Society's Expectations: In the Play The Doll´s House Essay

Later in Act I, her friend Mrs. Linde visits Nora. Even in their conversation Mrs. Linde comments on Nora's childish behavior. "Well my heavens - a little needlework and such - Nora, you're just a child." (Ibsen 1511). Nora quickly defends herself, in some sense to regain her standing within her own ranks. "I've also got something to be proud and happy for. I'm the one who saved Torvald's life." (Ibsen 1511). By doing this Nora is secretly undermining society and providing for her husband. In contrast to society beliefs at the time, shouldn't a wife provide for her husband in his sickness? Thus creating an interesting paradox passed upon wedding vows. Apparently not or Nora would have confided in Torvald sooner. "Mrs. Linde: And you've never confided..." (Ibsen 1512).

In A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen, is a play about the personal revolution of a Norwegian housewife. Nora appears to be happy with mindlessly obeying her husband, until it is discovered that she has a secret debt that she has hidden from him. Krogstad, Nora’s loaner, threatens to reveal the debt to her husband. When it is inadvertently revealed, Nora realizes the lack of depth of her husband’s feelings for her and leaves their established household and family to find her own personal identity. The theme of A Doll’s House is that societal norms restrict personal freedom.

Nora’s refusal to stay in the marriage, however, does not give us a sense of a liberated woman. By the end of the play we are concerned for Nora as she leaves the warmth of the family home for the cold outside as a single woman since we have seen Christine so desperate to get into the ‘warmth’. This ‘warmth’ can be defined as being a person being accepted for fulfilling the gender roles which society constructs for both men and women. Women appear to be reliant on the existence of a husband in their life in order to have a respected status within society and therefore feel fulfilled. Christine feels unfulfilled without anybody in her life: ‘I only feel my life unspeakably empty. No one to live for anymore’ (9). Christine is an independent woman but we can see that she is unhappy at the fact that she has not met the social stereotype for her gender. She functions to show how difficult it is for a woman to survive on her own. Christine realises she will be far more comfortable and regarded better by society with a husband and we believe that she feels that any husband will satisfy the expectations of her gender better than being single. This explains why she settles for a dubious moral character. Faced with only two possible decisions Christine settles for the lesser of two evils.

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

In Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House, pointedly captures the reality of the Victorian Era within the play. Nora Helmer, the protagonist of the story, represents the typical women in society during that era. The audience’s first impression of Nora is a money obsessed, childish, obedient house wife to her husband, Torvald Helmer. However, as the play progresses one can see that Nora is far from being that typical ideal trophy wife, she is an impulsive liar who goes against society’s norm to be whom and what she wants. Her husband is illustrated as the stereotypical man during the 19th century, as he is the dominate breadwinner of the family, who too deserts his position as the play reaches its end. A key theme that is brought to light in A

Each time Nora finds herself unable to help herself the problem is easily directly traced back to her husband, her father, and to the overbearing dominance of the male society. She tries to save the life of the man she thinks she loves and in doing so sees how she has become a victim of her own ignorance which has been brought upon her by the men in her life.

In the beginning, Nora acts and speaks like a child saying things like “Pooh!”(Act 1). Ibsen showshow he thinks dependant and uneducated woman are naive and almost childlike. Nora and Torvald’s relationship is almost exactly how her and her father’s relationship had been, with the man completely controlling Nora, and Nora acting like an obedient child. Nora had not been independent with her father and when she marries Torvald she is also completely dependant on him for everything she wants or needs. Both Nora’s father and Torvald coddle Nora and treat her like a delicate doll so she is never fully is independent. At one point in the play Torvald even admits he finds Nora more attractive because of her dependence on him. Christine Linde is

A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen, creates a peephole into the lives of a family in the Victorian Era. The play portrays a female viewpoint in a male-dominated society. The values of the society are described using the actions of a woman, Nora, who rebels against the injustices inflicted upon her gender. Women’s equality with men was not recognized by society in the late 1800’s. Rather, a woman was considered a doll, a child, and a servant. Nora’s alienation reveals society’s assumptions and values about gender.

Nora, at first, is very simple minded. A reader would not think much of her when reacting to her

The enforcement of specific gender roles by societal standards in 19th century married life proved to be suffocating. Women were objects to perform those duties for which their gender was thought to have been created: to remain complacent, readily accept any chore and complete it “gracefully” (Ibsen 213). Contrarily, men were the absolute monarchs over their respective homes and all that dwelled within. In Henrik Ibsen’s play, A Doll’s House, Nora is subjected to moral degradation through her familial role, the consistent patronization of her husband and her own assumed subordinance. Ibsen belittles the role of the housewife through means of stage direction, diminutive pet names and through Nora’s interaction with her morally ultimate

Another thing that these female characters sacrifice in this society, is job availability. Nora has to find little work to help her pay off her debt, but nothing really serious. Mrs. Linde really needs to support herself, but she has no other way to get a decent job. This compels her to ask her old friend Nora to help her acquire a job.

Nora is treated like a child by Torvald, but she is accustomed to it and believes he loves her dearly. However, an important component of a successful and true marriage is trust, which is lacking in the Helmers’ marriage. Nora keeps a secret from Torvald while he is reluctant to trust her with money, let alone his reputation (Ibsen 2, 3, 13). When Torvald discovers that Nora has kept a secret from him, he is furious and takes away her right to raise the children without a second thought (Ibsen 83). However, while Torvald was throwing a fit, Nora comprehends that he has never loved her and that she was forcing herself to believe she loved him (Ibsen 87). Like Nora, Edna knew that she and her husband, Leonce, never loved each other; she thought he was her ticket out of her old life while he thought of her as his possession (Chopin 8, 29). Both Edna and Nora were raised to be obedient wives, but Edna, after her awakening, felt like marriage was “one of the most lamentable spectacles on earth” and did not try to save her marriage (Chopin 100). Love was sometimes not a factor that determined marriage; money and image was usually more preferred.

Her first instinct is to feel pity for Mrs. Linde’s lack of children or husband, classifying her “utterly alone” state as “terribly sad” and inferior to the life she has with Torvald (Ibsen 8). This all changes, however, once Nora agrees to help Mrs. Linde. By binding herself to a woman instead of a man for the first time, she reaches a further state of awareness. When Mrs. Linde mentions Nora’s “lack of trouble and hardship” and calls her a child, Nora becomes defensive, alluding to her displeasure with her position in society (Ibsen 12). “You’re just like the rest of them,” she claims, “you all think I’m useless when it comes to anything really serious...” (Ibsen 12). The “them” and “you all” in Nora’s pivotal statement refers to the men who have bound Nora to the state of a useless doll in a dollhouse: dependent, incapable, and unenlightened—merely nice to play with and pretty to look at.

Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” is a play about a young wife and her husband. Nora and Helmer seem to be madly in love with one another and very happy with their lives together. Yet the conflict comes into this show when Nora brags to her friend Ms. Linde about how she had forged her father’s name to borrow money to save her husband’s life and how she had been secretly paying off this debt. Helmer finds out about this crime and is furious, until he finds that no one will ever know about it. This entire conflict is written to bring to light the ridiculous social expectations demanded of both women and men. Ibsen expertly leads the audience into accepting that these social expectations are foolish and wrong. The audience

Nora is able to get Kristine employment at the bank, now that Torvald is manager, and thanks Nora. Kristine doesn’t know, however, that the job that she is taking at the bank belongs to Nils. Nils knows that with Torvald gaining the position of manager at the bank, his job there is now in jeopardy and decides that the only way for him to keep his job there is to blackmail Nora. Nora tells Kristine about her problem with Nils and Kristine says that she will help Nora since she and Nils are acquainted, and that, “there was a time that he would have done anything for [her]” (Ibsen 56). Finally, when Kristine and Nils encounter one another after years apart they talk about their previous relationship. Nils was a little bitter about the way that Kristine left him for someone, “more profitable” but Kristine states that deciding to leave Nils was not easy that she had to because of her duty to support her family. Nils describes himself as, “a broken man clinging to the wreckage of his life” (Ibsen 64) while Kristine says that she is a broken woman doing the same, and suggests that both cling to one together wreck instead. Kristine goes on to say that she has been alone for quite some time and she needs “someone to mother and [Nils’s] children need a mother” (Ibsen 65) to which Nils agrees and is overjoyed by the thought of them being together