The purpose of this research is to examine the character Torvald Helmer in Ibsen's A Doll House. The plan of the research will be to set forth in general terms the context in which Torvald's character emerges, and then to discuss the moment-by-moment unfolding of the character's manifest behavior and the psychology or subtext that underpins it.
A Doll House, written in 1879, belongs to Ibsen's cycle of twelve naturalistic plays that started with Pillars of Society in 1877 and ended with When We Dead Awaken in 1900 (Johnston 47, 50). Johnston sees Hegel's philosophical system as elaborated in Phenomenology of Mind [Spirit], "which describes the emergence of Spirit from the sub-ethical `community of animals' and its ascent through various phases, manifested in History, up to the final phase of Spirit adequately positing itself" (Johnston 49). Johnston characterizes Ibsen's narrative design as dialectical, noting that in Hegel's dialectical account, Spirit "advances by a series of dramatic negations--by negating inadequate prior selves. Each of these negations is a spiritual `death,' but a death which is positive, which `converts the negative into being'" (49). A Doll House is connected to Hegel's discussion of the notion of "Reason as Lawgiver" and "Reason as a Test of Love" (Johnston 50). Thus A Doll House is a negation of the "prior self" of Pillars of Society, which is connected to Hegel's treatment of "Society as a Community of Animals." In turn, the thesis of A Doll House collides with that of Ghosts, the next play in the cycle, connected to Hegel's discussion of "Law Divine and Human, Man and Woman" (Johnston 50). On Johnston's view, each succeeding play of the naturalistic cycle explores the consequences in human society of the choices made by human society.
Torvald can be understood as instrumental in elaboration of the pattern of ideas emergent in the play. In this regard, Johnston refers to Nora's ethical awakening as par...