A Doll's House Flashcards
Importance of light when Rank declares his love for Nora
Ibsen employs an unrealistic use of lighting when Nora calls for the lamp, the ensuing light chases away more than the physical gloom. She asks Dr Rank : ‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, now that the lamps been lit?’(p69). She is consciously equating his declaration of love with the deeds of darkness even though she has been prepared to exploit that gloom for her own purposes.
Nora’s relationship with Torvald, mirroring her relationship with her father
‘I feel the same about Torvald as I did about papa’ (p69) act 2 - This small passing comment from Nora shows her consciously acknowledging that she is treated like a child by Torvald in their relationship, foreshadowing her realisation at the end of Act 3. Where she realises that she needs to be free from being a wife and mother in order to grow up and experience the world for herself.
Ibsens use of naturalism in the play
As the curtain rises on the set of A Doll’s house, the audience are looking through the ‘fourth wall’ into a comfortable bourgeois drawing room. The realistic details of the opening stage direction are used to lead the audience into a close identification with the characters who inhabit this room which seems so familiar.
“The Angel of the House”
The Angel in the House is a term used by Victorian poet Coventry Patmore. This term is perhaps the most famous term for describing how women were during the Victorian era. They were confined to the home and were expected to be domestic, innocent and extremely helpless when anything outside the home was concerned. They were supposed to be a beacon of morality for their husbands.
Infantalisation of Nora
Helmer has suspicions that Nora has had some macaroons, something that he has forbidden her from doing: “Has my little sweet-tooth been indulging herself in town today?”
“Not even a nibble at a macaroon?”
Further infantalisation occurs, with Helmer’s language representing the one of a dad speaking to a young child. He speaks down to her and tends to prefix his terms of endearment with ‘little’. Nora responds to his statement with: “You know I could never act against your wishes” (this is ironic as their marriage is built on lies)
Ibsen at the Norweigan Women’s Right League in 1898
Ibsen stated ‘I am not a member of the Women’s Rights League’. This is naive of Ibsen, given how much influence his play had on the conception of marriage and the role of women.
