Literary Argument Paper A Doll House is an 1879 play written by Henrik Ibsen that observes a few evenings within the household of Torvald and Nora Helmer. In A Doll House many different themes of traditional gender roles and marriage are explored throughout the play. Questions are raised on if the ways the events unfold are acceptable. At the end of A Doll House the main character Nora leaves her husband Torvald due to her realization that they are not in love and that she has been living with a stranger all these years.
A Doll’s house is a realistic three act play that focuses on the nineteenth century life in middle class Scandinavian household life, where the wife is expected to be inferior and passive whereas the husband is superior and paternally protective. It was written by Henrik Ibsen. The play criticised the marriage norms that existed in the 19th century. It aroused many controversies as it concludes with Nora, the main protagonists leaving her husband and children in order to discover her identity. It created a lot of controversies and was heavily criticised as it questioned the traditional roles of men and women among Europeans who believed that the covenant of marriage was holy.
However, he quickly retracts this statement as soon as he receives another letter from Krogstad, liberating Nora from any culpability. But the damage has been done. Nora goes upstairs, “Taking off [her] fancy dress” (223), and changing into “her everyday things” (224). The change in clothing is a visual transformation of Nora’s attitude as she realizes that Torvald and her marriage was not a meeting of the hearts and minds, but a performance. She was simply a casualty of societal obligations, married to a man who is essentially a stranger, stuck in a doll’s house.
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.
Now the conflict in the play is that the man she borrowed the money from is blackmailing nora to save his job or he’ll let her husband and everyone else that she committed fraud to get the money. Throughout the play nora came to the conclusion that she wasn’t as in love with her husband as she thought she was. She also thought her busband was never in love with her after he didn’t take the blame for her. Nora thought torvald would prove his love for her by taking the blame for her because she was used to relying on him like she relyed on her
people know that her hband can do everything with the new problems of fear, guilt, and wrongdoing. We can feel that she takes too much pride in it because it remains one of the few independent actions she has ever taken. Mrs. Nora is also proud that she can influence her husband, as she let Krogstad boasts her. She wants to support and help those around her. Although she has been able to exert that sort of influence over Torvalds, he did not notice that, and her power extremely limited as a woman because paradoxically, when Krogstad asks Mrs. Nora to exert this influence on Torvald on his behalf, Nora perceives his request is an insult to her husband, but when she does it is fine.
He then, apologizes and tell Nora how much he loves her. This becomes a wake-up call for Nora, for her husband has shown his true identity. With this epiphany, she has come to the conclusion that their whole life was just an illusion of how they really were. She then decides to leave her husband and her children in order to find out who she truly is. Torvald desperately begs her to stay.
Nora in my eyes is an incredibly strong women. Though I felt at the end it was unnecessary for her to leave Torvald and her three small children. He offered her understanding and wanted to please her by providing education and a chance to find herself. Throughout the play, she may have withheld information from Torvald in an attempt to keep him alive while also keeping his honor and mind at peace. She showed she could be responsible with money and things considered to be “men's business.”
The professional production history of A Doll’s House has changed over the years. A Doll’s House first premiered at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen on December 21st 1879, which was written by Henrik Ibsen. Nora becomes the center of the play because as the play progresses her character changes from the audience seeing her as Torvalds’s energetic trophy doll to a strong, powerful, and dependent woman. Act one begins with the audience’s first impression of Nora being a happy, loving, obedient wife. When act one first opens it is Nora and Torvald talking about how this year is the first year they don’t have to watch their money.
Torvald and Nora 's relationship in Henrik Ibsen 's "A Doll 's House" is untypical of the ones found in today 's standards and society. Firstly, there is usually an understanding of equality found within a relationship, whereas Torvald views Nora as his possession, someone he owns. Torvald talks to Nora as if she was a child and tells her what to do. The word "little" is constantly said before he calls Nora by her pet names; "little lark" and "little featherbrain" are a few of them. This indicates that Torvald sees her as a child and emphasizes that he does not see her as an equal.
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.
Analysis of the Character Nora in the “A Doll’s House” Play The play “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen, portrays many different characters with different sides to themselves. A quote by Kurt Vonnegut writes “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be;” this shows us that everyone pretends to be someone, which means the characters in the play have a good chance of pretending to be someone else whom they are not. mInevitably, not every character can show each one of their sides, but rather, it has to be interpreted. Nora, to be specific, has a completely contradictory side to herself that we later discover in the play.
In this moment Nora’s eyes and mind finally become clear of any delusions she once possessed. Nora was dominated and controlled by her father before marriage and afterwards it was her husband dominating her. Torvald never treated her as an equal. She had existed for her husband and she had always expected that her husband would come to her aid when she was trouble. She had been waiting for miracles to happen.
Throughout A Doll’s House, Henrick Ibsen gives emphasis to male-controlled symbolism in order to emphasize the standard family structure of the late nineteenth-century. Torvald, the central male character, perfectly depicts the typical male dominance through his actions of control and dominance in the relationship with Nora Helmer. The names he gives her throughout the play: skylark, little squirrel, little spendthrift, etc. shows his looking down to Nora. He gives her no respect and like all typical marriages in nineteenth-century Denmark, he gives Nora no means to have any control in the marriage. The title A Doll’s House in itself generates the whole definition of the play, giving symbolism to Nora and how she is “trapped” in her own home and being ordered by Torvald in everything she says and does.
Did you know that there is injustice in the play A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen? The men in A Doll’s House treat women differently than how they treat other men. To society at the time men were above women. This idea is supported by the way that Nora is treated like a child by her husband Torvald, the way Nora has to follow all her husband’s decisions, during that time period women didn 't typically have a job or education. When all of the evidence is presented the reader can, therefore, decided whether or not they agree that women are treated very unjustly compared to men.