A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

An analysis of A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

A Doll’s House is set during the late nineteenth century. The action takes place in the home of a middle class family over the Christmas period. The central characters are Torvald and Nora Helmer (husband and wife), Dr Rank (a family friend), Christine Linde (an old friend of Nora’s) and Nils Krogstad (an employee of Torvald’s and the person who Nora has borrowed money from). The main plot revolves around Torvald’s (anticipated and eventual) ‘discovery’ that Nora has borrowed money from Krogstad, Torvald’s reaction to this and Nora’s subsequent response to Torvald’s behaviour. The events which take place were significant for their time for two principal reasons; the borrowing of money by a woman without her husband’s agreement which was illegal - it only became legal in this country in 1880 (Scotland) and 1882 (England and Wales) – and the growing interest in the women’s suffrage movement.

Before answering this question fully, we should consider the broad themes which define a woman’s position in Victorian societies, principally the middle classes, and above. Firstly, a married woman was not expected to work. Instead the husband would be the sole breadwinner while the wife concerned herself with looking after the home. This might mean managing the servants rather than carrying out household chores. As already stated, a woman was not permitted to own property beyond her own personal possessions. A woman was not permitted to vote and, crucially, was expected to be subordinate to, and obey, her husband. In essence, conditioning, morals, values, expectations and even legislation in Victorian times did not create an environment where women were able to feel ‘free’. A woman who was able to be herself in that society, would have to be able to experience the opposite of all of these things.

Perhaps one of the most obvious dramatic techniques evident in this play, and analogous with the lack of freedom for women, is the setting. All of the action takes place in one room of the Helmer’s home. Apart from a few moments at the beginning of Act 3, when Nora is at a party and Mrs. Linde and Krogstad are together, Nora spends most of her time in the room. Every other character in the story is free to move in and out of the room as they please. Nora is very much a captive of the room and in a sense it is like a prison to her. Nora’s idea of freedom changes as the plot develops. Initially she associates freedom with financial good fortune – Torvald’s salary increase and the repayment of Krogstad’s loan.

“Free. To be free, absolutely free. To spend time playing with the children. To have a clean, beautiful house, the way Torvald likes it.”   

But when her actions are discovered and Torvald fails to support her, her idea of freedom changes to mean independence from Torvald and from the constraints placed on her by society. In the final moments of the last act, Nora breaks free from her ‘prison’ when she leaves Torvald and their children. Closing the door behind her offstage symbolizes her release and the beginnings of her new life.

Money is a recurring theme throughout the play, indeed money is the catalyst which brings Nora and Torvald’s relationship to an end. As a bank manager, Torvald’s primary professional concern is to protect the bank’s money. The bank represents establishment and Torvald is its representative. He is therefore a custodian of (male) established values, particularly as they relate to money but also as they relate to every other aspect of a male dominated society. Nora on the other hand is portrayed, initially at least, as flighty with regard to money. Early in Act one she asks Torvald for money – under the pretence that it would be his gift to her at Christmas. Our early impression then is that she is totally dependent on Torvald for money. In fact Torvald controls Nora with the money he provides. It is not until later that we learn Nora has borrowed money from Krogstad and understand that some of the money she gets from Torvald is used to repay this debt. We also discover that Nora has taken on work –

‘Last winter I was lucky enough to get a lot of copying to do’ (P13)

 - in order to earn extra money to repay Krogstad. In these ways we see that left to her own devices Nora is capable of independent action which in her view represents the right   thing to do under the circumstances. Judged on today’s standards there are few who would disagree with this. While her actions may have been legally (borrowing money) and socially (working) corrupt, we find the first evidence that she is quite capable of being herself. Though she is unable to share her actions with Torvald, she takes some considerable pleasure in the knowledge that she has ‘saved’ her husband and expresses joy in having been able to earn some money –

‘It was like being a man.’ (P13)

From the very first scene when Torvald and Nora are together, Torvald indulges in a raft of name calling. In the early part of the play these names include ‘squirrel’, ‘skylark’ and ‘featherhead’. By the end of the play, once he has discovered that Nora has borrowed money, his name calling indicates anger at her actions, ‘a thoughtless woman’, ‘blind, foolish woman’ and also (after he reads Krogstad’s second letter) sympathy for her position, ‘frightened little singing bird’ and ‘little scared darling’. In many instances Torvald precedes his name calling with the possessive “my”. The names used and the ownership insinuation indicate that he does not see Nora as his equal. In his view she remains his possession; a trophy created for him and partly by him and existing to bring him pleasure and to reinforce his status.

Further evidence of Torvald’s control can be found in her having to hide her macaroon and the fact she is not allowed access to the key for the mailbox. We see him exert his power over her as he insists she practice the tarantella until she reaches his standards of perfection – although from Nora’s perspective she was happy that he was diverted from looking in the mailbox. And later he drags her away from the party before she was ready to go. Her dancing arouses him sexually and it is through his need to satisfy his own selfish desire that he deprives others of her company. In these ways we can see that Nora is forced to obey her husband against her own will.

One final dramatic technique used is the characterisation of the central male figures: Torvald, Dr Rank and Krogstad. When we first meet Torvald and Dr Rank we associate them with all that is normal, upright, noble and good about important men in society. They represent what we regard as the establishment. Torvald has a responsible job, he is a serious man who takes his work seriously, he provides well for his wife and family. But soon we begin to see the cracks in his make up; when Nora calls him petty and Krogstad addresses him by his first name he becomes angry; when he learns of Nora’s borrowing he refuses to stand by her as he sees that this would harm his image and discredit him in the eyes of his staff; and when Krogstad returns the bond he quickly reverses his tune and acts as if everything is normal again. In these ways Torvald is exposed as vain, egotistic and spineless. Dr Rank fares little better. As a doctor he is naturally viewed as an upstanding member of the community but secretly he holds sexual desires for his friend Nora which he reveals to her in a clumsy fashion. He also suffers from a syphilis related illness which he blames on his father. However it is entirely possible that he contracted syphilis through his own actions as it was not uncommon for even wealthy unmarried men to visit prostitutes in Victorian days. Unlike these two, Krogstad is initially portrayed as an unsavoury character and is described by Dr Rank as ‘morally sick’. However it is Krogstad, a man who has previously been rejected by society for his crime, who shows the greatest humanity of the three in his forgiveness of Mrs. Linde and in releasing Nora of her debt to him.

While the relationship between the two central characters is certainly one of master and servant, the developing relationship between Mrs. Linde and Krogstad is more evenly balanced. Theirs is a more mature bond based on a genuine liking and respect for one another. Though Mrs. Linde rejected Krogstad in the past, she was behaving merely as society would have expected her. Ibsen uses their relationship to illustrate how a marriage in a modern society should be. However, their relationship is not the point of the play. It is through the breakdown of Nora and Torvald’s relationship we learn of the forced dependency of women on men, the control exercised by men over women and the physical conditions which prevent a women from being herself in society at that time.