Henrik Ibsen A Dolls House - Research Paper Example

In Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll House”, Ibsen explores why Nora, the main character and protagonist, lacks values and struggles to find her own authentic identity in the face of a tyrannical male domineering society Although most people would wish otherwise, equity, integrity, and independence are not values held at the utmost importance throughout mankind. The setting in Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” is during a time period that finds women suppressed by a social system in which males find dominance and success in the public while the women are expected to be obedient, domestic housewives and prohibited from possessing such qualities. Through the ‘ideology of separate spheres’, women became trapped within the domestic sphere, thus isolating them from the world and holding them back from forming complete identities. The reference used by Ibsen for the title, suggests the false and constructed reality of the domestic sphere as it limits women from reaching their potential In Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll House” Ibsen explores as to why Nora, the main character and protagonist, lacks such values and struggles to find her own authentic identity in the face of a tyrannical male domineering society. During the 19th century a specific ideology in Victorian England emerged that defined the spaces in which the genders were assigned. Women were confined to the dominion of their husband within the domestic sphere, their lives to be lived within the space of home and social experience. Males were in dominion of the public sphere, their lives expanded to include business and politics with women not allowed, by law, to participate in their lives, which included their economic status where financial and real estate was concerned. There is some debate about the representation of separate spheres within literature. Beer constructed a review of literature challenging the existence, or the extent, in which the ideology of separate spheres affected real life in comparison to how it was reflected within literature of the time. There is a suggestion that “spectacles of suffering” provided an exaggerated view of some social issues in order to elicit emotional reactions for the “object of sympathy” (702). Some of this might be observed with “A Doll’s House”, although not outside of a believable relationship between a man and a woman, there is a distinct point made about the nature of male oppression. As Helmer uses diminutive language towards his wife, he sets the nature of their relationship through treating his wife like a child, a ‘doll’ that is coddled and protected into an unrealistic framework in which he dominates all important aspects of their life together. Helmer says to her “The same little feather head” and “Hasn’t Miss Sweet-Tooth been breaking rules in town today?” (Ibsen 12, 14). In regard to her spending habits he says “It’s a sweet little spendthrift, but she uses up a deal of money” (Ibsen 14). He treats her like a child, speaking to her in a manner that is condescending and without any sort of recognition of her adult place within the marriage. Nora is not a complete person to him, but someone who has no sense and must be considered without any regard to the concept of her opinion. He determines what is important within the household and when he fails to see some of the aspects of domestic life that must be attended, she must find ways to manipulate their relationship in order to accomplish what must be done. Her choices are limited because she is not considered to have a valuable place within their household, other than that which he has determined she is qualified to hold. When Helmer addresses her by saying “Hasn’t Miss Sweet-Tooth been breaking rules in town today”, he is chastising her like she is a naughty child, ‘teasing; her with the idea that she is not in control of her desires and impulses (Ibsen 14). He further diminishes her when he speaks to her without a direct application of her name, the third person commentary stating “Hasn’t she been to the confectioner’s?” suggesting that she would lie to him to hide her misbehavior (Ibsen 14). Nora must undergo the humiliation of a conversation that oppresses her spirit as an adult, keeping her locked into the position of a child that must engage in lies in order to hide what she would choose to do. However, the great scandal within the play defies this concept. When Nora was pregnant, her husband ill and unable to work, and having just experienced the passing of her father, she found that her situation was without enough money to cover their expenses. Despite the fact that she had been treated like someone’s child and pampered as if she had no sense, she saw the need that her economic position created and acted. During this time, women were not allowed to get loans without the signature of an adult male. Nora had to make a decision to save her family, so she forged her father’s signature on the loan documents, although he had been dead for several days. Nora secured a loan outside of the law, thus placing her at the mercy of Krogstad as he knows about her action and uses it to blackmail her into forcing her husband to keep him on at the bank where they both work. Because of the social position of women, they were not allowed to provide for their families in times of need. Thus, Nora was put into a position to act outside of the law because her status as a viable adult was not validated. The play addresses gender roles, the nature of assigning specific tasks to individuals due to their sex manifestation. The roles of mother and father are addressed, although the examination of Nora as a mother is more prominent than that of Helmer as a father. The overall discussion that Ibsen makes is that of condemning the patriarchal society, vilifying it for its hypocrisy and the nature of its own delusions of power and responsibility. In particular, the theme of the absent father is predominant. According to Rosefeldt, “In ‘A Doll’s House’, the absent father permeates all classes” (84). There is a repetition of examples of how the father within the social structure damages the lives of the women and children involved, thus creating a designation of the concept of father as a harmful one. In regard to the nature of fatherhood, the concept is defined within the play as a pollutant. When speaking of Krogstad, Helmer states “Every breath the children take in (his home) is filled with the germs of something degenerate” (Rosefeldt 84). The concept of having made a mistake that diminishes the character of a man provides for the idea that he is a bad influence in all respects. Where Helmer judges Krogstad for his financial indiscretion, he does not yet know that his wife had also committed a similar act. Krogstad committed his forgery in order to protect his ill wife, while Nora did the same type of act to protect her family during her husband’s illness. In seeing how Helmer considers the crime of Krogstad, there is a foreshadowing of how he will see the actions of his wife. Within the construction of the social context of the play, the nature of the patriarchal system is directly addressed through the position of fatherhood. According to Lorentz“One of the most important conditions for laying bare the symbolic power of the patriarchy is the disclosure of the father as a representative of the divine within the family” (819). In this respect, the objectification of all members of the play, with Nora standing outside of the objectification, creates the balance from which the difference between perceived roles and true identity can be understood. In trying to live up to the roles that the middle class prescribe to all its members, the pressures that exist on the male figures is just as poignant as that imposed on the female figures. The nature of life for women was explored extensively by Ibsen, leading Irish suffragist Louie Bennett to state “More than any other Modern writer he has proved himself a prophet and an apostle of the cause of women: no other modern writer has shown more sympathetic comprehension of her nature and its latent power” (Forward 24). Ironically, this comment still seems to objectify the nature of being female, separating her nature and power from her identity. One of the common problems in framing the nature of being female is that in order to assign empowerment, it must often be separated from the identity. Women are either framed as inept, wayward, or as goddesses, existence within the female identity outside of the basic idea of human existence. In order to be empowered, women are placed upon a pedestal rather than given the basic graces of humanity. Therefore, as Nora leaves her family, she is framed by much of the audience as a villain, her actions not being understood through the despair that she feels, but through the selfish nature of leaving her children and her husband, thus shattering the social structure that is an expectation within society. Those who appreciate the play see it as “exposing hypocrisy in middle class family life”, but those who focus on the social structure for its purity, see the work as an example of an unnatural woman who commits an act against the nature of the female gender (Forward 24). Women do not leave their children. However, this, of course, is not the point of the play. Her leaving the domestic sphere is symbolic of her escaping the oppression that it has created. There have been claims that Ibsen wrote a play about feminist causes, his work supporting female rights However, his own commentary suggests that this is not the case. His voice has the greatest equalization of all as he addresses the problem from a human point of view. He stated that “I am not even quite clear as to just what this women’s rights movement is. To me it has seemed a problem of humanity in general” (Forward 24). He further wrote in some notes that “A woman cannot be herself in society of the present day, which is an exclusive masculine society, with laws flamed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view” (Forward 24). Women were oppressed through legal means, their ability to function in society without men crippled and impotent. Without the support of society, being human was always shadowed with the need to be feminine. To gain any control in her life, she had to have the permissions of men, thus the Victorian woman was not allowed to express any independence. Without independence, the self could not be found. This is the journey that Nora is seeking to take as she walks out the door in the end. She is not walking away from her family. In this case, the balance is flipped. Rather than the female representation being the object of the discussion, the oppressive nature of the middle class existence becomes the object of discussion. In this sense, the middle class family that she leaves behind is a symbol, the needs of the children and the husband immaterial to the choice that she makes because they are only representative of a problem. This tips the scales of literary conventions of the time, Nora not the representation of ‘the fallen woman’ as was common in Victorian literature, but her family as a representation of oppression. When the final scenes come, it has been structured through the commentaries that Helmer has made previously. When he discusses the pollution of the home through deceit, he is also sealing his own fate, as Nora is a good mother and knows that her deceit, not the one he perceives but the deceit that has been a part of the construction of her identity, is the one that she can no longer afflict upon her children. He tells her that she is immoral, without religion, and without a sense of duty, comparing her to her father which is a strike of many blows as she grieves her father and he compares her to faults that he sees within him, as well as disrespecting his memory. Nora brings the point of the play to its head. She states “I have been your doll wife, just as at home I was Papa’s doll child; and here the children have been my dolls “(Forward 24). The unreality that has existed in her life has been a cycle, and in the end she feels she must break that cycle. In sacrificing her place within the home, it is possible to frame the experience as a moment of clarity in which she protects her children from the deceits of her life, not the fraud, but in living a life that has no meaning in which she has no identity. The nature of the concepts of equity, morality and values as they are reflected in the hypocrisy within the family setting of the middle class within Ibsen’s play provide context for understanding the nature of society as it tries to impose morals through creating non-realities in which people are supposed to adapt to role identification. Because of the desire to create morality without the importance of identity, the nature of society becomes based upon a lack of substantive belief, oppression taking over the impulses and providing a system that sets up its members to fail. The nature of life defined for its members through object of their lives, rather than the subject of its content. ‘A Doll’s House’ exemplifies the nature of objectification, the nature of morals subverted by the oppressions that steal choice and impose concepts of cultural roles rather than provide a space for identity to develop. While much has changed since the 19th century, there is still a social construction that tends to create lives that are lived according to social rules, rather than developed through individual values that have been constructed within belief systems. Nora depended on the values of the male dominating system, but when that system was failing to support her and her family, she had to fall in grace to commit a fraud against that system. Her values were not built upon self awareness, but upon trying to navigate a system in which her ‘sweet tooth’ was as much of an issue as any other aspect of her life. Through an examination of human rights and truth in values, Ibsen frees his protagonist through the despairs of her choices. Works Cited Beer, Janet. Separate Spheres No More: Gender Conversion in American Literature, 1830-1930. The Modern Language Review. 97.3 (July 2002): 701-702. Print. Forward, Stephanie. A New World for Women? Stephanie Forward Considers Nora’s Dramatic Exit from Ibsen’s ‘A Doll House’. The English Review. 19.4 (April 2009): 24. Ibsen, Henrik. ‘A Doll’s House’: Unabridged. Clayton, Delaware: Prestwick House, 2005. Print. Lorentz, Jorgen. Ibsen and Fatherhood. Drama Criticism. 37.4 (Autumn 2006): 817-836. Print. Rosefeldt, Paul. Ibsen’s ‘A Doll House’. The Explicator. 61.2 (Winter 2003): 84. Print. Read More