Censure In A Doll's House

“ Free, to be free, absolutely free. To spend time playing with the children. To have a clean, beautiful house, the way Torvald likes it ” (page 23). This is a quote extracted from Henrik Ibsen’s play, A Doll’s House, which was said by the protagonist of the story, Nora, to her childhood friend, Mrs. Linde. This play was written in 1879 and it was first acted out in Stockholm, Sweden in 1880. It gave Ibsen international fame due to the way it provoked the world. There were many strong responses to this play, whether it was praise or censure. The door that Nora slammed at the end of the play is said to be the loudest slammed door of the nineteenth century. It caused conservatives, traditionalists, and anti-feminists to rage and fear, whereas

This is because people at the time lived in a more patriarchal society, following a certain set of norms, always giving the man authority. Some of the main qualities valued used by the bourgeoisie of that time that we learn due to Torvald’s actions and words were financial success, hence the belonging in the bourgeoisie of society; upward social mobility, portrayed by his promotion to a major position in the bank; freedom from financial debt; and having a stable, secure family with a man at its head, according to the traditions of a patriarchal society. Nora defies most of these norms just because she wanted to save her husband’s life. After having to bear with all of Torvald’s speeches as to why borrowing money and being indebted is not good for the family, saying that a happy family is a family not in debt, and his scolding her after he reads Krogstad’s letter which clarifies the situation of the story, Nora realizes something. She realizes that she lives in a dream, where everything is fake, is just an act. She realized that she is living in a doll’s house, where Torvald is the child and Nora is his doll. She finally decides that she must discover who she truly is, because she has been living a lie for eight years. With Torvald, she couldn’t develop any personality; the only thing that was keeping her going was her

To spend time playing with the children. To have a clean, beautiful house, the way Torvald likes it ”(page 23). Nora says this to Mrs. Linde at the beginning of the play, referring to her freedom from debt that would come when she completely pays off her loan at New Year’s. She wanted a “free” house, respecting the norms of society at that time. But throughout the play, this quote changes its meaning. It mainly becomes “ Free, to be free, absolutely free ”. The quote gives us a sense of foreshadowing where some sort of freedom is bound to appear and occur throughout the play, and later, we realize that this freedom is Nora’s freedom from Torvald, from society’s clutches. A freedom where she can be who she truly is. She leaves her husband, her family, and her whole life, just for her