A Doll's House

Hard Press

A Dolls House
Henrik Ibsen
1879

The Summary
Nora Helmer is a housewife:  she dutifully cooks and cleans, takes care of the children, and oversees her husband's home.  Flighty and lavish, Nora is doted upon by her husband, Torvald, and plays house for him.  But when their home and their very livelihood is threatened by an outside force, Nora's decisions will come back to haunt her--and it will shake her marriage to its very foundation.

The Good
A Doll's House is an interesting play and, I think, definitely worth reading at least once, because it offers insight into the life of a 19th century housewife and all the expectations that go along with it.  It's sharp in its telling, pinpointing marital flaws and social issues with uncompromising candor.

I found it particularly fascinating to see how Nora grows up in an instant.  When things begin to fall apart when her marriage--and, yes, her very life--is threatened, I thought it was interesting to see how she began to suddenly view herself through new eyes.  She begins to see her own self-worth, which is certainly an astonishing thing for a housewife who has known nothing else.

I was also intrigued by her final speech when she decides that things must change--that she must change if she's ever going to survive, if she's ever going to become her own person.  Her moment of clarity is sudden and brilliant:  her happiness is important too.

And she will stop the cycle, as she states when she tells Torvald she has never been happy and decides to leave:

Torvald:  Not--not happy! 

Nora:  No, only merry.  And you have always been so kind to me.  But our home has been nothing but a playroom.  I have been your doll wife, just as at home I was Papa's doll child; and here the children have been my dolls.  I thought it great fun when you played with me, just as they thought it was great fun when I played with them.  That is what our marriage has been, Torvald.

Her transformation is astonishing, and her decision would have been unheard of.  The fact that she made a decision for herself at all would have been surprising in the heavily moderated and monitored Victorian society.  It's actually pretty fascinating, and I think that Henrik Ibsen does a fantastic job of capturing the drama of a fractured domestic life.

The Bad
A Doll's House does have a few moments where it grows dull and dry, making it difficult to slog through the dialogue.  Honestly, the last five pages or so were exactly what I was waiting to find--that's exactly when the real drama unfolds and Nora shocks everyone (her husband included) by making a decision against convention.  Everything else just feels like idle chatter.

The Ugly
Nora is essentially a doll.  Her husband dictates everything in her life--her clothes, her shoes, her manners, her religious beliefs, her children's education, and more--and, when she makes decisions for herself (for the health of her husband, mind you), she is chastised and even threatened.  She's given no leeway, no sense of individuality, and, essentially, no hope.

It's a horrifying situation.