The society and era represented in A Doll’s House was one wherein women were objectified to the point where they had little, if any, voice in the male dominated order. Nora is such a women in a world that is defined by men (mainly, for her, her father and husband). The play A Doll’s House created a social uproar upon its initial release because as much as it is a piece of dramatic theater it is also social critique. The issues the play criticized were largely the prevailing conventions of the era regarding the role of woman, including her roles as daughter, wife and mother/homemaker. A Doll’s House is the story of Nora Helmer, a woman who has been spoiled, sheltered and petted her whole life, much like a doll. She is treated like a virtual idiot by her father and when she marries her husband, he immediately treats her in a similar manner. Nora is filled with character qualities that cannot be contained by the artificial boundaries imposed upon her by the men in her life and society’s expectations for women during the era. Nora herself retained illusions about her husband as well. She did love him dutifully at one point and even committed forgery in order to save his life. However, even though Nora repaid the money when her husband discovers her act, his reaction hits Nora like a thunderbolt of recognition—she realizes that in the eight years they have been married her husband has never viewed her as a human being. This analysis will discuss how the objectification of women in this era prevents the relationship between Nora and Torvald from maturing into a balanced male-female relationship.
During the course of their marriage, Torvald has seen Nora much more so as a doll than a wife, something that is a possession that exists only to be sheltered and petted. This objectifies Nora as nothing more than a doll, a possession of her husband’s and not a full-fledged partner in a relationship. In order to make a sta...