Critical Opinion:
In
his preliminary notes to A Doll's House (1879) titled “Notes for
the Tragedy of Modern Times” Ibsen wrote that: “There
are two kinds of moral law, two kinds of conscience, one in man and a
completely different one in woman. They do not understand each other;
but in matters of practical living the woman is judged by man's law,
as if she were not a woman but a man.”
Ibsen does not weigh the value of one law over the other, but rather
sees injustice in the fact that only one is prized while the other is
devalued. Consequently, “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.”
At the time the play was written, Ibsen had strong opinions on the
subject of women’s rights. In February 1979, when his proposal to
the Scandinavian Club in Rome that its female members be granted
equal voting rights was narrowly defeated, he made a blistering
attack on the male majority, daring them to assert that women were in
any way inferior to men in culture, intelligence, knowledge or
artistic talent.
Nora
has committed a crime, and she is proud of it; because she did it for
love of her husband and to save his life. But the husband, with his
conventional views of honour, stands on the side of the law and looks
at the affair with male eyes. Therefore,
the conflict arises when there is a clash between Torvald's sense of
justice and that of Nora's. For Nora, the kind of laws that prevent a
woman from doing anything she can to save her husband and her home
are senseless. In my opinion, Torvald should not have judged Nora's
action solely on them being right or wrong in the eyes of the
society, rather, the circumstances under which Nora acted are equally
important. In a sense, when Torvald tells Nora that she is a foolish
woman who should not have committed the illegal act of forgery, he is
telling her she should have let him die. Nora had no choice but to
borrow money from Krogstad to send Torvald abroad for his medical
recovery. During the days of Torvald's terrible sickness, the burden
of responsibility and decision-making fell completely on Nora's
shoulders and given the circumstances and the limitations, she did
the best she could to steer the ship of her home out of the storm.
Nora is
presented as the beloved, adored wife of Torvald
Helmer.
He is an admirable man, rigidly honest, of high moral ideals, and
passionately devoted to his wife and children. In short, a good man
and an enviable husband. Almost every mother would be proud of such a
match for her daughter, and the latter would consider herself
fortunate to become the wife of such a man. Nora,
too, considers herself fortunate. Indeed, she worships her husband,
believes in him implicitly, and is sure that if ever her safety
should be menaced, Torvald,
her idol, her god, would perform the miracle. Her purpose in life is
to be happy for her husband's sake, for the sake of the children; to
sing, dance, and play with them. When a woman loves as Nora does,
nothing else matters; least of all, social, legal or moral
considerations. Therefore, when her husband's life is threatened, it
is no effort, it is joy for Nora to
forge her father's name to a note and borrow 800 Kroner on it, in
order to take her sick husband to Italy. In her eagerness to serve
her husband, and in perfect innocence of the legal aspect of her act,
she does not give the matter much thought, except for her anxiety to
shield him from any emergency that may call upon him to perform the
miracle in her behalf.
In
the play we see Torvald undermining Nora's role when he treats her
like a delicate doll. He doesn't want
Nora to think too much. She should just be his “little
bird”, “little squirrel,” who is held captive in a cage. It
shows that Helmer had the desire to control Nora. He even says: “And
I wouldn’t want my pretty little song-bird to be the least bit
different from what she is now.”
‘How
lovely she is, Rank. Look at the delicate bending of her neck. What
grace in her movements, and she is unaware of it’.
Torvald takes aesthetic pride in this beauty of his wife, displaying
Nora as his art object. When
Nora referred to her own opinion, Helmer would correct her in a way
of a father. Nora
didn’t want to be considered good for nothing. She felt like
depending on her own strength to do the whole thing. In fact, she was
proud that she saved Helmer’s life; she got out of her debts by
herself little by little. It made her feel that she was worthwhile.
Even Mrs. Linde believes that Nora is a child, she has not grown up
and has not witnessed the troubles of the world. Hearing this makes
Nora angry. “You
are just like the others. They all think that I am incapable of
anything really serious.” It is to Mrs. Linde that Nora first
reveals the reality to and expresses her feelings. “I too have
something to be proud and glad of. It was I who saved Torvald's
life.” She even expresses how she felt when she was burdened with
the responsibility of sustaining her family.
Nora: …Last winter I was
lucky enough to get quite a bit of copying to do. So I shut myself up
every night and sat and wrote through to the small hours of the
morning. Oh, sometimes I was so tired, so tired. But it was
tremendous fun all the same, sitting there working and earning money
like that. It was almost like being a man.
Ibsen
attacks headlong the nineteenth-century
convention of women as incompetent, emotionally-laden, “feeling”
creatures incapable of “action”- the supposed domain of men.
Nora's backstage manipulation of her father's finances demonstrates
her capacity for action, her alacrity for calculation, and her
rational understanding of multiple consequences. Her surface
appearance as the ditzy, tarantella-dancing, macaroon-eating trophy
wife veils her comprehension of her social conditions; she is
enveloped in the theatrical mask of the role she no longer wishes to
play. For Ibsen, there is a correlative between Nora's emancipation
and her abandonment of her children. Freedom will be an
uncompromising, modernist motif for Ibsen; even children must be
sacrificed to the deity of liberation. Nora realizes that she was
merely a ritualistic pawn, passed down as she was from her father to
her husband, and that she is unworthy of motherhood until she grasps
her identity without anyone's aid. The duty of the individual toward
himself, the task of self-realization, the enforcement of one's own
nature against the narrow-minded and out-of-date conventions of
bourgeois society is Ibsen's social message.
In
support of such ideas, following are the words of Bernard Shaw from
Out Theatres
in the Nineties:
“The
woman’s eyes are opened; and instantly her doll’s dress is thrown
off and her husband is left staring at her, helpless, bound
thenceforth either to do without her or else treat her as a human
being like himself, fully recognizing that he is not a creature of
one superior species, Man, living with a creature of another and
inferior species, Woman, but that Mankind is male and female, like
other kinds, and that the inequality of the sexes is literally a cock
and bull story, certain to end in such unbearable humiliation as that
which our suburban King Arthurs suffer at the hands of Ibsen.”
Torvald’s
shock over the revelations in Krogstad’s first letter is severe. He
is in the hands of a blackmailer who can do what he likes with him.
Furthermore, his pure doll wife is a criminal. His collapse reveals
to Nora the fantasy world she has inhabited. She realizes that she
knows neither reality nor herself, and she certainly does not know
Torvald. She has lived an inauthentic doll existence, bearing three
children to a stranger. Nora's epiphany causes her to take the
decision of leaving Torvald and her children in order to take a
journey of self-discovery. Nora manages to break free from the roll
she has been playing throughout. When Nora closes
behind her the door of her doll's house, she opens wide the gate of
life for woman, and proclaims the revolutionary message that only
perfect freedom and communion make a true bond between man and woman,
meeting in the open, without lies, without shame, free from the
bondage of duty.
When
Nora buys gifts for her children, she purchases a sword for Ivor, a
horse and trumpet for Bob and a doll and doll's bed for Emmy. These
gifts are convention bound, and imply a mindset elaborated into the
culture. In a way Nora is passing on the same ideals of feminine roll
to her daughter that she herself were given by her father. Torvald,
being a determinist, believes such patterns cannot, must not be
broken. “It’s deep in your blood. Yes, these things are
hereditary, Nora.” However, Nora learns that if this pattern brings
about an intolerable situation (“I've lived by doing tricks for
you, Torvald”, says Nora), then this pattern can and must be
broken.
“I
think that before all else I am a human being, just as much as you
are--or, at least, I will try to become one. I know that most people
agree with you, Torvald, and that they say so in books. But
henceforth I can't be satisfied with what most people say, and what
is in books. I must think things out for myself and try to get clear
about them. . . . I had been living here these eight years with a
strange man, and had borne him three children--Oh! I can't bear to
think of it--I could tear myself to pieces!. . . . I can't spend the
night in a strange man's house.” -Nora Helmer (Act III)
Helmer's rage
over Nora's crime subsides the moment the danger of
publicity is averted--proving that Helmer, like many a moralist,
is not so much incensed at Nora's offense as by the fear of
being found out. Not for Nora: finding out is her salvation. It is
then that she realizes how much she has been wronged, that she is
only a plaything, a doll to Helmer. In her disillusionment she
says, "You have never loved me. You only thought it amusing to
be in love
with me."
The
other female character is Mrs. Linde, who after losing her husband
and having no children, feels as if her life is empty and she has
nothing to live for. In my opinion she is unable to define herself
and justify her existence without a family to live and care for.
While talking to Nora in Act 1 she expresses herself: “I only feel
my life unspeakably empty. No one to live for anymore.” She
wished to start a family again and immerse herself in the role of
motherhood with Krogstad. She has no higher aims about her life or
any sort of individual aspirations that need fulfilling besides
busying herself in family life once more. She has spent her life
taking care of family members such as her mother, brothers and her
husband who later died. This is what she knows and is best at.
Therefore, she does not deviate from this path and continues to walk
on it, unlike Nora.
Torvald
Helmer is a man who believes that he is the one responsible for his
household and he must make all decisions. He is immersed in the
typical patriarchal role. In Act II Torvald tells Nora that if some
sort of harm comes to them from Krogstad's meddling he will act as a
man should. “Come
what will, you may be sure I shall have both courage and strength if
they be needed. You will see I am man enough to take everything upon
myself.” In Act III Helmer tells Mrs. Linde that instead of working
in a bank she should take up embroidery, which will be more befitting
her. This shows that he has the stereotypical ideals of the different
roles of men and women. According to him women should just sing,
dance, please their husbands and take care of the children. However,
the real face of Torvald comes to light when the conflict hit him
with full force and he comes to know the secret that Nora has been
hiding from him. As soon as he sees the light of truth, he starts
speaking foully about his wife for whom he has been using nothing but
honey-coated praises and compliments throughout the play. “What
a horrible awakening! All these eight years--she who was my joy and
pride--a hypocrite, a liar--worse, worse--a criminal! The unutterable
ugliness of it all!--For shame! For shame! I ought to have suspected
that something of the sort would happen. I ought to have foreseen
it.”
His whole attitude towards his wife suddenly changes and his mask of
being a protective husband slips off. “Now
you
have destroyed all my happiness. You have ruined all my future. It is
horrible to think of! And I must sink to such miserable depths
because of a thoughtless woman!”
He becomes obsessed with his own being and gives no thought to what
Nora is going through. All he cares about is what is going to happen
to him and his life. His demeanor once again changes when he gets the
letter from Krogstad saying that he has sent Nora's bond back. “I
am saved! Nora, I am saved!” At this point Nora, too realizes that
Torvald was solely concerned about himself and his reputation, and
this instinctive exclamation proves it.
In
my opinion, Torvald is a man who has immense pride of himself and his
superior knowledge. Throughout the play he keeps asserting that he
knows better, and that all Nora should do is engage in frivolous
activities such as dancing and singing. Even at the end of the play
he believes that his forgiveness will restore everything to the way
it was, and that his forgiveness is such a rare, shining golden
object that Nora is having a hard time believing she has earned it.
His sense of superiority is inflated when he starts to believe that
he must teach Nora and act as her guide. He loves the idea that she
relies on him, and even when she practices her Tarantella dance, he
acts as her teacher and says that she has much to learn and needs a
lot of practice. After the truth is revealed and he realizes that he
is saved, he once again turns to Nora in order to instruct and teach
her. “Only
you had not sufficient knowledge to judge of the means you used. But
do you suppose you are any the less dear to me, because you don't
understand how to act on your own responsibility? No, no; only lean
on me; I will advise you and direct you.”
He feels he must guide his helpless wife through the perils of the
world. It's almost as if Torvald has cast himself as the hero in his
own melodramatic play.
However, his selfish and self-centered dialogues make him less than a
hero. He is a narrow-minded person who refuses to accept that a
woman, his wife Nora, could be anything more than a beautiful doll to
embellish his home.
Conclusion:
All
in all, the play 'A Doll's House' by Ibsen is realist in the sense
that it explores and presents the characters according to the way
people of the society in those days acted or thought. Ibsen's
characters are unique and distinct from those in the plays written
previously and urge the reader to think and ponder upon the issues
that surround the society and familial ties.
References:
- Johnston, B. (2004) "Ibsen's Selected Plays"; A Norton Critical Edition, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, U.S.A. pp. 471-476.
- Krasner, D. (2012); A Hisory of Modern Drama Vol.1; Wiley-Blackwell, West Sussex, U.K.
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Credit -Moneeza Rafiq
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