A Dolls House

3 Pages 660 Words

“A Dolls House”
Henrik Ibsen

In the play, “ A Dolls House”, Henrik Ibsens core message is to evaluate society in the nineteenth century European life. The play shows notorious issues that the audience can relate to because they take part in the similar situations every day of their own lives. Unwittingly the leading actress solves the trouble at the end of the play and in some way sends a message to the audience on how to solve their own problems. Ibsen takes a look at the issues through a different angle in which his society never knew were ever really wrong to begin with.
Ibsen takes a look at one critical thing in society, and that is women’s rights. Back in the society Ibsen wrote this play in, women were not supposed to borrow money or do anything “legal”. Women were supposed to be mute and leave this up to the men. (Example on page 1774, Literature Text, 8th Edition.) On this page (1774) Nora, the main character, supposedly borrowed the money for their trip from her father. But Nora confesses to her friend Christine that she in fact did not borrow the money from her father she herself was the one who raised it. Ibsen shows the traditional look at women in which they were to stay at home, cook, clean, take care of the children and tend to her husband. Torvald (Nora’s husband) calls Nora by pet-names and speaks down to her because he thinks that she is not intelligent and that she can not think on her own
Ibsen takes a look at the lack of power or “say” a women has in nineteenth century, he shows through Nora how some women would hide their strength and go above and beyond what’s expected. Like in the above paragraph we discussed how women were not supposed to do anything legal, such as taking loans from banks or other resources. In the play, Nora takes a loan from Kragstad to pay for her husband’s trip without her husband knowing. (Pg 1783, Literature Text, 8th Edition) Nora never bein...