Isolation In A Doll's House

Analyzing Nora’s both enriching and alienating experience with exile further reveals the ideas Ibsen intended to convey. From a broad perspective, Torvald represents the traditional, patriarchal structure that makes men the head of the household and women subservient to men. His character also signifies such a society’s insecurity toward the threats of woman empowerment. Having the antagonist symbolize society at the time the play was written was Ibsen’s way of challenging such established social values including but not limited to the confining gender roles, evident in Nora and Torvald’s relationship. Moreover, the latter also portrays the importance of reputation, which was the last straw in Nora’s abandonment of her marriage. After Torvald reads Krogstad’s letter detailing his wife’s illegal activities, he becomes extremely upset and says to Nora, “And as for you and me, it must appear as if everything between us were just as before— but naturally only in the eyes of the world. You will still remain in my house… But I shall not allow you to bring up the children; I dare not trust them to you… From this moment happiness is

Analyzing the contrasting aspects of her self-inflicted isolation highlighted Ibsen’s intended meaning of the work as a whole. His inclusion of the patriarchal social structure, the importance of reputation, the sacrifice motif, and the leading of self-realization into a chance at redemption transformed the entertaining drama into a masterpiece that challenged social themes established at the time A Doll’s House was written. Nora’s “unhealable rift” forced between herself and her home undoubtedly changed the entire course of her life, yet without it, she would still be stuck in a doll’s house, unable to become her own individual and constantly relying on Torvald for her sense of