A Dolls House Critics Flashcards
Ibsen 1878
3 quotes on women
“A woman cannot be herself in contemporary society”
“It is an exclusively male society”
“Judge [women] from the male point of view”
Koht - contemporary critic
The play as a whole
“Exploded like a bomb into contemporary life”
Bogh- contemporary critic
Naturalism
“Simple in its action and so everyday in its dress”
General contemporary response - Germany
Ibsen was forced to write a ‘happy ending’ for a German production
Shaw - contemporary critic 1891
Ibsen
“The greatest living poet and moral teacher”
Passionately concerned with social issues
Social Demokraten review - 1879
2 quotes on the play in its context
“This play touches the lives of thousands of families”
“There are thousands of such doll homes”
Vullum - 1879
The play
“There is something indescribably unnatural in this”
Templeton -
2 quotes on Nora
“Not just a woman arguing for female liberation”
“[Nora] embodies the comedy as well as the tragedy of modern life”
Modern critics - general idea
Recognise Ibsen’s ability to stage humanity.
Schaefle - modern critic
5 quotes
“Boldly defies social constraints of 19th Century Norway”
“Expectations of propriety are in truth a suffocating facade”
“Fragile pretence of a blissful marriage”
“Strangled by stringent expectations”
“Overwhelming pressure of social conformity”
Worrall -
Nora
“Seeming the perfect bourgeoise wife”
‘Women’s role in Cultural life in Norway’
“They were finally left with reproduction only”
“[women were] the caretakers of that pressure for conformity and conventionality”
Strindberg - 1884
Marriage
“Marriage was revealed as being a far from divine institution”
Milett - 1971
Nora
“Nora confronted every convention and the chivalrous masculine prejudice”
Gray -
Nora
“[a] spirited woman beneath the convention-respecting surface”
