"Ben Kingsley, Julian Sands, And Jena Malone Sign On for a Doll's House". Cinema Blend. Retrieved 12 January 2017. ^ Mottram, James (9 June 2016). "Sir Ben Kingsley interview". Independent. Retrieved 12 January 2017. ^ "BBC Radio 3 â Drama on 3, A Doll's House". BBC. ^ "A Doll's House". Ingmar Bergman. Retrieved 3 April 2017.
Get the entire A Doll's House LitChart as a printable PDF. "My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S. The maid, whose name is Helene, is a servant in the Helmersâ household. The porter delivers the Helmersâ Christmas tree .
It aroused a great sensation at the time, and caused a "storm of outraged controversy" that went beyond the theatre to the world newspapers and society. In 2006, the centennial of Ibsen's death, A Doll's House held the distinction of being the world's most performed play that year.
^ "A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen in a new version by Lally Katz". La Boite Theatre Company. 2014. Archived from the original on 2 November 2014. Retrieved 2 November 2014. ^ a b . "A Doll's House at The Space". Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 1 April 2015. ^ "A Doll's House".
Torvald Helmer is a lawyer who at the play's outset has recently been promoted to Bank Manager. He is married to Nora Helmer, with whom he has three children.
In A Doll House, we see that Torvald Helmer, the lawyer, is a condescending, selfish, and quite authoritative. He easily becomes the antagonist in the play because of his arrogance and bad treatment towards his wife and his employers.
Torvald HelmerNora HelmerMrs. LindeNils KrogstadDr RankIvar HelmerPuphejmo/Characters
forgery of signaturesUnlike Torvald, who seems to desire respect for selfish reasons, Krogstad desires it for his family's sake. Like Nora, Krogstad is a person who has been wronged by society, and both Nora and Krogstad have committed the same crime: forgery of signatures.
In his confession, Dr. Rank reveals his love for Nora to be more honest and real, as the emotion evolved while actually spending time with her.
Torvald calls her pet names "little lark", "little squirrel", and "Little Miss Extravagant". Nora is being treated like a cute little girl and she happily accepts the epithets.
Character ListNora. The protagonist of the play and the wife of Torvald Helmer. ... Torvald Helmer. Nora's husband. ... Krogstad. A lawyer who went to school with Torvald and holds a subordinate position at Torvald's bank. ... Mrs. Linde. ... Dr. Rank. ... Bob, Emmy, and Ivar. Nora and Torvald's three small children. ... Anne-Marie. ... Nora's father.
The nursemaid The maid, whose name is Helene, is a servant in the Helmers' household. The porter delivers the Helmers' Christmas tree. Nora and Torvald have three children, whose names are Ivar, Bobby, and Emmy. Still fairly young, they delight in playing with their mother.
Nora procured money and told Torvald that her father gave it to them, though she really raised it herself. Nora's father died before Torvald had a chance to find out that the money didn't come from him.
Later in the play it is revealed that he was once in love with Kristine Linde, who ended up marrying another man in order to have enough money to support her dying mother and young brothers. This left Krogstad lost and embittered, unhappy in his own marriage, and is presented as the reason behind his moral corruption.
Linde to love and admire him. In the end, Nora and Torvald's relationship is severed. Yet, Krogstad begins a new life with a woman he believed had left him forever.
While he thinks that such a bad character is in direct contrast to his âsweet little Nora,â we are aware that Krogstad and Nora have committed exactly the same crimeâforgery.
The maid, whose name is Helene, is a servant in the Helmersâ household.
The nursemaid. Nurse to both Nora and Nora's children, the nursemaid, whose name is Anne Marie, is a kind woman who was forced to give up her own child, who it is suggested was born⌠read analysis of The nursemaid.
Nora Helmer. Nora Helmer is the heroine of the play. Still a young woman, she is married to Torvald Helmer and has three children. At the playâs outset, she is bubbly and carefree, excited about Christmas⌠read analysis of Nora Helmer.
Nils Krogstad. Nils Krogstad is, at least at the beginning, the antagonist of the play. Known to the other characters as unscrupulous and dishonest, he blackmails Nora, who borrowed money from him with a forged signature⌠read analysis of Nils Krogstad.
The doorbell rings. The maid announces that it is someone to see Torvald, but that she isnât sure whether to show him in yet as Torvald is still... (full context)
Mrs. Linde asks if Torvald ever found out about the money, and if Nora ever confided in him. Nora says... (full context)
When Nora tells him she is leaving him, Torvald at first reacts by calling her mad and saying she is acting like a stupid child. However, when he realizes how resolute she is in her decision, Torvald offers to change and desperately searches for a way to stay with her.
She admits that she was happy to hear about Torvaldâs promotion because she hopes that he will help her find a job. (full context) Nora promises to help persuade Torvald to give Mrs. Linde a job. Mrs. Linde thanks her, saying Noraâs behavior is exceptionally... (full context) ...her husbandâs back is a rash move.
Nora asks Torvald if he is tired, but he says he is extremely lively. Nora admits that she... (full context)
Nora backs away from Torvald, saying she feels hot. Torvald gets up and says he must do some work, as... (full context)
Torvald goes to the letter box and says he must empty it. He notices that somebody... (full context)
Nora (played by Vera Komissarzhevskaya) dresses the Christmas tree, 1904. A Doll's House questions the traditional roles of men and women in 19th-century marriage. To many 19th-century Europeans, this was scandalous. The covenant of marriage was considered holy, and to portray it as Ibsen did was controversial.
Real-life inspiration. A Doll's House was based on the life of Laura Kieler (maiden name Laura Smith Petersen), a good friend of Ibsen. Much that happened between Nora and Torvald happened to Laura and her husband, Victor.
The reasons Nora leaves her husband are complex, and various details are hinted at throughout the play. In the last scene, she tells her husband she has been "greatly wronged" by his disparaging and condescending treatment of her, and his attitude towards her in their marriage â as though she were his "doll wife" â and the children in turn have become her "dolls," leading her to doubt her own qualifications to raise her children. She is troubled by her husband's behavior in regard to the scandal of the loaned money. She does not love her husband, she feels they are strangers, she feels completely confused, and suggests that her issues are shared by many women. George Bernard Shaw suggests that she left to begin "a journey in search of self-respect and apprenticeship to life," and that her revolt is "the end of a chapter of human history."
Ibsen wrote A Doll's House when Laura Kieler had been committed to the asylum. The fate of this friend of the family shook him deeply, perhaps also because Laura had asked him to intervene at a crucial point in the scandal, which he did not feel able or willing to do.
Modern tragedy. Setting. The home of the Helmer family in an unspecified Norwegian town or city, circa 1879. A Doll's House ( Danish and BokmĂĽl: Et dukkehjem; also translated as A Doll House) is a three-act play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.
Ibsen started thinking about the play around May 1878, although he did not begin its first draft until a year later, having reflected on the themes and characters in the intervening period (he visualised its protagonist, Nora, for instance, as having approached him one day wearing "a blue woolen dress"). He outlined his conception of the play as a "modern tragedy " in a note written in Rome on 19 October 1878. "A woman cannot be herself in modern society," he argues, since it is "an exclusively male society, with laws made by men and with prosecutors and judges who assess feminine conduct from a masculine standpoint!"
A Doll's House received its world premiere on 21 December 1879 at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, with Betty Hennings as Nora, Emil Poulsen as Torvald, and Peter Jerndorff as Dr. Rank. Writing for the Norwegian newspaper Folkets Avis, the critic Erik Bøgh admired Ibsen's originality and technical mastery: "Not a single declamatory phrase, no high dramatics, no drop of blood, not even a tear." Every performance of its run was sold out. Another production opened at the Royal Theatre in Stockholm, on 8 January 1880, while productions in Christiania (with Johanne Juell as Nora and Arnoldus Reimers as Torvald) and Bergen followed shortly after.
Nora Helmer The central character, who is a "doll" for her husband to dress up, show off, and give direction to. She is childlike, romping easily with her three children. Torvald Helmer Nora's husband, a bank manager, who was once gravely ill and needed to go to a southern climate to improve his health.
Christine Linde An old family friend of Nora's, Christine is a widow who was once engaged to Nils Krogstad. Nils Krogstad A lawyer and moneylender who is a former acquaintance of Torvald's and works at his bank; his position is tenuous there, because he ruined his reputation and career by committing forgery. Dr.
A Doll's House. Torvald embraces the belief that a manâs role in marriage is to protect and guide his wife. He clearly enjoys the idea that Nora needs his guidance, and he interacts with her as a father would. He instructs her with trite, moralistic sayings, such as: âA home that depends on loans and debt is not beautiful because it is not free.â.
Although he says that Nora has ruined his happiness and will not be allowed to raise the children, he insists that she remain in the house because his chief concern is saving âthe appearanceâ of their household.
Furthermore, Torvald reveals himself to be childishly petty at times. His real objection to working with Krogstad stems not from -deficiencies in Krogstadâs moral character but, rather, Krogstadâs overly friendly and familiar behavior.
Ibsenâs A Dollâs House and morality. Ibsenâs. A Dollâs House. and morality. In A Dollâs House (1879), Ibsen takes aim at an outmoded sense of morality. In the following excerpt, Torvald Helmer is lecturing his wife on morality, which for him is strongly gendered. The wife is primarily responsible for the generational transmission of morality .
Helmer . My dear, I have often seen it in the course of my life as a lawyer. Almost everyone who has gone to the bad early in life has had a deceitful mother.
When she sees her husbandâs true, selfish, ignorant nature, Nora questions what she learned of religion and the law.
Justice is an idea, concept, aspiration, or topic of conversation, but the law is what society actually uses to stabilize normative expectations. Ibsen and Chekhov shared an interest in the question of moralityâspecifically, how a morality based on social hierarchy, or stratification, cannot survive in a functionally differentiated society.
The law does not derive from God or nature; it is contingent and could always be other than it is. So where previously the concepts of morality, duty, law, religion were tightly bound together, these things have been scattered in all directions.
Krogstadâs role in the play is that of a catalyst in bringing about the transformation of Nora, as it is his letter and Helmerâs reaction to it that brings her down to earth and makes her realize the true nature of her husband.
Nils Krogstad is one of the secondary characters in the play, but important nonetheless. He holds a position subordinate to that of Helmer in the Bank and is initially portrayed as an unscrupulous, dishonest, and unsympathetic man. Even before his entry into the play, he is painted as a typical villain, cruel, and devoid of morals.
Helmer, on several occasions, expresses his disapproval of Krogstadâs character, calling him âa man without scruples.â. He believes that an atmosphere of lies, like that of Krogstadâs house, âinfects and poisons the whole life of a home.â. Helmer also remarks that Krogstad will make his position in the Bank âquite intolerable.â.
Krogstad has a criminal record of having committed forgery, and is thus extremely protective about his position in the bank, as he finds it extremely important to hold a respectable position in the bank in order to redeem himself. When he finds out that his position in the bank is in jeopardy, he holds Nora responsible for it ...
Consequently, Krogstad writes a letter to Helmer taking back his threat, and apologizes for it. Thus Krogstad is a highly misunderstood character, scorned by most of the other characters in a play, but who is actually an ordinary human being in a desperate situation.
Ibsen's "A Doll's House": Analysis & Summary. It is thus seen that Krogstad is actually quite practical and mature, and not as crooked or dishonest as he is portrayed to be. An important aspect of Krogstadâs character is his redemption after reuniting with Mrs. Linde.
The play served as a catalyst for an ongoing debate over feminism and womenâs rights. In 1898 Ibsen was honored by the Norwegian Society for Womenâs Rights and toasted as the âcreator of Nora.â. Always the contrarian, Ibsen rejected the notion that A Dollâs House champions the cause of womenâs rights:
The first edition of 8,000 copies of the play quickly sold out, and the play was so heatedly debated in Scandinavia in 1879 that, as critic Frances Lord observes, âmany a social invitation in Stockholm during that winter bore the words, âYou are requested not to mention Ibsenâs Dollâs House!â.
Nora tells Torvald that she no longer loves him because he is not the man she thought he was, that he was incapable of heroic action on her behalf. When Torvald insists that âno man would sacrifice his honor for love,â Nora replies: âMillions of women have done just that.â
The wife in the play ends by having no idea what is right and what is wrong; natural feelings on the one hand and belief in authority on the other lead her to utter distraction. . . .
According to critic Evert Sprinchorn, Nora is âthe richest, most complexâ female dramatic character since Shakespeareâs heroines, and as feminist critic Kate Millett has argued in Sexual Politics, Ibsen was the first dramatist since the Greeks to challenge the myth of male dominance. âIn Aeschylusâ dramatization of the myth,â Millett asserts, ...
Henrik Ibsen (20 March 1828 â 23 May 1906) is widely acknowledged as the father of modern drama, but his significance in literature and history overshadows the influence of his revolutionary stage techniques and his iconoclastic concept of the theater. ⌠Continue reading
Until Ibsenâs Nora slammed the door announcing the sexual revolution, this triumph went nearly uncontested.â. The momentum that propelled Ibsenâs daring artistic and social revolt was sustained principally by his outsider status, as an exile both at home and abroad.