for Torvald. She realizes at the end of the story that Torvald is not good to her because of the way he acted when she told him about forging the signature. When Torvald called her a criminal and other harsh words she realized that she had no true love from Torvald and wanted to be free from him.

Read More
1319 Words | 6 Pages

Literary Argument Paper A Doll House is an 1879 play written by Henrik Ibsen that observes a few evenings within the household of Torvald and Nora Helmer. In A Doll House many different themes of traditional gender roles and marriage are explored throughout the play. Questions are raised on if the ways the events unfold are acceptable. At the end of A Doll House the main character Nora leaves her husband Torvald due to her realization that they are not in love and that she has been living with a stranger all these years.

Read More
808 Words | 4 Pages

What Torvald fails to realize about his perfect family, is that they are human beings; not dolls. Torvald’s failure to treat Nora like a respectable

Read More
1418 Words | 6 Pages

Torvald tells her that Nora has a duty as a mother and a wife but Nora tells him that “she is an individual”, showing that she is finally putting herself on par with Torvald, and no longer allowing Torvald to control her, but instead she is trying to gain independence and liberation from social norms in order to break free from the “Doll’s House.” She tells him that she must leave him, because “for eight years [she’d] been living with a stranger”, emphasising how there was never any proper communication and mutual understanding between them, and hence no proper marriage, as she didn’t actually know what his true character was like up until that night, as she was convinced all along that Torvald would be the man to take everything upon

Read More
1136 Words | 5 Pages

Nora’s defiance may have resulted in criticism from society, but Ibsen importantly commented on the terrible treatment of woman in relationships and the world. Ibsen created A Doll’s House in a time where women were treated unjustly and poorly. While the play might seem slightly irrelevant now, it still has a place in the world today. Women can borrow money and leave their husbands; however, society still puts tremendous pressure on women to fulfill sacred vows. The expectation to assure her husband’s happiness and to prioritize everyone else before herself is still an issue that many woman face today.

Read More
2066 Words | 9 Pages

A Doll House” is a three-act play in prose written by Henrik Ibsen in 1879. A Doll House is is about a woman named Nora Helmer. She is the wife of Torvald Helmer and the mother of his children. Eight years prior to the play Nora illegal takes out a loan without telling Torvald. During the play, Nora’s life turns upside down as pays the price for her decision.

Read More
1029 Words | 5 Pages

Nora is a character that will do everything that somebody tells her, she is kind of submissive regarding what Torvald says. She has to mention him at least once while she’s talking about anything, but she does have some petty forms of rebellion, like the macaroons. A larger way of her rebelling would be when she pays for the trip so that Torvald can get better. She is viewed as a child by Mrs. Linde, Christine, and is treated like one by Torvald and it seems almost like they look down on her because she is a woman and she is completely dependent on her husband. Her character, at this point, has no backbone; she is completely captivated by this life in which she perceives as

Read More
885 Words | 4 Pages

The play ‘A Doll’s house’ is a three act play written by Henrik Ibsen. - BLABLA BLA-. The story, however could be interpreted differently by different readers greatly depending on their cultural context. In this essay will be discussed how a Freudian and a Feminist reader might interpret the plot, the character relations and the ending differently. A Feminist might argue that the story’s underlying message is to unveil the power dynamic during the 19th century between men and women.

Read More
1436 Words | 6 Pages

In the end, Nora inevitably chooses to leave her family. In this decision to as stated “educate” herself, she leaves her children motherless, and runs from a substantial household. Some may say that she was unhappy, but Nora never brought it to Torvald’s attention that she was unhappy and chooses to leave him behind without ever giving

Read More
833 Words | 4 Pages

Torvald, however; only lusts after Nora and does not truly love her for who she is. Torvald treats Nora as an object and although he is just is a man of his time, it is still a vile and not virtuous thing to do to another human being. This play has characters that are complex, but their virtues are clearly seen. Every fault that Nora has in this play can be linked back to her being a victim of the time she was born in and the people

Read More
933 Words | 4 Pages

From this argument, Nora was able to conclude that Torvald wasn’t who she thought he was and they were too different. In addition to the previous discovery, Nora uncovers the notion that her love is not reciprocated and it’s not true. She wanted Helmer to man up, “take everything upon [himself] and say: I am the guilty one” (Ibsen 79). Helmer did not agree with Nora and believed that it was illogical for a man to take his wife’s guilt. Nora waited eight years to see him perform that task and he never did.

Read More
1411 Words | 6 Pages

Henrik Ibsen's 1879 play, A Doll's House, is a modern tragedy featuring the domestic struggles of women in the 19th century patriarchal Norway. Throughout the play, Ibsen explores the societal expectations enforced on women through the major decisions made by Anne Marie, Christine Linde, and most importantly, Nora Helmer the protagonist. The countless sacrifices that these women feel obliged to make compared to the male characters, acts as an indication of the double standard that their society has placed upon them. None of these character's decisions were made voluntarily, but instead, seemed to be already set in stone by the Norwegian society, in which their only option was to conform to these values and accept their miserable faith. However, there is a single instance in the play where the decision seems to be of one's own accord, this being Nora's

Read More
1329 Words | 6 Pages

Nora acts how Torvald has primed her to, she stays out of his business, and as a reader of the book, it seems as though he sees her solely for her physical appearance, and their attraction is only physical, which could have contributed to the fall of their

Read More
759 Words | 4 Pages

In Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, the three-act play, set in 19th century Norway, explores the progress of Nora’s marriage as she attempts to hide her debt and forgery from her husband. Ibsen conveyed social commentary on gender roles and societal expectations, a topic still in controversy, through the use of symbolism, irony, and dramatic elements. In A Doll’s House, Ibsen presents the problems associated with the position of women in a man’s world of business as his central focus, even if other social or individual problems become more prominent as the play progresses.

Read More

More about A Doll's House Analytical Essay

Related Topics

Open Document