A Doll

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A Dolls House

• By Henrik Ibsen

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A Dolls HouseSome Facts

• Published in 1879
• Norwegian title Et dukkehjem
• Title can be also read as a dollhouse
• The play was highly controversial when first
  published, as it is sharply critical of Victorian
  marriage norms.
• Written while Ibsen was in Rome and Amalfi
• Amalfi is a town and commune in the province
  of Salerno, in the region of Campania, Italy.
• The play was born in a time of revolution in
  Europe.

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Revolutionary

• Charged with the fever of the 1848 revolution, a
  new modern perspective was beginning to emerge in
  the literary and dramatic world, challenging the
  romantic tradition
• Ibsen has been credited for mastering and
  popularizing the realist drama derived from this
  new perspective.
• His plays were both read and performed throughout
  Europe (in numerous translations) like no other
  dramatist before. A Doll's House was published
  and premiered in Copenhagen.

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A Challenge to Technical Tradition of the Well
Made Play

• The Well Made Play
• a genre of theatre from the 19th century,
  codified by Eugène Scribe (1791-1861) .
• It has a strong neo-classical flavor, involving a
  very tight plot and a climax that takes place
  very close to the end of the story, with most of
  the story taking place before the action of the
  play much of the information regarding such
  previous action would be revealed through thinly
  veiled exposition.
• Following that would be a series of causally
  related plot complications.

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Attributes of a Well Made Play

• The plot is based upon a withheld secret, known
  only to some of the characters, usually about the
  play's hero, the revelation of which provides the
  turning point of the play.
• Initial exposition provides information, usually
  by means of question and answer, about the events
  that precede the start of the play (antecedent
  action) and both leads toward the secret and
  withholds it.
• Ups and Downs are generally seen in dialogue,
  exchanges of wit between opponents, in which we
  move closer to the revelation of the secret.
• Reversal, followed by a revelatory scene (the
  French critic Francisque Sarcey called this the
  scéne à faire) in which we and the characters in
  the play learn the secret, often for the first
  time.
• A plausible dénouement is designed to make
  everything that has occurred believable.
• The key to the whole play is that each act or
  scene repeats this pattern.

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• The majority of well-made plays are comedies,
  often farce. In his book The Quintessence of
  Ibsenism, Bernard Shaw proposed that Ibsen
  converted this formula for use in "serious" plays
  by substituting discussion for the plausible
  dénouement or conclusion.
• Thus, plays become open ended, as if there were
  life beyond the last act curtain.
• Ibsen's play was notable for exchanging the last
  act's unraveling for a discussion.

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• Critics agree that, up until the last moments of
  the play, A Doll's House could easily be just
  another modern drama broadcasting another
  comfortable moral lesson.
• However, when Nora tells Torvald that they must
  sit down and "discuss all this that has been
  happening between us", the play diverges from the
  traditional form.
• With this new technical feature, A Doll's House
  became an international sensation and founded a
  new school of dramatic art.

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Tragedy or Comedy--Tragicomedy

• Comes form Latin tragicomoedia
• Drama that mixes elements and styles of tragedy
  and comedy
• Main concern is to explore the relationships
  between man and supernatural agencies (God, fate,
  etc.)
• Mixes farce and humor with moments of sadness
• Often related with social and political
  disruption

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Tragicomedy (cont)

• Tragicomedies are not merely plays that combine
  the comic and tragic they are plays in which the
  tragic and comic are formally and emotionally
  dependent on one another, each modifying and
  determining the nature of the other so as to
  produce a mixed, tragicomic response from the
  audience (Munro 230).
• Tragicomedies generally end in moral and
  aesthetic discomfort, leaving the audience to
  wonder on the true objective of the play (Munro
  230).

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Tragedy

• There is no true definition of tragedy
• Tragedy is an imitation of a noble and complete
  action
• Fearful incidents
• Royalty in mind not ordinary citizens
• Dramatic not narrative format
• Terror and pity aroused

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Tragedy in Literature

• Concerned with the fortunes and misfortunes, and
  disasters that befall people of power or position
• For a tragic figure to be effective they have to
  have qualities of excellence that lift them above
  normal people, but in the end are not enough to
  save them from the self-destruction, or general
  destruction, that is brought upon them.
• Lack of hope is a crucial, and often
  overwhelming, element in most tragedies

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Tragedy in Literature

• Tragedy in literature is a protest against the
  petty pace of life, against God, chance, fate or
  circumstance, against bad things happening to
  good people (Anouilh).

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Where is the Wise Old Man?

• Ibsen's realist drama disregarded the tradition
  of the older male moral figure.
• Dr. Rank, the character who should serve this
  role, is far from a moral force instead, he is
  sickly--rotting from a disease picked up from his
  father's earlier sexual exploits--and lascivious,
  openly coveting Nora.
• The choice to portray both Dr. Rank and the
  potentially matronly Mrs. Linde as imperfect,
  real people was a novel approach at the time.

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The Feminist Message

• The play rocked the stages of Europe when the
  play was premiered.
• Nora's rejection of marriage and motherhood
  scandalized contemporary audiences.
• In fact, the first German productions of the play
  in the 1880s had an altered ending at the request
  of the producers.
• Ibsen referred to this version as a "barbaric
  outrage" to be used only in emergencies.

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• Ibsen was reacting to the uncertain tempo of the
  time Europe was being reshaped with revolutions.
  
• The revolutionary spirit and the emergence of
  modernism influenced Ibsen's choice to focus on
  an unlikely hero--a housewife--in his attack on
  middle-class values.
• Quickly becoming the talk of parlors across
  Europe, the play succeeded in its attempt to
  provoke discussion. In fact, it is the numerous
  ways that the play can be read (and read it
  was--the printed version of A Doll's House sold
  out even before it hit the stage--that make the
  play so interesting.
• Each new generation has had a different way of
  interpreting the book, from feminist critique to
  Hegelian allegory of the spirit's historical
  evolution.

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• Yet precisely what sort of play is it?
• George Steiner claims that the play is founded
  on the beliefthat women can and must be raised
  to the dignity of man, but Ibsen himself
  believed it to be more about the importance of
  self-liberation than the importance of
  specifically female liberation
• Ibsens contemporary, Strindberg, certainly
  disagreed, himself calling the play a barbaric
  outrage because of the feminism he perceived it
  as promoting.

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Major Themes

• Women and Men
• This play focuses on the way that women are seen,
  especially in the context of marriage and
  motherhood. Torvald, in particular, has a very
  clear and narrow definition of a woman's role.
• Torvald believes that it is the sacred duty of a
  woman to be a good wife and mother. Moreover, he
  tells Nora that women are responsible for the
  morality of their children.
• In essence, he sees women as both child-like,
  helpless creatures detached from reality and
  influential moral forces responsible for the
  purity of the world through their influence in
  the home.

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• Materialism v. People
• This is particularly important for Torvald, whose
  sense of manhood depends on his independence.
• In fact, he was an unsuccessful barrister because
  he refused to take "unsavory cases". As a result,
  he switched to the bank, where he primarily deals
  with money.
• In other words, money and materialism can be seen
  as a way to avoid the complications of personal
  contact.

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• Images of women
• Nora, as a symbol of woman, is called a number of
  names by Torvald throughout the play. These
  include
• "little songbird",
• "squirrel", "lark",
• "little featherhead",
• "little skylark",
• "little person", and
• "little woman".
• Torvald is extremely consistent about using the
  modifier "little" before the names he calls Nora.
  
• These are all usually followed by the possessive
  "my", signaling Torvald's belief that Nora is
  his.
• Torvald's chosen names for Nora reveal that he
  does not see her as an equal by any means
  rather, Nora is at times predictable and silly
  doll and at times a captivating and exotic pet or
  animal, all created for Torvald.

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• Light
• Light is used to illustrate Nora's personal
  journey.
• After the turning point of Torvald's claim to
  want to take everything upon himself and while
  she is talking to Dr. Rank, the light begins to
  grow dark, just as Nora sinks to new levels of
  manipulation.
• When Dr. Rank reveals his affection, Nora is
  jolted out of this fantasy world and into reality
  and insists on bringing a lamp into the room,
  telling the Doctor that he must feel silly saying
  such things with the light on.
• The Dress
• Nora's ball dress symbolizes the character she
  plays in her marriage to Torvald.
• Take note of when Nora is supposed to be wearing
  it and for whom.

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• The Tarantella
• A tarantella is a folk dance from southern Italy
  that accelerates from its already quick tempo and
  alternates between major and minor keys.
• In its constant fluctuation, it is like Nora's
  character. In this Act, it serves as Nora's last
  chance to be Torvald's doll, to dance and amuse
  him.
• Also, the tarantella is commonly (and falsely)
  known as a dance that is supposed to rid the
  dancer of the bite of the tarantula.
• Applied to the play, its use suggests that Nora
  is trying to rid herself of the deadly poison of
  an outside force, however fruitlessly.
• Rather than alleviating the bite, though, the
  music and her life only continue to accelerate
  and spin out of control.

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Sites Cited

• A Dolls House Wikipedia, the Free
  Encyclopedia. http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrik_
  Ibsen5 April 2007
• Gillis, G. J. and Westhagen, Jen. SparkNote on A
  Dolls House. 5 Apr. 2007 http//www.sparknotes.co
  m/lit/dollhouse/.
• "Henrik Ibsen Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.
  5 April 2007 http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrik_I
  bsen
• "Well-Made Play" Wikipedia, the Free
  Encyclopedia. 5 April 2007 http//en.wikipedia.org
  /wiki/22well-made_play22
• William, Robert. About A Dolls House. Grade
  Saver. http//www.gradesaver.com/a-dolls-house/stu
  dy-guide/about/