Doll's House (Ibsen)

A Doll's House
Henrik Ibsen, 1879
80 pp. (Varies by publisher)


A Doll's House, a three-act play, premiered at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having been published earlier that month.

The play is significant for its critical attitude toward 19th century marriage norms. It aroused great controversy at the time, as it concludes with the protagonist, Nora, leaving her husband and children because she wants to discover herself. Ibsen was inspired by the belief that "a woman cannot be herself in modern society," since it is "an exclusively male society, with laws made by men and with prosecutors and judges who assess feminine conduct from a masculine standpoint.

In a speech given to the Norwegian Association for Women's Rights in 1898, Ibsen insisted that he "must disclaim the honor of having consciously worked for the women's rights movement," since he wrote "without any conscious thought of making propaganda," his task having been "the description of humanity."

In 2006, the centennial of Ibsen's death, A Doll's House held the distinction of being the world's most performed play. UNESCO has inscribed Ibsen's autographed manuscripts of A Doll's House on the Memory of the World Register in 2001, in recognition of their historical value. (From CreateSpace edition—ISBN: 9781497489905.)

Author Bio
• Birth—Mary 20, 1828
• Where—Skien, Grenland, Norway
• Death—May 23, 1905
• Where—Christiana (now Oslo), Norway
• Education—left school at 15


Henrik Johan Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of realism" and is one of the founders of Modernism in theatre. His major works include Brand, Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm, and The Master Builder. He is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and A Doll's House became the world's most performed play by the early 20th century.

Several of his plays were considered scandalous to many of his era, when European theatre was required to model strict morals of family life and propriety. Ibsen's work examined the realities that lay behind many façades, revealing much that was disquieting to many contemporaries. It utilized a critical eye and free inquiry into the conditions of life and issues of morality. The poetic and cinematic play Peer Gynt, however, has strong surreal elements.

Ibsen is often ranked as one of the truly great playwrights in the European tradition. Richard Hornby describes him as "a profound poetic dramatist—the best since Shakespeare." He is widely regarded as the most important playwright since Shakespeare, and he influenced other playwrights and novelists, including George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Miller, James Joyce, Eugene O'Neill and Miroslav Krleza.

Ibsen wrote his plays in Danish (the common written language of Denmark and Norway), and they were published by the Danish publisher Gyldendal. Although most of his plays are set in Norway—often in places reminiscent of Skien, the port town where he grew up—Ibsen lived for 27 years in Italy and Germany, and rarely visited Norway during his most productive years. Born into a merchant family connected to the patriciate of Skien, his dramas were shaped by his family background. He was the father of Prime Minister Sigurd Ibsen. (From Wikipedia. See Wiki's longer version.)

Book Reviews
A Doll's House still has the force of social truth and the force of art.
Margo Jefferson - New York Times (Nov. 24, 2003)


Happiness [for Nora] lies elsewhere. So out the door she goes. Slam, bang, curtain down. It's one of drama's most stunning endings; even today it still shocks—even when you know it's coming. Read more...
LitLovers LitPicks


[E]very time I read the play I find myself judging Nora with less and less sympathy. The play is, as is frequently pointed out, flawlessly constructed—there is not a wasted word, and every scene tightens the noose around Nora's neck. There is a tragic inevitability to the way in which her "crime" is brought into the open. But with the same momentum she displays a silliness and insensitivity that are also part of her downfall. At the beginning she is lying to Torvald about the macaroons he has forbidden and she has concealed. This could be comic but is part of a tissue of lies and evasions that make up her life. Whether these lies are a function of social pressures or Nora's own nature is left to us to determine.
A.S. Byatt - Guardian (UK - May 1, 2009)


Nora's departure is no claptrap "Farewell for ever," but a journey in search of self-respect and apprenticeship to life. Yet there is an underlying solemnity caused by a fact that that popular instinct has divined: to wit, that Nora's revolt is the end of a chapter of human history. The slam of the door behind her is more momentous than the cannon of Waterloo or Sedan, because when she comes back, it will not be to the old home; for when the patriarch no longer rules, and the "breadwinner" acknowledges his dependence, there is an end of the old order.
George Bernard Shaw - Saturday Review (May 5, 1897)


[A Doll's House is about] the need of every individual to find out the kind of person he or she really is and to strive to become that person.
Michael Meyer - translator, biographer, dramatist (1921-2000)


That slammed door reverberated across the roof of the world.
James Huneker - American literary critic (1857-1921)

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider these talking points to help start a discussion for A Doll's House:

1. Consider Act I only. How would you describe the nature of Torvald and Nora's relationship? If you knew nothing about the following two acts, would you consider theirs a good marriage? Why or why not?

2. Consider Torvald's pet names for Nora. What do they suggest about his perception of his wife? Having read the entire play, what is the ultimate irony behind those references?

3. Would you describe Torvald as the antagonist of the play? Is he a misogynist? Or is he a victim of his society's mores?

4. How do you first view Nora in Act I? How does your idea of her change throughout the play?

5. Consider A.S. Byatt's judgment of Nora (under Book Reviews, above), in which she sees Nora as displaying "a silliness and insensitivity." Do you agree or disagree with Byatt's observation?

6. What law has Nora broken? Is she justified in doing so? Was there another option open to her? Is Torvald worthy of her sacrifice (see Question 3)? Would you ever risk so much to save someone you love?

7. Consider the many references to sickness and fever in the play. What larger meanings might Ibsen have meant by them?

8. Talk about the symbolic use of the masquerade costumes, especially the dress that Kristina Linde helps Nora repair. What other symbols does Ibsen incorporate to highlight major concerns within the play? Consider the hidden macaroons, Nora's dancing the tarantella (given the folklore surrounding the dance), the light Nora calls for when Dr. Rank tells her he loves her.

9. Why does Kristina Linde convince Krogstad not to retrieve his letter of revelation? Even, or especially, in light of the final consequences, was she right or wrong?

10. Once he reads the letter, Torvald insists that "happiness doesn't matter; all that matters is...the appearance." What does that suggest about Torvald...about societal values?

11. Torvald tells Nora that "before all else [she] is a wife and mother." Nora believes that she is first and foremost a human being. Who is right? Must those two stances be separate?

12. Nora tells Torvald that she could stay in the marriage only if "the greatest miracle of all" could happen—the ability to live together in a "true marriage." What is her idea of a true marriage? Is that "miracle" possible for the couple after what has happened?

13. Is Nora's departure—and final door slam—the only option open to her, the only path by which she can achieve full humanity? Where will Nora go? What do you predict will happen to her?

14. Follow-up to Question 13: Consider that Ibsen, under pressure (and to his later dismay), rewrote the ending. What do you think that ending entailed? How would you rewrite the ending?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks. )

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