tement about her own identity, Nora leaves her husband in order to find her true self. When she slammed the door on Torvald, she was slamming the door on many preconceived notions of women and their role in her era. The play’s artistic merit is also coupled with a profound social impact because of its enlightened realism, one in which Ibsen likens woman’s condition in society as one which is servile to male defined boundaries.
Ibsen outside of his plays spoke out about the confining nature of women’s roles in his era, “A woman cannot be herself in contemporary society, it is an exclusively male society with laws drafted by men, and with counsel and judges who judge feminine conduct from the male point of view….Modern society is not a human society; it is only a society of males” (Fjelde 153).
If we look at critiques of Ibsen’s play, we find them quite useful at adding to a fuller understanding of the work, including its characters, themes and symbols which help define the objectification of women in the role of wife. If we look at the play closely, we see Ibsen’s writing is all about symbolism. Ibsen does not waste words if they do not convey some type of meaning to his work. Each phrase and structure contributes significantly to the overall whole. As many argue, symbolism in Ibsen is not limited to setting devices, like the Christmas tree, but, because w
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