A Doll's House, by Yin Yang

Our Roommate Nora

Can you imagine living in a doll’s house or in other words only knowing how to live up to people’s expectations and having that become of your normality and everyday life? In “A Doll’s House”, written by Henrik Ibsen, he contemplates on different life values we come across of in our own personal life, either from challenges or past events that has taken some type of effect on our well-being. In this case, a young Woman has issues of only knowing how to please others as she is oblivious on knowing how to take care of herself. Ibsen expressed the misuse of love and freedom that families and individuals played throughout relationships through the story of “A Doll’s House”, I love that throughout this story, the message I received from Ibsen was that there is tons of Nora’s and Torvald’s in the world today, maybe not the same story, but same concept which a lot of the time is individuals blinding their own judgement, freedom, and knowing they have a say in relationships due to the sake of love for someone else or because of the way they were raised in their home.  writes this story more for the reader, to open our eyes hoping they will become aware of the moral

corruption we are blinded by, yet living by.

Ibsen expresses of a couple’s story with many issues yet it depends on your perspective on how the reader chooses to take that all in and whether it is effective enough to be applied to our own life situations or not. Ibsen expresses a story about living up to societal expectations and appearances all for the sake of love, misusing the true definition of love and how dangerous it can be. In “A Doll’s House”, this was easily traveled throughout Nora’s childhood, for this was the way she was raised so she carries it on through her marriage because she doesn’t know any better causing her to not know how to live for yourself nor make decisions to benefit her self. A husband of a ‘all about appearances’ couple, showed desperation of keeping tidy of his private and social realms, and the wife trying to be the beautiful carefree, flawless wife he always wanted her to be.

Ibsen used his freedom throughout making the play, he decided to make it a happy ending rather than letting someone else do it despite the hard family values that went along within the play that made it seem like an happy ending would be a miracle in their family. But most importantly, it is a story that argues with feminism. “Ibsen had in mind a housewife Medea, whose cruelty to husband and children he tailored down to fit the framed, domes tic world of realist drama.” (Templeton 29) This play made it clear that “the work can be no more about women than men because the interests of both are the same "human" one’s; sex is irrelevant, and thus gender nonexistent, in the literary search for the self, which transcends and obliterates mere biological and social determinations.” (Templeton 31). Rather than the play just being another regular play to watch for fun and not really get anything out of it, it created a mood towards the audience within his play, the kind of vibe that brings back your own memories of how you are living, causing you to reflect back on your life, the people in it, the actions you take, the decisions you make that either benefit more of their sake or yours for whichever reason why. In The Quintessence of Ibsenism, written by George Bernard Shaw, she claims “Ibsen supplies the want left by Shakespeare. He gives us not only ourselves, but ourselves in our own situations” This wasn’t a story Ibsen just came up with on a sunny day, it is a common issue to take place during couples and all different kind of relationships then and to this day. A Doll's House was based on the life of Laura Kieler, a good friend of Ibsen. Much that happened between Nora and Torvald actually happened to Laura and her husband.

“NORA shuts the door. She continues to laugh quietly and happily to herself as she takes off her things. She takes a bag of macaroons out of her pocket and eats one or two; then she walks stealthily across and listens at her husband’s door.” (201) The foods and objects that Ibsen includes throughout the story all have a significant meaning. It was as if Nora looked to her macaroons as her safe place, making her feel sane, but it’s not really just about the macaroons and how good it taste but the fact that Torvald refuses for her to partake of these foods, in other words, if it makes her happy but isn’t something that would better their appearance, he would do everything in his power to demolish that habit. Ibsen “capitalizes on the human tendency to judge others by what they eat in order to provide quick, realistic character exposition.” He observed that eating is a very common act we take to better understand each other, hence the many foods that were brung up in the different dialogues throughout the story. He had a reason for everything he put in his play, those reasons behind it always had to do something with realistic dialogue in social drama.

“In many years’ time, when I’m no longer as pretty as I am now. You mustn’t laugh! What I mean of course is when Torvald isn’t quite so much in love with me as he

is now, when he’s lost interest in watching me dance, or get dressed up, or recite.

Then it might be a good thing to have something in reserve. (215)” This is where Nora realizes the biggest factor of their marriage is appearances, she uses her body to her advantage to control her husband. Torvald portrays that he does have a strong love and care for Nora yet he controls her with all of these rules that she has to live up to or else what? Or else she is not given affection? And what would that lead to exactly? Nora not knowing how to love anymore, or did she even know how to love in the first place considering that her husband was so demanding, she had no say or choice in her own freedom. We live in a world with these issues that are absolutely real, that do take place in marriages and relationships, the worst ones are where we are aware of what we are diminishing within our self-value, self-worth, and self-respect, yet we still live through it all for the sake of “love”. Whatever type of love that is, Ibsen expresses this type of disassociation we live and love but refuse to see.

“Something glorious is going to happen.” Within this quote, Nora acknowledges that her husband will take the blame for her once he finds out about the loan she took out to save his life. Yet once he finally comes to the point of reading the letter that exposes Nora’s loan, he rages at her at no longer sees any worth in her. You would think if someone took a loan out for you for the sake of your own life, you’d do anything and everything in your power to repay them back for their service and love. If you think about it, Nora is his literal hero, if she hadn’t done this he would’ve died, but obviously Torvald has no sight or care for her cape. The sad part is all that Torvald chooses to see is his wife taking out a loan without his notice, and refuses to see that she was doing everything she could to save his life. She was willing to kill herself because she wouldn’t be able to deal with his reaction, even in Nora’s eyes she also saw the loan as a wrong doing, that’s how brainwashed  From this part of the story, Ibsen portrays of the many lies and sacrifices people make for each other and it not always being appreciated nor acknowledged because of selfishness. “Thirty-one hours to live..” Nora allowed Torvald control her to live on this time clock, if she doesn’t do this or that at this time, he will make her feel less than what she really is. In her own childhood growing up, she was raised to also feel this way. Nora’s father would call her his “little doll” which is exactly how she would act so who blames her for acting the way she does now with her husband. There was moral corruption between the Parent to the child. Torvald is another character that treats her as a child just as her father did, she even reinforces gender roles towards her children all for Torvald; buying a doll for her daughter and a sword for her son because appearance and manipulative wishes is all they know to live by. Ibsen portrays her as a child not only to Torvald but to all the characters in the play, she has no filter, continuing what comes to mind without regard for what is and what is not appropriate.

 Societal Expectations of how Husbands and Wives should live and act towards each other were definitely displayed throughout this play. Nora realizes the true nature of her marriage once she sees he doesn’t take the blame for her loan and that’s when she decides to leave. In that part of the story, Ibsen claims that people leave their marriages or relationships all the time because they can’t be their true selves, but in this case, Nora did not even know who she was, she was just playing this character that everyone wanted her to be. Therefore this was her time to leave and figure out what values she holds instead of holding what her husband wants her to, wearing, saying, eating, doing, acting however or whatever he wants. She couldn’t even be her children’s own mother because she didn’t even know how to properly be a wife capable of making your own decisions. Ibsen expressed a lot of life lessons and challenges that go through marriages, the drama that it causes, the drama that could be prevented. By limiting his characters to broken, repetitive, incoherent utterances for his readers to better understand that we are all the same people that live in one-sided relationships that make regretful decisions all for affection and love, yet we need to realize we can receive that without giving up our self worth and value.

Bibliography

Boeninger,Stephanie Pocock. “Teacups and Butter: The Importance of Eating in Ibsen’s A Doll’s   House and The Wild Duck.” BYUH  Library,eds.b.ebscohost.com.byuh.idm.oclc.org/

eds/pdfviewer/ pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=5b135808-b93e-4340-8b54-a647c578

45e9@sessionmgr103.

Joan, Templeton. “Henrik Ibsen: A New Biography by Robert Ferguson; Ibsen's Women by Joan

Templeton.” JSTOR, Jan. 2000, www-jstor-org.byuh.idm.oclc.org/stable/pdf/3736471.pdf?refreqid=

search%3Ab7735509698c49e4385194d645387a13.