Evolution Within a People in A Doll's House and An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen

In the play “A Doll’s House” written by Henrik Ibsen Nora is an iconic character who happens to fall victim to being a doll. This play took place in the mid 1900s, where women were expected to do anything there husband asked of them and supported everything they did or said. She is a very dynamic character because her personality changes and mindset changes throughout the story, causing her actions to change. As the story begins, she acts like a child and is afraid to speak up and say what she believes because she doesn’t want to go against her father’s or husband’s word. But towards the end of the story she does what she pleases and doesn’t feel the need to answer to anyone or justify her decisions, causing her to be at fault in some ways.

In Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Nora Helmer is a traditional “angel in the house” she is a human being, but first and foremost a wife and a mother who is devoted to the care of her children, and the happiness of her husband. The play is influenced by the Victorian time period when the division of men and women was evident, and each gender had their own role to conform to. Ibsen’s views on these entrenched values is what lead to the A Doll’s House becoming so controversial as the main overarching theme of A Doll’s House is the fight for independence in an otherwise patriarchal society. This theme draws attention to how women are capable in their own rights, yet do not govern their own lives due to the lack of legal entitlement and

A Doll’s house is a criticism of the subjugation of women during those period. We can infer from the theme of the novel that the author Henrik Ibsen was a strong Feminist as he created characters that fought for the rights of women. The central character of A Doll’s house, Nora fought for the same cause. A Dolls house speaks about women’s rights.The feminist ideologies of Nora were revealed in the end of the novel. Nora was the upholder of womens rights. She struggled against the selfish, stifling, oppressive and dominating attitude of her Husband Torvald and the society which he represents. Nora journey lead to her self-discovery as she fought against the exploitation of women by men. Torvald represents the orthodox society and Nora is the advocate of feminism. Torvald did not give any privilege to Nora and called her silly names throughout the play. He called her ‘squirrel’, ‘lark’, ‘little skylark’, ‘little songbird’, ‘little person’, ‘little woman’, and ‘little

The central theme of A Doll’s House is Nora’s rebellion against society and everything that was expected of her. Nora shows this by breaking away from all the standards and expectations her husband and society had set up for her. In her time women weren’t supposed to be independent. They were to support their husbands, take care of the children, cook, clean, and make everything perfect around the house.

It is easy to forget how far our society has come in the last hundred years in recognizing the equality of all people. Often when we take a look into the past what we see is very shocking. Such is the case in a Doll House by Henrik Ibsen. Here we see Nora presented as a victim of her father and male dominated society; however she also plays the role of victimizer against her husband, family, and friends. As Nora takes both sides of the conflict we see how she is forced into both roles.

In the play “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen, Nora goes through a transformation of self-realization. Nora lives a doll-like existence. she responds lovingly to her husband’s pet names such as “my little lark” or “my little squirrel” (Ibsen, 793). She does not mind playing a role for her husband. As the play progresses, Nora show that she is not a little girl. She understands how business work by taking out a loan behind her husband’s back to save his life. When she is blackmail by Krogstad, her eyes open to her unfulfilled and underappreciated life. she realizes that she been putting on a show for her husband. Nora has pretended to be someone else in order to fulfilled a role for not only her husband but also her father

   An underlying theme in A Doll's House, by Henrik Ibsen, is the rebellion against social expectations to follow what one believes in their heart. This theme is demonstrated as several of the play's characters break away from the social norms of their time and act on their own beliefs. No one character demonstrates this better than Nora.  Nora rebels against social expectations, first by breaking the law, and later by taking the drastic step of abandoning her husband and children.

Thus, it isn’t viewed as a need for immediate change and is slowly forgotten. Only through persistency and accumulation of joint efforts can actual change be done. This is paralleled in Devil in a Blue Dress, in which peaceful discourse is undertaken by Easy to obtain information. Easy approaches Frank and Junior in a peaceful manner, but his own lack of power and their dominating presence makes his investigations obsolete. This shows how a single small force against a bigger force is futile, yet, small cumulative advances can get results.

This change occurs through her realization regarding her unequal marriage and that Torvald has no true love for her as an individual. At the beginning, it seems as if Nora is aware of her lower status than her husband, however, she chooses to overlook it. She realizes that her marriage was incomplete and not a true companionship between two individuals, when Torvald opens the blackmail letter and he reacts opposite to what she expects. This event is used to display Ibsen's thoughts regarding this inequality. Throughout A Doll's House, Ibsen uses stage directions and diction to show the development in Nora Helmer's character.

Henrik Ibsen personifies his personal beliefs through his choice of characters in A Doll’s House. Ibsen describes his main character, Nora, as someone who is innocent, childlike, very much so content with life and protected by her husband (Gassner xiii). Her actions lead readers to believe that she is someone with no power in her relationship and is someone with very little control over her own actions and life. This initial character would easily be considered a foil to the latter version of her character. She changes herself entirely throughout the play and the opinions of herself and loved ones goes to prove this character change.

Henrik Ibsen, in his play, A Doll House uses the actions of Nora to reveal society's expectations of women, as caregivers of a household and as submissive to men. Despite these societal standards Ibsen uses Nora to prove these expectations as unfair.

In Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll House, Ibsen tells a story of a wife and mother who not only has been wronged by society, but by her beloved father and husband because of her gender. Nora left her father’s house as a naïve daughter only to be passed to the hands of her husband forcing her to be naïve wife and mother, or so her husband thinks. When Nora’s husband, Torvald becomes deathly ill, she takes matters into her own hands and illegally is granted a loan that will give her the means to save her husband’s life. Her well guarded secret is later is used against her, to exort Torvald, who was clueless that his wife was or could be anything more than he made her. However, Nora has many unrecognized dimensions “Besides being lovable, Nora is

Set in late 19th century Norway, Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House parallels the societal standards of the time, a patriarchal society. This resulting framework reinforces a strict social stratum that seeks to marginalize women and develop the rapport of superior to inferior. The drama presents an archetypical housewife named Nora Helmer who grows dissatisfied and disillusioned with her patronizing husband, Torvald. Content with the status quo of the time, Torvald embraces the schema of the “man’s role” in a marriage - interacting with Nora as her father would; his accomplishment of such an ideal is qualified through the quantifiable. Through indirect characterization, the theme of appearance v. reality, and a motif of beauty, Ibsen portrays

In an unsigned notice in The Daily News of June 1889 a writer condemns Nora’s actions, “Deserting her home, her husband, and above all her children, simply because she finds her husband is angry with her…it may be confidently asserted that no women who ever breathed would do any such thing” (1889). Clement Scott, editor of Theatre, would not even describe her action as human but “a thing that one of the lower animals would not do” (1889a, p. 114) and in an article for The Daily Telegraph even calls Nora “absolutely inhuman” (1889b, p. 102). This shock reaction was understandable in a culture that had defined a women’s place in society, or metaphorically, placed women in a box; the fact that Nora chose to step out of that box was an issue of serious debate. If Nora should desert her place in society then so could others. However W.E Simonds, having read H.F Lord’s translation of A Dolls’ House, reprimanded any critic for calling Nora selfish and failing to see Nora’s womanliness and “emancipated individuality” (1890, p. 147). It is this emancipation of the individual that could be the solution to discovering a theme beyond Ibsen’s feminism. Even Ibsen himself disclaimed any conscious efforts on his part to write A Doll’s House as a way of rallying for the women’s rights movement and claimed it to be purposeful description of humanity (cited in Templeton 1997, p. 110). Templeton goes on to explain that Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen was born into the Norwegian bourgeois social class. His father, Knud Ibsen, was a merchant and his mother, Marichen Ibsen, “painted, played the piano and loved to go to the theater” (“Henrik” 1). The Ibsen family lost their social status when Knud lost his merchant business. They lived in poverty. All traces of the family business were sold off to cover the debt the family had. Henrik began to focus on literature and became a playwright using childhood and adult experiences as influences. Henrik resented the upper classes of society since his family had been a part of it, only to have it crumble underneath their feet. In 1879, A Doll’s House was published using his experience with the bourgeoisie class to construct the world Nora and Torvald live in.