Research Paper On A Doll's House By Henrik Ibsen

“A Doll’s House” Essay Throughout history, society always has specific morals and assumptions of their times of which can be displayed in many different ways. Often seen today, those morals are expressed through literature, such as with how characters are acting in their society or around other characters. Furthermore, the alienation of some characters can also reveal society’s specific morals at the time in which the story is taking place. In Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House,” the alienation of the characters Nora Helmer, Christine Linde, and Nils Krogstad reveal society’s morals and assumptions that men are superior to women in that time period. Society’s morals and assumptions that men are superior to women in the time period of “A

She had to “ . . . provide for [her] two younger brothers . . .” and attempt to take care of her sick mother for a period of time (Ibsen 8). In this time, the men usually provided for the women, so a woman providing for her family and keeping them afloat was considered different. Due to how society viewed this, she was practically forced to marry a man of whom she did not love because he had money and could provide more for her family than she could as a woman. In her conversation with Nils Krogstad, Christine explains that “ . . . a woman who has sold herself for another’s sake [does not] do it a second time” (Ibsen 54). This expresses that she has already sold herself to a man, her late husband, for her family’s sake, and that if she is going to rekindle her relationship with him, it is going to be in the right way and because they love each other, not because she supposedly needs a man in her life. In the soon to be new relationship between Christine and Krogstad, Christine will be more of the “man” of it due to the fact that she will be the one with a higher paying job at the bank. When she is asked as to why she won’t just give the job to him, she says that “ . . . [they] could not wait for [him]; [his] prospect seemed helpless . . . ” (Ibsen 54). This shows that even the bank had decided that a woman was better to take over the job than to wait for

While explaining things to Nora in her house, he says that “[he] wants to rehabilitate [himself] . . . [he] wants to get on . . . [and] for the last year and a half, [he] has not had a hand in anything dishonorable, and all that time [he] has been struggling in [the] most restricted circumstances” (Ibsen 44). Krogstad is basically being treated like a woman in the situation. He has worked hard according to himself but is now being removed and getting in trouble for something that could be avoided. He made a mistake and is being punished for it, and even a woman is taking his place at the bank. Krogstad’s action of forging a signature versus Nora’s doing of it also receives completely different reactions. With Nora, Torvald decides to eventually say that “ . . . [he] is man enough to take everything upon [himself]” (Ibsen 36). With Krogstad being fired for it, and Nora receiving no punishment whatsoever, it shows that men believe women need to be taken care of. Christine is the one who helps Krogstad change his point of view of everything occurring in the story, so she is taking care of his problems like Torvald supposedly intended to do for Nora. Christine is the one who takes charge in the startup of their rekindled relationship by saying that “[they] have a great deal to talk about [first]” and that things were going to