Struggles in life often motivate people to do the best that they can in whatever they do so a better future can be achieved. In the 1870’s, however, it was very difficult for women to better their lives because of the oppression of men and society in general. Women basically had absolutely no rights and lived at the mercy of their husbands. This is very obvious in the play A Doll House by Henrik Ibsen. In this play Nora wars against many problems she has in her life. The many types of conflicts Nora goes through in the play are what drive the plot.
The first type of conflict Nora endures in A Doll House is that with her fellow man. For example, she has to hide the smallest things from her husband going as far as lying about where she got the
…show more content…
To explain, while nora is fighting with Torvald about leaving him although she has no care, all he can think about is “what people will say”(1713). Nora cares for her children and knows she will be criticized for leaving her family. She has to look deep inside of herself for a life changing decision for her sanity, but her fight inside of herself to leave leads her so find some independence in her thinking. Nora’s conflicting thoughts of how she should treat her children also advance her decisions. While Torvald is going on about how “almost everyone who goes bad early in life has a mother who is a chronic liar” she begins to worry about her own children(1685). Nora’s decision to leave her family is influenced by her knowledge that her crooked good intentions may result in her children turning out to be rotten people just because of how her husband thinks. In conclusion, Nora brings herself to leave her normal life through her thoughts and decisions she has to make.
Obviously Nora is driven through her problems to find a better life and to get out of the troubling doll house she is living in. Although extremely uncommon the time A Doll House was set in, she is one of the few people whose eyes were opened to the unfairness in her life, and she finds an unlikely way out instead of settling for complacency. Luckily in modern times women can do almost whatever they want and are considered equals to
Torvald loves me beyond words, and, as he puts it, he’d like to keep me all to himself” (Ibsen 810). While Nora is aware that Torvald is controlling she does not seem to mind. She even stopped talking to her friends from back home, because Torvald did not like her speaking about them. Nora comes across as a damsel in distress in the first half of the play, who relied on her husband before transitioning to a feminist
Nora’s defiance may have resulted in criticism from society, but Ibsen importantly commented on the terrible treatment of woman in relationships and the world. Ibsen created A Doll’s House in a time where women were treated unjustly and poorly. While the play might seem slightly irrelevant now, it still has a place in the world today. Women can borrow money and leave their husbands; however, society still puts tremendous pressure on women to fulfill sacred vows. The expectation to assure her husband’s happiness and to prioritize everyone else before herself is still an issue that many woman face today.
Torvald tells her that Nora has a duty as a mother and a wife but Nora tells him that “she is an individual”, showing that she is finally putting herself on par with Torvald, and no longer allowing Torvald to control her, but instead she is trying to gain independence and liberation from social norms in order to break free from the “Doll’s House.” She tells him that she must leave him, because “for eight years [she’d] been living with a stranger”, emphasising how there was never any proper communication and mutual understanding between them, and hence no proper marriage, as she didn’t actually know what his true character was like up until that night, as she was convinced all along that Torvald would be the man to take everything upon
Nora has always been looked upon like a doll, by both her father and husband. She is responsible for the duties of the household and maintaining her husband’s happiness, even though she agonizes. Ordinarily, appearances sustain their marriage. To Torvald, Nora’s figure is only an accessory to his public life.
Nora is a married woman and has children to take care of. She really has little freedom because of the way Torvald treats her. She is not even I feel as if deep down she knows she is not free and wants something more in her life then to be a entertaining puppet for Torvald. She realizes at the end of the story that Torvald is not good to her because of the way he acted when she told him about forging the signature. When Torvald called her a criminal and other harsh words she realized that she had no true love from Torvald and wanted to be free from him.
He rather expects her to be more compliant, loyal and wants her to follow the social and moral rules strictly, like he does. Torvald’s assertion that Nora’s lack of understanding of money matters is the result of her gender (“Nora, my Nora, that is just like a woman”) reveals his prejudiced viewpoint on gender roles. Torvald believes a wife’s role is to beautify the home, not only through proper management of domestic life but also through proper behavior and appearance. He quickly makes it known that appearances are very important to him, and that Nora is like an ornament or trophy that serves to beautify his home and his reputation. He tells Nora that he loves her so much that he has wished in the past that Nora’s life were threatened so that he could risk everything to save her.
During act III, Nora asked to speak to Torvald after her performance of the tarantella dance. The following conversation demonstrated her quest for autonomy and freedom, as well as Torvald’s inadequate responses to her arguments and demands; it also showed how deeply connected her unhappy situation is with society’s regulation of the relationship between the sexes. She asserts that she is “...first and foremost a human being”, and her strong conviction that her womanhood, and the expectations associated with it, are secondary, strengthens her resolve to make a radical choice: A break with both husband and, with necessity due to her legal position, her children (Ibsen, 184). During her conversation with Torvald, she proclaims, “I have other sacred duties... The duties to myself (Ibsen, 184).”
In Nora’s case, she subconsciously feels guilt for lying to Torvald so she works hard to be the perfect wife towards him. Her guilt does not affect her conscious until Torvald mentions hypocritical mothers. He states, “Nearly all young criminals have had mothers who lied.” [Ibsen 1136]. This guilt causes doubt in Nora’s mind as she begins to believe that she is no longer a perfect mother.
The reader becomes very aware of the situation Nora is faced with as Ibsen challenges us to think about the societal times women were a part of during the late 1800’s. As Unni Langas states in her article describing gender within the play, “..this drama is not so much about Nora’s struggle to find herself as a human being, as it is about her shocking experience of being treated as a woman..” (Langas, 2005). This gives the reader an insight into Nora Helmer’s character. She is evidently perceived as the Doll trapped in the Doll house, as she is viewed as an entertainer rather than her own person in the eyes of her husband and children.
For Nora, the goal was not to simply escape her life but instead to make a life for herself that she could be proud of and live with happily. Torvald did not treat her with the respect that a husband should treat a wife by modern standards and while this might have been considered a controversial decision for the period in which it was written, by modern standards it can easily be shown as the logical way to end the
In the beginning, Nora decided to leave the man she loved to be with the man who could give her financial security. Society had prescribed that a man should be a provider, which made Nora find it necessary to be with a man who could meet her financial needs. However, she was not happy with the imbalance of power that existed between them, and it only got worse with time. Eventually, she could not take it anymore, choosing to brave the cold winter snow rather than continue to stay with her husband in her current unpleasant circumstances. She was tired of being controlled by her husband and society
Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House is a play set in 19th century Norway, when women’s rights were restricted and social appearance was more important than equality and true identity. In A Doll’s House, Nora represents 19th century women entrapped by society to fulfill wifely and motherly obligations, unable to articulate or express their own feelings and desires. Ibsen uses Nora’s characterization, developed through her interactions with others as well as her personal deliberations and independent actions, language and structure in order to portray Nora’s movement from dependence to independence, gaining sovereignty from the control of her selfish husband, deceitful marriage and the strict social guidelines of morality in 19th century Norway. Initially, Nora appears to be a dependent, naïve, and childlike character; yet, as the play unfolds, she appears to be a strong, independent woman who is willing to make sacrifices for those she cares about as well as herself.
As such, he trusts her ability to handle the news in a mature and acceptable manner in contrast to the fragile sensitivities of Torvald. Nora is also aware of how her status as a doll-wife to Torvald makes her unsuited to be a capable, worthy mother for her children. Conscious of her shortcomings, Nora questions the nurse in charge of caring for the Helmer children during Act II. Nora alludes to the consequences of if "…they would forget their mother if she went away altogether" with the nurse, who had similarly left her own daughter behind (Ibsen 1378). This conversation foreshadows Nora 's intentions to leave behind her
What does it mean to be in complete control of your life, without fearing disapproval from your own husband? Nora Helmer sure would not know what that feels like. In the literary work credited to Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House, a clear distinction between the gender roles of Torvald and Nora Helmer was established through symbols. Through Ibsen’s use of symbols such as macaroons, pet names, and the Tarantella, such symbols help convey and compare the roles of men and women within the nineteenth century. Not only were the gender roles distincted through their character, but they exemplified the actual feminine and masculine roles of typical nineteenth century society.
In 1880s, women in America were trapped by their family because of the culture that they were living in. They loved their family and husband, but meanwhile, they had hard time suffering in same patterns that women in United States always had. With their limited rights, women hoped liberation from their family because they were entirely complaisant to their husband. Therefore, women were in conflicting directions by two compelling forces, their responsibility and pressure. In A Doll’s House, Ibsen uses metaphors of a doll’s house and irony conversation between Nora and Torvald to emphasize reality versus appearance in order to convey that the Victorian Era women were discriminated because of gender and forced to make irrational decision by inequity society.