Symbolism in A Doll's House. by Henrik Ibsen Essays

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

The Christmas tree in itself is symbolic and it means the play takes place during Christmastime. Ibsen uses Christmas tree to mainly construct the character of Nora. The Christmas tree symbolizes the feelings of

She points out to Torvald that their marriage was a clear failure when she questions Torvald, “How could you ever teach me to be a proper wife? Your wife?” (Ibsen 82). To this question Torvald is unable to provide a reasonable answer hence proving Nora’s point about the failure of their marriage. Further, the sudden change in Nora’s behavior during the second half of the play is significant as it symbolizes her clear intent to depart from the house in search of her inner-self.

In Act I, Nora decorates the tree as a response to Krogstad’s threat. The Christmas season is symbolic of family happiness, and the Christmas tree, being a representation of the Christmas season, is an embodiment of such Christmas spirit. Her action of decorating the Christmas tree hence symbolizes the effort she puts into maintaining the happiness of her family by reinforcing the illusion of the marriage. This is explicitly shown through Nora’s emphasis that she would “do everything that [Torvald likes]” while decorating the tree, sustaining her performance as the ideal housewife, which is the foundation to the illusion of the perfect marriage. Nora’s efforts are shown spatially through the central position of the tree on-stage, which is the focal position in drama, and reveals Nora’s focus of attention being put onto her family. At the end of Act I, however, Torvald ironically equates Krogstad’s “poison[ous]” morality to Nora’s, which “contaminates” and “poisons” her home. In Nora’s mindset, his words imply that her efforts, past and future, are deemed useless in securing her family’s safety, prompting her to become hopeless and destroyed when faced with Krogstad’s threat and can no longer focus on her commitment to her family, reflected in the change of position of the Christmas tree from centre to “the corner” of the same

In Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House, there is plenty of symbolism that helps the play to move forward. Symbols as small as Nora eating macaroons, the tarantella dance, and the Christmas tree to as broad as New Year’s. The macaroons and the tarantella reveal Nora’s personality and her character. The Christmas tree and the concept of New Year’s reveal the current states of the relationships in the play. The Christmas tree represents the innocence and the assumed happy relationship between Nora, Torvald, and the rest of the cast at first. Then at the beginning of the second act, after Nora’s increased paranoia due to her conversation with Krogstad, the Christmas tree is shown to be disheveled; which serves as the symbolism to the decline of stability in the play. New Year’s is part of the setting of the play but it shows the hope for the future of Nora and Torvald. Torvald is scheduled for a promotion at the start of the new year which would add to their financial stability, and in Nora’s favor, she could pay back her debt to Krogstad with the newfound income. The macaroons, the tarantella, the Christmas tree, and New Year’s all serve to add to the dynamic of the play and help the play move forward.

The Christmas tree brought into the Helmer household and decorated in Act I is again mentioned in the stage directions at the beginning of Act II, where it is described as "stripped of ornament" with "burned-down candle stubs on its ragged branches". The tree represents Nora's mood. In the beginning, she expresses joy and lightheartedness at the thought of how close she is to paying off her debt to Krogstad completely. After the unpleasant visit from Krogstad, in which he threatened to reveal everything she did for her husband, she is tossed back into a state of anxiety and despair over the possibility of being exposed. Like the tree that is stripped of its ornament, Nora is stripped of her happiness.

A Doll House was written in 1879 by playwright Henrik Ibsen. Ibsen is known as the creator of modern realistic style drama. The play tells the story of a nineteenth century woman who breaks the chains of society that decide her role in life so that she can find herself. The woman, Nora, lives a relaxed and seemingly untroubled life until her husband Torvald Helmer becomes sick. She then must forge her father’s name on a contract that would allow her to borrow enough money from a lawyer named Nils Krogstad to travel to Italy to save his life. When Torvald finds out what Nora did he becomes furious instead of appreciative for his wife. Nora begins to realize her husband does not truly love her, he just sees her as a trophy of some sort that will help his social status. At the end of the play, Nora decides to leave Torvald in order to find true happiness. Throughout Ibsen’s exploration of women’s role in society in A Doll House, his use of symbolism can be found in objects and characters.

The first symbolism in this play is the Christmas tree which represents Nora’s inner state of mind. In Act 2 the stage directions describe the Christmas tree and how it “now stands stripped of ornament, burned-down candle stubs on its ragged branches.” (Ibsen 1266). Ibsen goes on to tell the audience that Nora is “, alone in the room, moves restlessly about,” (1266). Here the Christmas tree symbolizes Nora’s disordered mind.

Linde also states the same word for her that Nora was same in the school. When Nora wants to show everything she bought for Christmas, she was pleased and excited because she thought Helmer would be feeling the same way. When Torvald saw a bunch of things that Nora purchased, he said, “We cannot spend money recklessly.” Moreover, Nora still does not care about the money, however; she thinks she can borrow money quickly, which she did earlier, but it is not easy for Helmer, who cares about his reputation. In the play, the Christmas tree symbols Nora’s expectation, and how one little thing can affect a relationship smoothly.

Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House is a play that makes tremendous contributions to the rise of international women’s liberation movements. Much significance of the play can be found in the characterization of its female protagonist Nora. In many aspects, Nora has become an iconic character, serving as a source of inspiration to various social and cultural movements. This essay aims to trace the development of Nora’s behavior from a “female doll” to a “woman rebel” by focusing on Ibsen’s use of linguistic techniques.

The play A Doll House was written and published in 1879 by Henrik Ibsen and is set in 19the century Norway. Having discussed Norway’s perception of women, religious beliefs, political and economic development over the 1800s as well as the life of Ibsen himself and his play’s influence on feminism in Norway. Personally, I found that I lacked cultural knowledge of women in Norwegian society during this time while reading the play. I learned that women in Norway’s patriarchal society lived their lives according to the societal expectations at the time. They were expected to tend to their husbands or fathers needs but had to make sure to be independent on male figures. Both married and unmarried women had gender-specific roles and responsibilities whereby they had little rights to do otherwise until well into the 20th century. This led to the discussion of feminism in Norway. The subject of feminism was mentioned to have been increasing in popularity since the mid-1800s. Since Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House was written for the cause of women, it had a huge influence on progression of feminism into the 20th century by raising awareness on contradicting Norway’s society norms. It was important to discuss the culture and context of the play since its plot and premise was based on a real-life event because Nora was based on a friend of Ibsen’s, Laura, whose husband sent her to an asylum following her fall into debt on his behalf. Political and economic development of the time was

Christmas which is known as the rebirth or renewal of Jesus Christ. Throughout the play we can see Nora has some sort of renewal or realization that she finally understands that the relationship she's been in with her husband is not the relationship she thought it was so she decides to leave both torvald and her children. The play A dolls house was a very intriguing and interesting play about a woman who was troubled by many different things her husband, a man named Krogstad who she had borrowed money from, even Mr. Ranks who was suffering from Tuberculosis. The play Portrays this very well by finally bringing us to the end of with her coming to a realization that people all her life had been abusing and mistreating her some being her father and her husband both treating her like a doll hence “A Doll's House”, the play does end on a happy note with her leaving her husband discovering the outside world and most importantly not letting people abuse her because all that mattered to Nora in the end was her

The Christmas Tree has no direct link to the plot of the play but is directly symbolic of Nora who is seen to be the the ideal, traditional mother. In reality, both Nora and the Christmas Tree are pleasing to look at and are meant to add festivity to the house like when Nora mentions to Toravald that “I will do everything I can think

Nora is revealed through Torvald’s eyes as being (as Torvald refers to her) immature, a spendthrift, careless and not street-smart. As the play progresses, it is quite observable how Nora’s character develops along the play from a childish woman to a strong-willed independent thinker. The reason her character became so intriguing is because Henrik Ibsen gives her character an antagonistic twist after which the effect of the climax can be considered doubled. Nora’s characters twists belligerently when she realises how selfish her husband and all he ever cared about was his reputation in the society and how it was at stake because of Nora’s innocent forgery that she commits to save his life and by extension support her