Social Norms In A Doll's House

Henrik Ibsen has used the play A Doll’s House to highlight some of the social issues and cultural norms that existed during his time, a period when society was transforming to modernity. Ibsen used the characters of Torvald Helmer and his wife Nora Helmer to perfectly depict the historical and cultural norms of the society at the time, especially in the relationship between a husband and wife. The play begins with the depiction of a seemingly happy couple who are living a bourgeois life but as it unfolds, the Helmer’s marriage would later disintegrate after the expected social conventions are rejected. Ibsen, in his play A Doll’s House rejects social conventions of his time.

According to Gro Hagemann, the social order or norms of the society

For instance, it is quite clear that Ibsen's decision to talk about the topic of money in this play is influenced by the societal norms or cultural expectations at the time where the society in Norway at around the nineteenth century had changed significantly in terms of its socio-economic ideologies and people had become obsessed with money where they would always take care of their financial health by trying to avoid debt by all means. This explains why the opening discussion in this play is about the topic of money and the story ends up with a divorce which has been occasioned by borrowed money by a wife in order to save her husband’s life. However, the most important aspect of the play is how Ibsen has demonstrated that women are willing to reject social conventions in order to safeguard their interest as was witnessed with Nora and Ms. Linde who are two women who have gone against social expectations in order to care for their families. For this reasons, Ibsen play is influenced by the social and cultural norms of the time where he seeks to show that a time had come to reject some of the conservative social conventions that