A Doll’s House Essay
Perspective of A Doll’s House Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House uses emotional conversations to depict a family living in false emotional circumstances and having to come to terms with reality. The title A Doll’s House describes the facade of a family living in a nice house. The platitude “All that glitters is not gold” means that not everything that looks good on the outside is not good on the inside, like a doll’s house. In the first part of the play, Nora’s old friend from school, Mrs. Linde arrives impromptu. Nora is very fast to describe to her what a good life she has; “So you are quite alone.
How dreadfully sad that must be. I have three lovely children. You cannot see them just now, for they are out with their nurse” (7). This shows how important it is to Nora to keep up her facade of having a nice home and a good life. It’s also makes a distance between the two women’s lives, even if Mrs. Linde tells Nora about her poor family situation, Nora still brags. During the conversation, Nora tells Mrs. Linde about her secret; that she has borrowed money from Krogstad, one of the bankers in town, to help her husband Torvald a long time ago.
Torvald does not know anything about the loan and Mrs. Linde is surprised about it and she thinks Nora should tell him about it. Nora answers; “… And besides, how painful and humiliating it would be for Torvald, with his manly independence, to know that he owed me anything! It would upset our mutual relations altogether; our beautiful happy home would no longer be what it is now” (12). This reflects the old sight of male and female position in the home or relation; the man is the one who should be responsible for the income and be independent. The female part is the opposite.
The last sentence from Nora, demonstrates once again how important it is for her that her life looks perfect from the viewer’s sight. Nora is in a very hard situation with Krogstad because of the loan she took a long time ago. Krogstad behaves insipid against Nora in the middle of the play, when he threats her to tell Torvald about the loan. She talks to Dr. Rank, an old friend of the family, and she is very close to betraying her big secret, but instead she just informs him; “You can do nothing for me now. Besides I really don’t need any help at all. You will find that the whole thing is merely fancy on my part.
It really is so-of course it is! ” (41). From this we learn that Nora changes her sight of her self. She acts very clearly to Dr. Rank for many reasons, for example to get rid of Dr. Rank’s curiosity and also to convince her self that she has done the right thing and that everything is going to be fine. It also shows one of her first steps into her independence. In the end of the play, Nora realizes that her life is not real, is not perfect, is not fantastic; it is just like a dream story from outside like she always wanted her life to be – but she is not satisfied.
Nora decides to tell Torvald about how she feels and she forces him to talk with her seriously; “I say that we have never sat down in earnest together to try to get at the bottom of anything. ” Torvald answers “But, dearest Nora, would it have been any good to you? ” (66). It looks like Torvald doesn’t think Nora has her own thoughts, or her own willing. He does not listen to her or maybe he does not want to listen to her. Nora continues to inform Torvald about her feelings, about how he and her father have made a big sin against her. “It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life” (66).
Nora is much older now then she was when she first met Torvald, and she has changed during the years. Both of them play their roles very well and it is not only Torvald’s fault that she has not been able to do something of her life. When it comes to someone’s life, it is very much up to the person herself. Nora tells Torvald that she has never been standing on her own feet, “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” (67). Ibsen describes how Nora gets an insight about which kind of life she lives. The image pattern of Nora shows a change comparing of the beginning of the book when she brags in front of people. The three children stand for happiness but Nora does not seem to have a close and genuine relationship to them. It is just a scene. Nora comes to a point in her life when she understands that she lives an unreal life and she has to do something about it. Ibsen shows that she is able to take the step out of the marriage like an independent person.
Everyone thinks she lives her life like a doll in a perfect home. Ibsen’s choice of title is both good and ironic; good because it brings thoughts to the perfect family-life, and ironic because the play tells about how the inside of the house; the family, the marriage, the relations etc. , struggles with a lot of problems in contrast to the facade. One of Ibsen’s messages about marriage and family is to manage to be happy together, everyone has to take care and understand herself before she can take care of others. When a person is independent and safe on her own, she is able to love and take care of her true love and family.
