A Doll’s House written by the famous playwright Henrik Ibsen, tells the story of a failing marriage and a woman’s realisation to her role in society. Despite the play being written in a realistic fashion, Ibsen chose to incorporate both metaphors and symbolisms within the play, with symbolisms illustrating the inner conflicts of the main character Nora, and the less prominent metaphors depicting the state in which the characters are in. The use of both symbols and metaphors aide in developing the characters in the play, allowing the audience to further sympathize with the characters created by Henrik Ibsen.
What perhaps is the most significant metaphor used throughout the play lies within the title of the play itself, ‘A Doll’s House’. The title introduces the idea that both Nora and Torvald were just in fact dolls in a dollhouse, being played not just by one another, but also by the society of that time. Towards the end of the play, Nora herself comes to the realisation that she has in fact been nothing more than a ‘doll’, made to humour the men in her life. She states ‘I have been your doll wife, just as at home I was daddy’s doll child.’ This statement concluded the fact that Torvald has never truly seen Nora as his equal, whether that’s by objectifying her or infantilising her. Torvald has many nicknames for Nora such as ‘skylark’ or ‘squirrel’, which while on the surface seem like terms of endearment, are actually ways in which Torvald belittles her, as it allows Torvald to further view
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Together the symbolisms and metaphors illustrate the ideas which are beyond literal interpretation. Just as Nora had come to realise, it is what is hidden beneath the surface that