A Doll House

Every person has an idea of what the life they live should be like. Usually this does not follow with the life they actually live. Nora has a life worth living, when written on paper. She has a husband, who from a distance, seems caring enough, she has a home nicer than most, two children, and looks that would warrant a second glance. Her life is a charade, well played, but still not real.

Nora is nothing more than a doll to her husband. An esthetically pleasing object that fulfills minor duties and is valued more for appearance than anything else. In some ways this is in-fact Nora's fault. Whenever she communicates with her husband she acts overly playful, to the likes of a child in need of attention. She also constantly asks him for favors opposed to talking to him as an equal. It almost appears that her husband enjoys this behavior; almost as if in the event she were to become more self-sufficient, he would feel inadequate. Nora does not state the life that she wants; from watching the play one could say she just wants her life to have a real purpose and meaning. She wants her life to have a purpose other than playing whatever role her husband finds fit for his idea of a wife. Nora wants a life that is a life, in it's rawest form, no fabrications or frills. She fakes her happiness and, is not really in love with her husband. She seems to go with the tide because it is all she really knows; she is chasing safety more so than happiness. This has nothing to do with her being a woman, for the most part; her oppression is more emotional than social. She just wants to be a person that she is not. Her husband would most likely view any women on a lower level mainly because of the time this story is based in.

Therefore in some ways this is to do with her being a woman, because a portion of her problems created by her surroundings have to do with her gender. But a majority of what she is in search of is something too abstract to be considered a women's right plea. Nora wants a feeling of integrity, a feeling she cannot achieve when her identity consists of nothing more than being a mother, and a wife with no voice. With that being said despite some contradictory stated earlier on, I would agree with Michael Meyer, A Doll House is not so much about being an oppressed woman as much as it is the constant quest for our lives to fulfill our hearts desires. And for the image in our minds that we have of ourselves to be conveyed in the lives we live.