A Doll's House
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| A Doll's House | |
| Written by | Henrik Ibsen |
|---|---|
| Date premiered | 21 December 1879 |
| Place premiered | Copenhagen Denmark |
| Original language | Norwegian |
| Subject | The final revolt of a wife who has been treated as a plaything |
| Genre | Drama |
| Setting | the home of the Helmers in a small Norwegian village, 1879 |
| IBDB profile | |
| IOBDB profile | |
A Doll's House (Norwegian: Et dukkehjem) is an 1879 play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. Written one year after The Pillars of Society, the play was the first of Ibsen's to create a sensation and is now perhaps his most famous play, and required reading in many secondary schools and universities. The play was controversial when first published, as it is sharply critical of 19th century marriage norms.[1] It follows the formula of well-made play up until the final act, when it breaks convention by ending with a discussion, not an unravelling. It is often called the first true feminist play, although Ibsen denied this. The play is also an important work of the naturalist movement, in which real events and situations are depicted on stage in a departure from previous forms such as romanticism.
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[edit] Plot summary
Characters
- Nora Helmer: wife of Torvald, mother of three, living out the ideal of the 19th century wife, but leaves her family at the end of the play.
- Torvald Helmer: Nora's husband, a newly promoted banker, suffocates but professes to be enamoured with his wife.
- Dr. Rank: Wealthy family friend, who is secretly in love with Nora. He is terminally ill, and it is implied that his "tuberculosis of the spine" originates from a venereal disease contracted by his father who had syphilis
- Kristine Linde: Nora's old school friend, widowed, seeking employment
- Nils Krogstad: Employee at Torvald's bank, single father, pushed to desperation. A supposed scoundrel, he is revealed to be a long-lost lover of Kristine.
- The children (Ivar, Bobby and Emmy)
- Anne Marie: Nora's old nanny, now cares for the children.
- Helene: The Helmers' maid.
- The Porter: Delivers a Christmas tree to the Helmer household at the beginning of the play.
A Doll's House opens as Nora Helmer is telling Helene, the maid, to hide the Christmas tree from the children. Nora, who is treated as a silly, childish woman by her husband, Torvald, is the protagonist of the play. Her friend Christine Linde, recently widowed and short of money, has heard about Torvald's recent promotion at the bank and comes to ask Nora for help in persuading Torvald to give her (Christine) a job. Nora promises to ask Torvald to give Christine a position as secretary. Nora confides to Christine that she once secretly borrowed money to save Torvald's life when he was very ill, but she has not told him in order to protect his pride. She then took secret jobs copying papers by hand, which she carried out secretly in her room, and learned to take pride in her ability to earn money "as if she were a man." Torvald's promotion promises to finally liberate her from having to scrimp and save in order to be able to pay off her debt. However, she has continued to play the part of the frivolous, scatter-brained child-wife for the benefit of her husband.
At the same time, Nora finds herself the victim of blackmail. Nils Krogstad, who lent her the money, is also an employee working under Torvald but is on the verge of losing his position to Christine. He has found out that Nora forged her dying father's signature on the loan application, since under the law at the time a woman could not borrow money from a bank unless her father or husband co-signed the application. She unwittingly dated her father's "signature" shortly after his death. Krogstad threatens to reveal this information unless she convinces her husband to keep him employed. Nora tries but fails.
Meanwhile, Dr. Rank, a family friend, flirts with Nora before revealing that he is terminally ill with Tuberculosis of the spine, the more socially polite way of saying Syphilis at the time, with only a month to live, and that he has been secretly in love with her.
After being fired by Torvald, Krogstad approaches Nora, declaring he no longer cares about the remaining balance of her loan but will preserve the bond to blackmail Torvald into keeping him employed. Krogstad informs Nora that he has written a letter detailing her crime and puts it in Torvald's mailbox, which is locked.
Nora tells Christine of her predicament. Christine says that she and Krogstad were in love before she married, and promises she will convince him to relent.
Torvald tries to check his mail before he and Nora go to a New Year's party, but Nora distracts him by showing him the dance she has been rehearsing for the party. Torvald declares that he will postpone reading his mail until the evening. Alone, Nora contemplates suicide to save her husband from the shame of the revelation of her crime, and more important to pre-empt any gallant gesture on his part to "save" her.
Christine tells Krogstad that she only married her husband because she had no other means to support her sick mother and young siblings, and that she has returned to offer him her love again. Krogstad is moved and offers to take back his letter to Torvald. However, Christine decides that Torvald should know the truth for the sake of his and Nora's marriage.
Back from the party, Torvald goes to read his letters and Nora prepares to take her life. Before she has the opportunity, Torvald intercepts her, confronting her with Krogstad's letter. In his rage, he declares that he is now completely in Krogstad's power -- he must yield to Krogstad's demands and keep quiet about the whole affair. He berates Nora, calling her a dishonest and immoral woman and telling her she is unfit to raise their children. He says that their marriage will be kept only to maintain appearances.
A maid enters, delivering a letter to Nora. Krogstad has returned the incriminating papers, saying that he regrets his actions. Torvald is jubilant, telling Nora he is saved as he burns the papers. He takes back his harsh words to his wife and tells her that he has forgiven her. He also explains to her that her mistake makes her all the more precious to him because it reveals an adorable helplessness, and that when a man has forgiven his wife it makes him love her all the more since she is the recipient of his generosity.
By now Nora has realized that her husband is not the man she thought he was, and that her whole existence has been a lie. Her fantasy of love is just that -- a fantasy. Torvald's love is highly conditional. She has been treated like a plaything, first by her father and then by her husband. She decides that she must leave to find out who she is and what to make of her life. Torvald insists she must fulfill her duty as a wife and mother, but Nora believes she also has duties to herself. From Torvald's reaction to Krogstad's letters, Nora sees that she and Torvald are strangers to each other. When Torvald asks if there is still any chance for them to rebuild their marriage, she replies that it would take "the greatest miracle of all": they would have to change so much that their life together would become a real marriage.
The play ends with the sound of Nora slamming the door as she leaves, while Torvald hopefully ponders the possibility of "the greatest miracle of all."
[edit] Alternative Ending
For the first production of the play in Germany, Ibsen was forced to write an alternative ending for it to be considered acceptable. This is a good indicator of how controversial the play was at the time. In this ending Nora does not leave Helmer, but instead remains for the sake of the children, which she cannot bear to leave without a mother.
[edit] Productions
The play made its American premiere on Broadway at the Palmer's Theatre on 21 December 1889, starring Beatrice Cameron as Nora Helmer.[2] The first English production starred Janet Achurch as Nora on the 7th of June 1889[3]. Janet Achurch played Nora again for a 7 day run in 1897. The most acclaimed American stage production of the play was in 1902 starring Minnie Maddern Fiske. A 1997 production starring Janet McTeer at Belasco Theater also received good reviews, along with 4 Tony Awards.
[edit] Film adaptations
A Doll's House has been adapted for several film releases including two in 1973 directed by Joseph Losey starring Jane Fonda, David Warner and Trevor Howard; and Patrick Garland with stars Claire Bloom, Anthony Hopkins, and Ralph Richardson. Dariush Mehrjui's film Sara (1992) is based on A Doll's House, where Sara, played by Niki Karimi, is the Nora of Ibsen's play. A celebrated wireless version of the play, available from Retro-Media.co.uk, and starring Basil Rathbone as Torvald, was broadcast in the US 1947 by the Theatre Guild.
[edit] Critics
A Doll's House is a criticism play of the traditional roles of men and women in 19th century marriage.
To many 19th-century Europeans, this was scandalous. Nothing was considered more holy than the covenant of marriage, and to portray it in such a way was completely unacceptable. However, a few more open-minded critics such as George Bernard Shaw in England found Ibsen's willingness to examine society without prejudice exhilarating. In Germany, the production's lead actress refused to play the part of Nora unless Ibsen changed the ending, which, under pressure, he eventually did. In the alternative ending, Nora gives her husband another chance after he reminds her of her responsibility to their children. This ending proved unpopular and Ibsen later regretted his decision on the matter. A Doll's House was originally banned in Britain by the Lord Chamberlain under the 1737 licensing act. Virtually all productions today, however, use the original ending, as do nearly all of the film versions of this play, including Dariush Mehrjui's Sara (the Argentine version, made in 1943 and starring Delia Garcés, does not; it also modernizes the story, setting it in the early 1940s).
Much of the criticism is focused on Nora's self-discovery, but the other characters also have depth and value. The infected Dr. Rank and Nora both suffer from the irresponsibility of their fathers: Dr. Rank for the father who infected his family, Nora for the father she likely married to protect. Dr. Rank's disease becomes a metaphor for the poison infecting the Helmer's marriage and society at large. Mrs. Linde provides the model of a woman who has been forced to fend for and find herself - a self-aware, resourceful woman. As Henrik Ibsen, a man with deep-seated distrust of the masses, said, "the strongest man [or woman] in the world is he who stands most alone." [4]
[edit] References
- ^ Krutch, Joseph Wood (1953). "Modernism" in Modern Drama, A Definition and an Estimate (First edition ed.). Ithaca: Cornell University Press. pp. 9. OCLC 176284.
- ^ "Opening Night Production Credits: A Doll's House (1889)". The Internet Broadway Database (2008). Retrieved on 2008-09-18.
- ^ A Doll’s House ... Translated by W. Archer. [Illustrated with photographs.] L.P., T. Fisher Unwin: London, 1889. Kept at the British Library.
- ^ Henrik Ibsen (2008). "Henrik Ibsen Quotes". BrainyQuote. Retrieved on 2008-10-22.
[edit] Further reading
- Ibsen, Henrik (1889). A Doll's House and Other Plays (First English edition ed.). New York: J.W. Lovell Company. OCLC 23750072.
- William L. Urban. "Parallels in A Doll's House." Festschrift in Honor of Charles Speel. Ed. by Thomas J. Sienkewicz and James E. Betts. Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois, 1997.
[edit] External links
- A Doll's House at the Internet Broadway Database
- A Doll's House at the Internet Movie Database
- A Doll’s House: A Study Guide
- Summary, analysis, quizzes and essays on A Doll's House
- A Doll's House at Project Gutenberg
- A Doll's House at Project Gutenberg (alternate edition)
- Et Dukkehjem, free e-book of the Norwegian text, at Project Runeberg.(Norwegian)
- A Doll's House the play plot summary & character descriptions
- The Social Significance of Modern Drama, a book by Emma Goldman, contains a chapter on A Doll's House.
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