A Doll's House

The play A Doll’s House is about a Woman named Nora and her relationships with her husband and the other men who surround her. Throughout the play, the viewer sees Nora struggling to live in the patriarchal society, only once is it referenced that Nora took actions that she thought to do herself. In addition, the actions she took lead her to grave misfortune, expressing the views that women need men to guide them or they will make unwise decisions. However, most of the time, Nora is doing what want her to do and what she perceives will please her husband. This was the typical life of a woman in the nineteenth century; they were expected to be fragile and senseless, therefore needed men to guide them. While women were thought to be senseless

Society’s view on women of was, “Men were thought to have natures suited to the public world, women to the private.” (Radek) During the eighteenth hundreds, everything married women owned, which Nora was, legally belonged to the husband; therefore, a married woman remained completely reliant on their husbands. During those times, women did not get married for love, but for economic security. (Grear) In the play, Nora’s friend Mrs. Linde marries a rich husband to help support her sick family in the absence of her father; Ibsen uses this to express how women of the times married for wealth instead of love. Though woman were gaining more rights and the views of woman was changing in other parts of the world; it was still slow to change in France. In the United States and England, women were able to get higher forms of education and some even became doctors, however in France, women were able to have jobs but they were jobs that did not require them to leave the home so they are still able to take care of the children and housework. (Grear) This was due to “the society dictated that women should work in the home, taking care of home and hearth.” (Radek) While Nora doesn’t need to work, the only working women the viewer sees in the play is the maid/nurse, this

Nora was concerned about spreading her immoral ways to her children. “Oh, really! Trying to frighten me! I’m not so sill as all that (Starts gathering up the children’s clothes, but soon stops.) But—? No, impossible. I did it out of love.” (Ibsen pg. 1206) Nora pauses because she committed the crime of forgery just like Krogstad; she saw what happen to him and his children because of this. At this point is when the thought of leaving her family starts to form. The thought grows; but doubts about leaving her children so she goes to the one person who has left her child. Nora asked the nurse how she could bear leaving her children; the nurse tells her it was the only option left to her. After the conversation, Nora starts to distant herself from her kids; she was trying to stop any spread of immorality from spreading. She knows firsthand that immorality spreads from parents to children as Trovald states “All your father’s flimsy values have come out in you.” As Daniel Brooks states, “the author discusses Nora's fears of harming her children by remaining in their presence and how this impacts her decision more than attempts to defy her husband or society.” This supports that women actions are moral based, and that women make decisions that are best for everyone. Therefore, women should have more say in what happens in their lives and have a part in society