A Doll's House Flashcards
1
Q
Context
A
- Realism was a reaction against Romanticism and Melodrama: too idealistic, out of touch with reality
- Industrial Revolution: urbanisation, overpopulation, disease, poverty, child labour, prostitution, addiction etc
- Victorian society: veneer of conservative morality
- Realism ran parallel to ideas of science –observation, research, progress, cause and effect(Compte), Darwin (evolution, origin of the species, heredity and environment)
- Society: conservative morality, organised religion, conformity, refusal to confront reality
2
Q
Intention
A
- Present a slice of life on stage (show objective truth on stage) – to solve social problems, generate social change
- Source of insight, evoke discussion and convey ideas
- Ibsen: a person cannot be happy when falling in to the mould of someone else
- To be happy one must know oneself (Existentialism: authenticity)
- Expose the reality of a patriarchal society, subjugation of women, gender roles and expectations
3
Q
STYLE: Realism
A
- A slice of life on stage
- Contemporary subject matter and themes mirror real-life situations
- Naturalistic plot, dialogue, characters
- Characters – 3D – internal motivations, grow and change, psychologically complex (psychoanalysis and subtext)
- Structure: unity of time, place and action, linear and chronological
- Intensive structure: small cast, one setting, shot period of time
- Cause and effect: development of action and plot
- Attention to details: dialogue, structure, set and character (stage directions)
- Clearly described stage directions: subtext can be seen through blocking and detail for set and props
4
Q
GENRE: Problem Play
A
- Play of social criticism: highlight contemporary issues, social relevance
- Deal with Victorian dual-morality
- Note of philosophical and social enquiry
- Intention: to use objective representation of real-live problems to incite change and solve these problems
5
Q
SIGNIFICANCE OF TITLE: A Doll’s House
A
- Relationship between Torvald and Nora – playing at gender roles, husband and wife, superficial relationship, based on social expectations rather than real feeling
- Torvald treats Nora like a doll: takes her out, shows her off, puts her back , dresses her
- Porcelain dolls are hollow: N and T are not actualised “real” people, empty shells
- Nora is trapped in the house (cage) – she does not know who she is outside of the house – she has no sense of her identity or authenticity, treated like a possession and a toy by her father and then by Torvald
- Audience are like voyeurs - watch the action through a ‘window’ – 4th wall
- Patriarchal social structure: women and children are treated like dolls
6
Q
SETTING: Time and Place
A
- Place: Norway, Helmers’ apartment
- Time: 1870s, Christmas time
- Setting is reflective of the sopoco – environment contributes to a person’s nature (Darwin) and defines them – this is very NB for understanding the character of Nora
7
Q
Structure
A
- 3 acts, one unchanging scene
- 2 strands to plot: Main: Torvald and Nora, subplot: Krogstad and Kristina
- Exposition, rising action (conflict), climax, resolution N leaving, open ending
- Exposition: through dialogue between Nora and Kristina – first act
- About two days
- Each act built carefully through a series of complications leading to a high point (climax) towards the end of it
- Intensive
- Unity of time, place and action
- Device: contrast Nors and Kristina’s journeys – their stories end in opposite ways – Nora flees to outside, Kristina comes inside
- Complication – instigated by Krogstad – cause of Nora’s dilemma
- Climactic scene: Nora confronting Torvald (and then gtfo)
8
Q
Themes
A
- Gender roles: patriarchy and womens’ rights
- Forces of heredity (genes) and environemnt
- Duty to oneself vs duty to others (love, motherhood, marriage, identity, authenticity)
9
Q
A Feminist Tract/Womens’ Rights
Themes
A
- RADICAL subject matter for the time
- Sympathetic portrayal of a women who refuses to obey her husband and who leaves her children
- Nora represents middle class 19th C daughter and wife: both protected and prevented from experiencing hardships and benefits of outside world
- Expected to suppress her own desires in deference to wishes of her father and husband
- Necessity for self-liberation
- N and T: can both be seen as victims of their social and gender roles – in attempting to behave according to convention, their marriage becomes based on an illusion
- They deceive each other and themselves
- Nora wants to be a good wife, but she interrogates and questions the demands of duty to her husband and children (both religious and societal expectations) - when she realised that she would be treated like a criminal for trying to save T’s life
- “I must think things out for myself and try to find my own answer. I need to find out what is right, society or I.”
10
Q
Love and Duty: Self-Liberation
A
- K shows results of a marriage made for duty to one’s family: misery
- K has learnt to look at things practically – her experiences of life and poverty – forced her to earn her own living, financially independent BUT feels lost and empty
- Irony: K chooses safety of domesticity, N chooses to flee to outside world
- Ibsen shows romantic love to be an illusion that inhibits the free development of the individual
- To keep T’s love N lies, pretends to be helpless, suppresses her true feelings, uses her sexuality, because that is her only power.
- T is blinded by ideas of love
- He treats N like a child, comments on her wastefulness and helplessness
- He thinks of N as “my most treasured possession”
- T and N have assumed roles in which they have both become trapped
- When N slams the door (the slam heard around the world) she shatters the romantic illusion of their life
11
Q
Heredity and Environment: Determinism and Free Will (nature vs nurture)
A
- Debate about whether our lives are shaped by our own free choice or whether they are determined by a combination of our past, our genetic make-up and environment (Darwin)
- ADH seems to illustrate the moral and psychological need to exercise free will in situations where authority inhibits personal development
- Play’s conclusion suggests that individuals should be responsible for themselves and their own lives (authenticity)
- Darwinian thought: origin of the species (h and e)
- Dr Rank takes a detached and scientific approach to his own death – he sees humans as biological creatures (like Darwin)
- Trvld: ironically the character MOST affected by his environment – remains inhibited by social codes
- N is able to throw off the shackles: vivacious and intelligent
- Final action (N leaving) may be the catalyst that would force T to grow, change, adapt (scientific view: evolution) and decide actively for himself rather than passively rely on social conventions to define his identity
- Ibsen champions the idea of the individual spirit, integrity and potential
12
Q
Christmas Tree (Set)
Symbols
A
- Establishes the time of year: Christmas, ideal family time (happiness, merriment, joy)
- Nora uses the Xmas tree to extend and enhance her subtext (Her desires to want to be a good wife)
- Act 2: “stripped and dishevelled” symbolising the dysfunction of the family, disintegration of the ideal family portrait
13
Q
Doors (set)
Symbols
A
- Reinforce themes of the play
- Nearly 40 references to doors opening and closing
- Play starts and ends with a door
- Links to images of caged/trapped animals
- Open and closed possibilities
- Potential for change
- Choices made either freely or determined by heredity, environment, social pressures
14
Q
Macaroon
Symbols
A
Nora’s deceit, secret rebelliousness, childishness, marriage of lies, illusion
15
Q
Tarantella (Motif)
Symbols
A
- “the tarantella is the play”
- The dance of life and death
- In an effort to prevent T opening the letter, N stages a rehearsal of the wild dance (instinct, power)
- Rehearsal: multicolour shawl, ballroom: wears a black shawl, takes off her fancy dress clothes and puts on everyday clothes – metamorphosis
