A Doll's House

A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen, is perhaps one of the most hotly debated plays to come out of the 19th century. The 19th century continued the process of cultural demystification that began with the Enlightenment. The 19th century theater, in particular Ibsen’s theater, ruthlessly challenged the social and cultural mores of Victorian Europe. It may be suggested that this confrontation with the century’s social problems was in large part due to the move toward realism in the theater. The movement toward realism, which, like the 19th century in general, was an attempt to become more scientific. Indeed, Ibsen’s realist theater tackled social problems with a seriousness that was shocking to the Victorian establishment. Ibsen, like his character Nora, knew that it was time for serious talk in a space where serious talk had never previously taken place. We hear this in Nora’s closing confrontation with Torvald:

Nora: It doesn’t occur to you, does it, that though we’ve been married for eight years, this is the first time that we two--man and wife--have sat down for a serious talk?

Helmer: What do you mean by serious?

Nora: During eight whole years, no--more than that--ever since the first day we met--we have never exchanged so much as one serious word about series things.

Ibsen is considered by many as the father of realism and one of the plays that belongs to Ibsen’s realism period is A

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ut was an ideological construct that masked inequality and forced segregation on the basis of sex” (Templeton 138). Templeton sees Nora as the force that dismantles the apparently ideal Victorian marriage. Ibsen’s realistic stage allows for a visual representation of this dismantling. In other words, the set is not merely a convention of the 19th century realist theater, the set is symbolic of the tensions and concepts that the play wishes to communicate to us. Ibsen, through the use of realistic stage setting, can show a typical Victorian Household and marriage fall to pieces. The picture of the perfect household that is contained in the setting is symbolic for both Nora and Torvald. It is symbolic for Nora because it is her job to keep the surface of their lives clean and tidy. But is also symbolic of her attempt to hide the secrets she has inside. By the play’s end Nora will emerge as the person she really is, a person stripped of the mask of the perfect Victorian household: “At last, in an extraordinary scene, she declares that she can no longer live in her doll’s house; husband and wife sit down at opposite ends of a table and argue out the situation...Nora dashes out into the city, into the night; while the curta
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1731
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)