A Doll\'s House PDF

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Summary

These notes are from my Honors Triple literature class taught by Dr. Stephen Smith....

Description

A Doll’s House Henrik Ibsen 

Father of the Modernist movement

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1828-1906

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Wrote his first few plays in verse

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Wrote A Doll’s House in 1879 and it was translated in 1882 and performed in London in 1889.

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The Modern Movement started in 1890 to 1939. Right after its first Londonian performance.

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He first wrote it in Dano-Norwegian.

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Norway was underrepresented (and regarded as inferior) on the literary and dramatic scene compared to places like England, Germany…etc.

The Play 

Right from the start, Ibsen establishes the social status and characteristics of the family.

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Begins on Christmas Eve. A bourgeois family.

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Christmas was particularly important in Norway. It was an extremely sacred holiday centred around “family”.

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Most of the time, only two characters are present at the same time on the stage. That’s very classical structure.

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Act 1, “scene 1”- Nora/Torvald.

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Torvald just got a new job at the bank.

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Their discussion on money. Nora is a big spender.

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He calls her a lot of animals, endearing animals.

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Despite it being a very realistic play, Ibsen manages to incorporate common objects as symbols.

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He calls her a spending bird four times, a squirrel 4 times, 6 different variations of a lark- all throughout act 1.

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She hoards a lot of macaroons (which can be associated with a luxury, unnecessary spending).

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She borrowed money from the bank without her husband’s consent (which was very illegal back then).

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She forged her father’s signature.

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She’s going against Torvalds’s repeated warnings to not spend money frivolously.

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Singing-Lark

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In the first part of the play, we can deduce that she likes money A LOT, (she tipped the server A LOT).

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Heredity- Torvald tells her that she gets her bad spending habits from her father and he warns, her to not follow his footsteps.

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Important theme: sins of the father!

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Keep in mind, Darwin and his teachings.

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Nora is scared that her kids will also inherit from her, her bad attitude (same lineage)

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Dr. Rank inherits from his father, Syphilis.

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Miracle- financial security

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Social status- Torvald is concerned with his sense of honor/ reputation.

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Christine Lindy married her husband because her family needed financial assistance; she didn’t love him. She re-married because he ended up not leaving her anything after his death.

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Few opportunities for women then

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Try to look at Torvald as a sympathetic character (it’s hard but yeah).

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Lindy and Krogstad were in love, but she didn’t pick him because he didn’t have enough money to support her (and her family so understandable).

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Much of her life was dictated by economic instability.

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Krogstad is now about to work under Torvald.

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Mrs. Lindy and Krogstad 

Lindy is a foil to Nora-she’s focused, and more composed vs Nora is frivolous and all over the place.

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Lindy is practical and hard headed; she endured struggles and did things because she had to (out of necessity).

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She’s also associated with truth/no secrets- she encourages Nora to tell the truth about the loan etc because all the lies accumulating in the household will eventually destroy it.

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However, …...is the truth always a good thing?

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Work- she needs to keep working, and she needs something to work for and she is willing to be a mother to Krogstad’s children. This challenges the whole play’s feminist tone.

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Also: the nanny also had to give up her child when she was younger because she couldn’t afford to take care of it (a common practice back then).

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All of these highlight how economic notions/problems can really shape someone’s life.

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Nora refers to the children as her little dolls.

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Alive/Happy- In Nora’s opinion, this is one of the miraculous things in life (the good life).

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Dr. Rank

He is associated with death and suffering

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Also associated with heredity (Nora got bad habits from her father, Rank got a physical disease from his father).

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Physical heredity/physical invalid vs moral heredity/moral invalid

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They consider Krogstad to be a moral invalid.

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“If you try to help them, you just end up turning society into an infirmary”

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Rank, “everything rots from within-there’s nothing to heal the moral invalid”.

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Lindy, “No, underneath it all, there is a good person whose actions have been influenced by social factors. With my help, you can get better!”

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Contracts 

Throughout the play, there’s an emphasis on contracts (not just legal contracts).

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Social contracts- not written on paper but there. And if you violate it, society will look down on you.

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Ex: The contract of marriage (gender roles)

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Nora/the wife- like a child. Needs protection and security. Has to obey

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Torvald/ the husband- the protector/provider. The authority figure. Has to provide the money for the house.

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The implications of the contract go even beyond marriage.

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The family must be respectable and has to be perceived by society as adhering to social “norms”. This is seen through displays of wealth, having a maid.

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Because the wife was so inferior to the husband, she also wasn’t really expected to do anything around the house and the children

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Honour was also a big thing-Torvalds’s honour meant everything to him (even more than losing his wife).

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Nora (the woman’s role) is supposed to appear helpless-not that she is! 

She had the cleverness to get the loan from Krogstad etc, but she can’t tell him because he is the one who would typically do this; it would upset the balance of their relationship.

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Also, Nora’s physical appearance is a big thing 

She is almost a decorative figure—she needs to look beautiful and attractive for her husband; she can make her wits known to him in later years after her beauty has withered away (and no longer matters).

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At the end of Act 3, the discussion on knitting and embroidery. In both you are creating something, however Torvald only cares about the one that’s more aesthetically pleasing to look at. Similarly, embroidery is also really only used for decoration while knitting can be for decoration, clothes etc.

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Another time when Torvald uses the word miraculous is when he is kissing Nora’s neck and he describes its “miraculous curve”-physical appearance again!

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Throughout the play Nora considers suicide (is she serious? We don’t really know).

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When during her conversation with Lindy, she says she is waiting for the “miraculous” thing to happen, the “chivalrous” thing to happen- she hopes that Torvald (being the man and therefore having to follow the role of the man) will take the blame for her actions when the time comes and when he does, that’s when she’ll step forward and admit that she’s responsible (lorl).

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It never happens lol

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So Torvald not only has to provide her with financial security, stability, he also has to take the blames for faults committed by her and not him.

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Masks/disguises/masquerades –

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Near the end of Act 1, Torvald describes Krogstad. The words that he uses could be applied to Nora too! He uses a disease imagery to convey how dirty and the household will be because of all the lies and misconceptions floating around in it.

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All these people are really wearing masks somehow!

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The talk about masquerades in Act 3!

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Torvald later on forgives her (and demeans her as a woman while basically summing up their respective gender roles). While doing that, he doesn’t sympathize with her, he only focuses on him (“I am saved”) even though she did all that she did for him.

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Later on, taking off “my masquerade costume”- she is literally taking off her costume and also removing the mask, the façade of her fake happiness and her bad marriage. Up until this point, she was wearing her beautiful dress in which she danced and sang for her husband’s entertainment.

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He tells her that she’s abandoning her duties to him and the children and her duty to herself (as the traditional woman). She says before everything she is a human being and has a duty to herself as such.

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Traditional religious beliefs (in addition to traditional gender roles in marriage) were being challenged left and right during that time.

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But even Nora doesn’t know specifically what to believe (she says this!), she just knows she can’t just accept what she’s told anymore).

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Torvald vs. Rank

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“There’s certain people that one loves most and people that one prefers spending time with”.

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Daddy vs maids

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Rank and the maids at least, don’t tell her what to do all the time.

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Torvald and Daddy- authority figures; the patriarchy (religion is also very much patriarchal!)

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To actually achieve a miraculous thing, they would both have to change themselves-she’s the main character but even Torvald was playing a bit of a role too!

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The door slamming at the end is the most controversial part of the play (boom!)...