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A Doll's House

Page history last edited by William Patrick Wend 10 years, 3 months ago

A Doll's House Group Work | A Doll House Group Work

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2012/oct/18/nora-ibsen-dolls-house-video 


Biography 

  • 1828-1906 

Journal

  • How do you respond to Torvald's treatment of Nora?

  • In translation, sometimes the title of the play is changed from A Doll House to A Doll's House (that was how I first read it). What do you think Ibsen is suggesting by each title? Do you have a preference? Why? 

  • Ibsen argued that A Doll House was less about the rights of women in the 19th century but more about the general rights of humans. The play, he argued, is less focused on specific social conditions than "the need for individuals of both sexes to treat each other with mutual respect." (1105) Do you agree with Ibsen? Why or why not? After close reading, where does your focus lay?   


About

  • A Doll House was published 12-4-1879 in Copenhagen. First performance 12-21. 
  • Gender performance...not just women, but men as well... 

  • What it takes for two modern individuals to build relationship built on freedom, equality, and love

  • Conditions of love in modernity

  • Radical transformation of now just laws and institutions, but of humans and their ideas about love 


Summary

The first act starts out on Christmas Eve with Nora returning home from shopping with a Christmas tree and gifts for her children excitedly showing them to her husband. She was carefree with her spending since her husband received a promotion to become the bank manager at the beginning of the year. She also was munching on some macaroons, which her husband forbid as they may ruin her beautiful teeth. She lies to him about purchasing the macaroons. He lectures her on her carefree spending and asks what she would like for her own gift, which she requested money. He also provides her with additional money for her Christmas shopping. He shows us his concern for morals and states “no debt, no borrowing” because “there can’t be any freedom or beauty in a home life that depends on borrowing and debt.”

 

Then there are two visitors that enter, Mrs. Linde to see Nora and Dr. Rank to see Torvald. Mrs. Linde was a classmate of Nora’s who is a widow and married for financial stability to provide for her ill, now deceased mother and two brothers. Mrs. Linde is now a free spirit with no one to care for but herself and must work to provide a living for herself. She asks Nora to put in a good word for her with Torvold to obtain a job at the bank. Dr. Rank is a friend and doctor of Torvold. He visits with him in the study.

 

Nora discusses her life with Mrs. Linde who considers her inexperienced in the world outside of her home. Nora has never had to worry as her father and now her husband have provided her with a good life. Nora then tells her about a secret loan she had to take in order to save her husbands life while her father was dying. She borrowed 4800 krones to take Torvold to Italy for a month and make him better. Nora said that she would only tell her husband after her good looks no longer work for her. She doesn’t want to undermine Torvold’s ability to provide for her and the children so she allows Torvold to believe that the money came from her father.

 

Later we are introduced to another character, Krogstad who meets with Torvold as a bank employee. Krogstad has a tarnished reputation for committing forgery and lying about it. He is not a respected man. Then we find out that this is the man that allowed Nora to take the loan. He then blackmails Nora since he knows that she forged her father’s signature as a co-signer. He tells her to use her influence with Torvold in order to save his job.

 

Nora tells the children not to tell their father about Krogstad’s visit and doesn’t continue to play with them after his departure as she promised. Then Torvald returns and he had seen Krogstad leaving and questioned Nora if she visited with him. Originally she lies but had to confess once Torvald told her that he saw him leaving. Torvold discusses Krogstad’s moral corruption with the forgery and then not being forthcoming about it once it was exposed. He criticized Krogstad and plans on firing him once he is the bank manager. Torvold said that the lies, corruption, and hypocrisy “infects and poisons the whole life of a home. Every breath the children take in a home like that is full of the germs of moral corruption.” This makes Nora upset and gets her thinking that she may infect and corrupt her children with her forged, secret loan.


Questions?

  • What role does environment play in the lying? 
  • What is the difference between public and private lying in the play? 

Analysis

Act One

  • Torvald is portrayed as what is know as an aesthetic idealist. Idealism...

  • Torvald prides himself on his sense of beauty "nobody has such a refinded taste as you"

  • He notes a preference for embrodiery over knitting. Knitting is an ugly craft that is useful while embrodiery is a beautiful pasttime for leausirly ladies

  • Doesn't want to deal with businness matters that aren't fine and pretty

  • Helmer: "every breath that the children take in such a house is filled with the germs of something ugly"

  • Macaroons are forbidden because Torvald belives Nora will ruin her beautiful teeth

  • Takes macaroons in prescence of Dr. Rank. Also swears "Death and pain" in front of him!

 

 Questions?

  • Talk about the marriage. Is this a realistic view of it? Has marriage always been like this and artists only began really acknowledging it recently?

  • Torvald: freedom is beauty, beauty is freedom ("no debt! never borrow! there is something UNFREE and therefore UGLY............if he didn't find it so ugly, Nora wouldn't have had to borrow for the trip to Italy)   


Act Two 

  • A lot of act two is about Nora's search for autonomy  

  • A Doll House is about radical transformation from generic family (wife, mother, sister) to individual (Nora, Clarissa)

  • Rita Felski: Modernism portrays women outside history

  • A Doll House is about Nora's painful entrance to modernity

  • Disguises Nora takes on: Idealist ideal woman who will be pure and noble and sacrifice all for love

  • Secret is source of her identity, the sense of her worth, and makes it easy to play Torvald's playful squirrel.

  • Her secret has been aestheticized: turned into a thing of beauty

  • "this secret, which is my joy and my pride"

  • Once realizes it is a crime, she feels ugliness...she then imagines that Torvald will sacrifice himself to save her. Back and forth on autonomy

  • Do we feel sympathy for both or either character? Neither?

  • What do these fantasies say about Nora and Helmer? (they can only love each other as well as they can-->Moi) (they cannot do any better) (but not villians...would've stopped if they knew...) (Ibsen wants us to think about how we theatricize ourselves...)

  • A Doll's House=they are dolls, just playing at being adults

  • Tarantella 236-242


Act Three 

  • III-->Nora "first and foremost a human being" claims humanity...not a doll or wife/mother

  • Talk about the lack of reconciliation in the play...is there catharsis? (Idealists say no) (distressed ala Othello) 

  • M. V. Brun "A Doll House exhibits such screaming dissonances that no beautiful harmony capable of resolving them exists"

  • Journal question supplement: "my task has been to portray human beings"

  • 231 about Dr. Rank dying

  • Helmer is very macho...thinks of himself as extremely manly...depends on Nora's performance of helpless, childlike feminimity "I wouldn't be a man...twice as attractive in my eyes..."

  • Young bride fantasy

  • Helmer also thinks of himself as a hero "danger threatened you..."

  • Masquerade ball as metaphor

  • "i have a lot to talk to you about....and i have never understood you..."

  • Nora acknowledges her part: " i have earned my living by..."  "doing tricks for you" (Professor Wend connects this to Ruth in Pinter's play The Homecoming that we discussed during the tragedy lecture)

  • Both blinded by fantasies

  • By leaving, does Nora become an adult?

  • Father "called me his doll-child..." "but our home has been nothing..."

  • Descartes 235

  • 243 Top

  • Does Nora represent something universal in us all (YES! To deny that is to fall into sexist trap that women does not = universal)   


  • Torvald treats Nora more like a possession than a human (“Why shouldn't I look at my dearest treasure? - at all the beauty that is mine, all my very own.”)
  • Torvald may also have feelings that his marriage is not built on love but rather on convenience, but he is to proud to admit it (“It is because I make believe to myself that we are secretly in love.”)

  • Nora realizes that she has been treated like a toy (doll) by her husband and her father as well (“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 great fun when I played with them. That is what our marriage has been, Torvald.”)

  • Torvald selfishness comes out when he find out about Nora’s crime and only cares about how it will make him look and not about what will happen to Nora (“When your first panic was over - not about what threatened me, but about what might happen to you - and when there was no more danger, then, as far as you were concerned, it was just as if nothing had happened at all.”)

  • Nora decides that she needs to grow up and learn about the world on her own without Torvald and the children (“If I'm ever to reach any understanding of myself and the things around me, I must learn to stand alone. That's why I can't stay here with you any longer.”)

  • Nora realizes she is a human before she is a wife and mother (“That I don't believe any more. I believe that first and foremost I am an individual, just as you are.”)

  • We see gender bias in the way Torvald doesn’t want to take the blame and says that a man can never sacrifice his integrity for love

  • Mrs. Linde as a foil: Mrs. Linde and Nora differ in that Nora will leave her husband to gain independence and truly become herself, whereas Mrs. Linde will marry Krogstad to become content with her life. (“Someone to work for and live for — a home to bring comfort into. That I will do, indeed.”)  


Characters

Nora Helmer

  • Torvald Helmer’s wife and has 3 children

  • Lived a middle class lifestyle

  • Inexperienced in the world outside of their home

  • More like an older sister than mother to her children 

  • Ibsen once wrote than Nora's main priority is "the truth of feelings"

  • Treated childlike by her husband "tall child"

  • Constantly tries to please others

    • Borrows money in secret to make Torvald better

    • Works hard to make sure he doesn't know

    • Won't talk about herself when Mrs. Linde is around 

  • Has a secret loan that she took from Krogstad to save her husband’s life when he was ill and her father was dying

  • In the Christmas spirit, bought a tree and gifts for the children

  • Bought macaroons, which are forbidden by her husband as they may ruin her beautiful teeth. Lies to her husband that she didn’t buy any sweets while shopping. Lies to Dr. Rank that they were from Mrs. Linde.

  • Torvald calls her a “spendthrift” as she is already spending money they don’t have. He was promoted to bank manager and is expecting a nice raise so they no longer have to worry about money but it will be another 3 months before they see the increased salary.

  • Lives carefree and is very happy about husbands promotion since she will no longer have to watch their spending.

  • She is materialistic.

 

Torvald Helmer

  • Nora’s husband and father of 3 children

  • Focused on the business and work ethics

  • Promoted to bank manager

  • Provides financial stability for his household

  • Concerned with morality – no lies, no debt, no borrowing

  • Ibsen once wrote that Torvald's primary interest in success  

  • Not involved in household and children, only working and business

 

Dr. Rank

  • Friend of Torvald Helmer and also his doctor

  • Visits with Torvald frequently in his study

 

Krogstad

  • Bank employee about to be fired by Torvald once he’s manager

  • Tainted reputation for forgery and then not being forthcoming about it but rather lying to continue his deceit

  • Blackmails Nora to save his bank job – 1) Loan is a secret from her husband and 2) Nora forged her father’s signature on the loan note and dated it 3 days after the father’s death

  • Willing to hurt Nora and her family in order to save his own family. Tells Nora to use her influence with Torvald to save his job.

 

Mrs. Linde

  • Old family friend of Nora's
  • Needs to find work because her husband has died 
  • Tells Nora she is a child 

Symbolism

  • Both Othello and Helmer are masters of the public sphere. They are strong in masculine activities (capitalism, warfare), but utterly fail at domestic concerns.  

Gender


Point of View


Irony


Ending

  •  

Adaptations


Wordle


Bibliography


Previous Paper Topics

  1. Ibsen once wrote a note for one of his plays that "the keynote is to be: the prolific growth of our intellectual life, in literature, arts, etc---and in contrast to this: all of mankind gone astray." How does this note relate to our reading of this play?
  2. The introduction to the Signet edition of the play says that, like Darwin's theory of evolution and Nietzsche's call for tragedy to be reborn to music (Wagner) in The Birth of Tragedy, Ibsen calls for "tragedy reborn from the spirit of history." How does this quote relate to A Doll's House
  3. What is the role of lying in the plays? In these plays, you have a number of instances of literal lies (Iago and Nora being the biggest abusers) and also lies about gender performance in both plays. Write a paper that discuss the role of lying in one, or both, of the plays. How does lying, whether literal or not, affect the tragic aspects of the plays? 
  4. Othello and Torvald are both masters of the public sphere. They are successful in militaristic capitalistic ventures, very masculine activities, but utterly fail on the domestic front. Why is this? Write a paper that discusses their failures and how the tragic aspects of the play enable their failure. 
  5. What is the role of enabling in A Doll's House and/or Death of a Salesman? You could focus on Linda, Nora, or Torvald and maybe other characters. Specifically, I want you to focus on how enabling affects one of the themes we have discussed this semester.
  6. There are a number of places we can place blame in these stories (Personal responsibility, gender roles/performance, enabling, etc(. Where do we place blame?  How does where we place blame affect any of the themes we have discussed this semester.
  7. Social conformity and its relationship to enabling has been a focus of our discussions. Write a paper where you connect these things together, likely focusing on a specific character or two, and discuss how this affects one of the themes we have discussed this semester. A side issue you may want to deal with is the role of ignorance.
  8. How is the relationship between money and success portrayed in these plays? How does this lead to the downfall of our characters? Make sure you focus on how it affects one of our themes from this semester as well.   

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