Nora Among the Centuries

The most famous of Henrik Ibsen's works is without any doubt "A Doll's House". The play were published in 1897 in Munich, Germany, where the Norwegian writer lived.

A Doll's House represents a turning point in the history of literature.

While Victorian values of family, morality and domestic responsibility, influenced all the arts, not just in England but in the whole Europe, Ibsen wrote a play in which all these values were contradicted, the social rules were broken and the taboos were shown without any filter.

The importance of it is not simply connected with the scandals that it produced, but also with the influence that it had on later works and writers.

Around 1890, just 1 year after its first publication in Germany, the play became known also in England generating a movement, called social realism, that has among its exponents writers like George Bernard Shaw, Arthur Pinero and Oscar Wilde.

All these writers began writing "problem plays", plays in which they showed the contradiction and the illness of the society; controversial works that made scandals but that remain actual for a long time.

A Doll's House is considered by many critics as a feminist work, even if Ibsen always refused this interpretation. but above all A Doll's House is a critic against the role of both men and women in the marriage in Victorian time.

It's because of this theme that the play were scandalous when it were published. For 19th century Europeans, marriage was holy and it was totally out of imagination that a woman could leave her husband and break the marriage. The role of the woman in Victorian society was that of daughter and then wife and mother; a woman was the angel of the house, she shouldn't work but just take care about her family and her house.

Nora, at the beginning of the play, is a perfect Victorian woman. She's totally devoted to her husband and her role of wife and mother, she looks childish, able to think just about silly things like Christmas decorations and presents for her children and for herself. Nora is good spending her husband's money, doing shopping and nothing more, or, at least this is what Torvald, her husband, think about her. In his opinion she is not able of deep thought, responsibilities nor, maybe, adult life.

He calls her "little lark", "little squirrel", "little spendthrift" and with many other nicknames and he thinks that the aim of her life is to be pleasant for him and to take care of him and their children.

These ideas are not peculiar of Torvald and Nora's marriage, here Torvald represents the 19th century husband and man, and Nora the typical Victorian wife and woman.

If at the beginning everything in the play seems canonical and right, after a few pages we begin discovering the real Nora. We discover that the Nora of the first page is just a mask, she's playing a role with her husband to make him happy. We discover that Nora is able to think and decide for herself, to reflect on her life, to understand her role and play it, but she's still a person and not just a doll as the men of her life made her thinking at the beginning. Both her father and her husband behaved with her as she was their toy, a doll, nice to see and to show but not good in anything else. They didn't care about her feelings, dreams and aspirations, they never tried to know her as a person.

From these considerations Nora develops the idea of herself as a doll, but also, reflecting on her past, on some "illicit" action she performed, she realized that there are not good reasons to believe in that idea. Nora realizes that she can break the pattern of "doll's life" and begin a real life.

Everything starts when Nora, talking with her friend Christine Linde, tells her that she borrowed money from Mr Krogstad to save her husband life when he was very sick. She asked for the money, she obtained it (even if in an illegal way) and now she is still paying her debt, by herself, without her husband help. He doesn't know and she can't say anything about it because he couldn't understand. But maybe this situation that Nora created and solved alone made her thinking that she's able of something, that she's not just a silly doll...

When her husband discovered about the loan she asked, facing on the eventuality that his reputation can be ruined by this fact, he insults Nora of being an irresponsible and silly person, unable of growing their children but needing of being grown herself.

After this discussion Nora's psyche is really damaged, she thought about suicide, she doesn't want to see her children, worried about a possible contamination of them by her immorality.

This situation makes Nora understanding also the real nature of her husband, who called her with sweet nicknames until she was the perfect wife, but who calls her "irresponsible" and "silly" when she's not perfect anymore.

The fact that Torvald forgave her when his reputation is not in danger anymore, makes Nora's feelings for him even more bitter. He doesn't love her, he just needs a wife because it's a kind of social rule, good for his reputation, and above all he doesn't want a woman as wife, but an ideal.

Finally Nora decided to leave her house, thinking that she's able to live alone, to provide for herself, but thinking also that she's not good for her children because, after all, she's still a "criminal".

Nora decided to start her life again, but this time she's free of being what she is, she's not anymore daughter, wife or mother of anybody... now she's just Nora.

The fact that Nora at the end leaves her family and her house represent the most innovative idea in the play, it breaks all the values of the time and soon it became a scandal.

If we consider that at Ibsen time the role of theatre can be compared to the role of TV today, that the influence of dramas and plays were very strong both on other literary genres and on the aspect of life, it doesn't seem strange that A Doll's House were banned in UK and in many important theatres in Europe. In Germany many actresses refused to play the role of Nora and Ibsen was force to re-write the end of the play, even if later he regrets about this decision. In the new version, Nora forgives her husband and she doesn't leave her house. In this way the play respects better the social values of the time because even if Nora remains a non-conventional character, in the end she didn't do such a outrageous thing as leaving her family.

Here we can see a parallelism between Nora and Ibsen himself because