Themes/motifs/imagery

Question 1

Torvald and Masculinity,
Aestheticism.

Answer 1

-Torvald consistently aestheticizes the people and things around him.
E.g. Nora and Doctor Rank.
-Helmers aesthetic preferences blind him to social realities

-Christine Linder has to knit for her living. Helmers says “The movements associated with embroidery are much prettier, while knitting is an ugly business because women’s arms get all huddled up and they look like a damned Chinaman.

-Comprehends loss of dying Rank only in aesthetic terms “His suffering and loneliness seem to provide a dark background to the happy sunlight of our marriage.”

-Says Nora Tarantella was “a tad to realistic”

Question 2

Torvald and Masculinity
Infantilization/sexualizing of Nora.

Answer 2

TORVALD:
I would not be a true man if your feminine
helplessness did not make you doubly attractive in
my eyes.
- Act 3

TORVALD:
for the first time, I am alone with you - quite
alone with you, as you stand there young and
trembling and beautiful.
- Act 3

TORVALD:
my clandestine little sweetheart, and nobody
knows there’s anything at all between us
- Act 3

Question 3

Torvald and Masculinity
Abuse

Answer 3

-Nora tells Christine in Act 2 that he has isolated her from her friends, to the extent that she no longer mentions them, as it makes him jealous.
-Isolates her from Christine - hustling her off stage. “dreadful bore”

TORVALD:
my clandestine little sweetheart, and nobody
knows there’s anything at all between us
Act 3
His “most treasured possession.”
-desire for his exclusive knowledge and possession of Nora.

Question 4

Torvald and Masculinity
Fragile masculinity.

Answer 4

NORA:
so proud of being a man
- it’d be so painful and
humiliating for him to know that he owed anything
to me.
* Act 1
-Torvald mistakenly believes he can bare any burden - too afraid of loss of reputation when it comes to it.

Question 5

Ibsens presentation of Masculinity beyond Torvald.

Answer 5

-Nora’s father described as feckless and bad with money.
-Treats Nora as a doll child.
-Dr Ranks father gay - contracted a venereal disease, responsible for Ranks illness.
-Both Krogstad and Torvald fear loss of reputation.
-

Question 6

Ibsens beliefs of masculinity?

Answer 6

-Presents the problems that come with the stereotyping of masculinity.
-Damaging to men.
-The idea of masculinity in Victorian culture is unsustainable.

Question 7

Evolution

Answer 7

-Nora is virtually reborn in Act III and wants to persue her own personal evolution.

Question 8

Inheritance and criminality

Answer 8

-Darwins evolution rests on heredity and inheritance as generation of traits are passed on and creatures evolve.
-Rank is dying of tuberculosis of the spine - inherited from his STD-ridden father. (Continues to next play Ghosts - disease brought on by inheritance is syphilis)
-Ranks terminal departure: shows inevitability of heredity and parents destruction of their children.
-Torvald’ accusation that Nora has inherited her fathers faults. When criticizing her spendthrift behavior -
TORVALD:
in your blood. Yes, yes, yes, these things are
hereditary, Nora.
Act 1
TORVALD:
Nearly all young criminals are the children of
mothers who are constitutional liars.
Act 1
-Nora was motherless and ends up leaving her children - Noras nurse also left her infant to look after Nora.

Question 9

Immorality and illness.

Answer 9

Immorality and illness are equated.
-Rank and Linde argue about whether society should care for ‘a moral invalid’ - in the way they care for the ill.
-Krogstad’s redemption by Mrs Linde - forms a coda to this argument - clear indication that moral sickness can be healed.
-Infection becomes a metaphors for sin when discussing Krogstad:
TORVALD:
An atmosphere of lies contaminates and poisons
every corner of the home. Every breath that the
children draw in such a house contains the germs
of evil.
Act 1
-Rank calls Krogstad a Moral cripple.

Question 10

Law

Answer 10

“There are two kinds of moral laws, two kinds of
conscience, one for men and one, quite different, for
women. They don’t understand each other, but in practical life, woman is judged by masculine law, as
though she weren’t a woman, but a man.
Ibsen, ‘Notes for a Modern Tragedy’, 1879
-Ibsens describes Nora’s pride for forgery because she did it out of love for Torvald.
-Two types of law juxtaposed in Nora and Krogstads confrontation end ACT 1:
-Nora prioritizes motive over law, believes law must consider motive of family love.
-Nora claims she has committed no crime against Krogstad as he is not her family so she does not have to care about him.
-Krogstad represents the law of community and legality.
-Nora embodies law of ethical and emotional obligations to her family - override legalistic obligations.

Question 11

Class

Question 12

Money as a symbol

Answer 12

-Nora borrow money - useful cause - keep Torvald alive.
-However - money not represented as gold or legal tender - rather as a peice of paper that is evidence of a crime - tool for the blackmailer.
stands for pretences, false promises, and the misuse of power - fitting symbol/parallel for the Helmer marriage.

Question 13

Devision of public and private life.

Question 14

Separate spheres

Question 15

Motherhood

Answer 15

-Christine suggest she wants to be a mother and that Krogstads children needs a mother.
-Nora leaves her children at the end of the play.
-Nora is motherless.
-Nora’s nurse had to leave her infant to take care of Nora.

Question 16

Doll motif

Answer 16

-doll - not a person - rather a character determined by its owner - according to what functions its expected to serve (E.g. a baby).
-Nora’s role determined by others: to Helmer - a wife, mother, sexual partner + pet animal.
-Her status reflect functions - rather than choices.
-Does not have a role in public.
-Nora rebels against her doll like position in Act 3 claiming ‘before anything else I’m a human being’ - claiming the right tot make self - reflects ideas of Kierkegaard (philosopher) - existentialism - person shapes themselves through choices - an individual is free to choose their own beliefs and values.

Question 17

Nora as part of society?

Answer 17

-Doll theme - function/replaceable.
-engagement with the outside world seen as a forma of play/disguise ‘being a man’ - does not view herself as a member of society.
-No sense of responsibility for strangers - does not care for Krogstad or his children Nora: think of my little children. Krogstad: have you… thought of mine?
-Not concerned with Mrs Linde and Dr Ranks debate about how the world is or should be organised.

Question 18

Nora as and Individual

Answer 18

-Second act - awareness of the wider implications of her private act - realises if she takes money from rank it will change the relationship from affection to power.
-her actions as a morally reponsible individual - highlight helmers lack of heroism and honesty - he wants to appease Krogstads blackmail and preserve a respective facade - keeping Nora playing the role of mother and wife.
-However - after he forgives her - she no longer accepts him as a spokesman for powerful forces in society that have failed her:
-He’s a lawyer but let her be ignorant to the law.
-in religion he calls it ;your religion’ as though it is not something men need - they do not have ‘sacred duties’.
-She realises she must decide what law/religon/mothering mean for herself and learn this.

Question 19

Theatricality

Answer 19

-Ibsen - wanted actors to avoid ‘theatrical accents’ - instead copy life around them.
-wanted audience to respons to Nora or Krogstad - not igenue or villian.
-Nora and Helmer - think about the idea of performance in their own lives.
-‘Theatrical’ - everyday language - equated with insincerity and transforming oneself into a commodity.

Question 20

Symbol of Nora’s tarantella and Capri costume?

Answer 20

-Helmers choice of costume - represents what he wishes her to be: economically inferior; a symbol of his social and sexual status in possessing a beautiful wife.
-He see her dance - his own artistic expression - assumes role of Pygmalion - legendary sculptor - fell in love with his own statue.
-Forgets the nature of performance - involves choices of more than 1 person - to Nora - dance expresses the terror and panic she feels - dance sit in a style that he calls ‘a trifle too realistic’.
-However - through moment like her dance - or choice of garment/role - Nora is able to discover who she is as an individual.

Question 21

Symbol of the stove?

Answer 21

a winter day”
“fire”
“the stove”
“goes over towards the stove”
-juxtaposition between the cold exterior which is metonymic for the cruel reality of society.
-The internal images of the fire and the stove are images of comfort and domesticity.
-Throughout the play, Nora is often near and comforted by the stove. tying her to the private domestic sphere.
-however, in the denouement she rejects this domestic world.

Question 22

How plausible is Nora’s transformation? BUTTERFLY

Answer 22

A butterfly appears to transform instantaneously from immature to fully developed being, breaking out of chrysalis, spreading wings, and flying away. But, it has been maturing inside its cocoon in a process hidden from outside world. Ibsen’s Nora is no butterfly - she doesn’t transform suddenly from girl to woman - but he does show her character developing incrementally so that when she “transforms” it is not sudden and shocking, but the logical result of a series of hints carefully planted in the text since the very first moments, when we see Nora hiding the macaroons and lying to torvald, when she confides in mrs l she enjoys seemingly dull work (manuscript copying), when she shows unexpected canniness in recognising her only power over “torvald lies in her youthful prettiness; once that is gone, she will lose her hold.

Question 23

Extended metaphor of masking: Nora’s transformation

Answer 23

Ibsen scatters a metaphor of masking throughout the play, riffling on the idea of costuming, masquerade, pretence and artifice - a metatheatrical allusion, since this is a play about the damage done by playing roles. Act 1, torvald denounces liars, saying they can never “drop the mask” not even with own wives and children. Rank too refers to masking metaphor when taking his final leave, “at the next masquerade I shall be invisible…” However, when Nora and Rank are alone together, this is not artful flirtation and pretence, but rather, a core truth and essential trust that they share.The scene shows Nora’s true self, free of societal pressures and able to relax - until rare sense of liberation shattered by rank’s declaration of love, showing he’s no different from any other man sexually attracted to her. This enable Nora’s nobility with him after declaration.

Question 24

Nora’s transformation: Melodrama and hysteria motif

Answer 24

Further clues to transformation are Nora’s enactment of melodramatic, hysterical gestures only to reject/grow out of them: the tarantella dance and the though of suicide as an escape. These enable her to realise the importance of steeling herself and facing inevitable rather than running away. She says ‘firmly and decisively’ ‘now you must read your letters, torvald. In final scene, Torvald is the emotional one not Nora, the firm, decisive tone stays with her throughout, her demeanour becomes “icily calm.” She remains in control of situation, while Torvald assumes the “hysterical” female stereotype. He marvels at her “calm, collected manner” as she confesses she longer loves him and their lives crumble.

Question 25

Torvald and change

Answer 25

From the start, torvald is too rigid, always one step behind in his idea of change. e.g, In Act 2 he disappointed when he peeks at Nora’s supposed costume for the party as he had “expected some kind of marvellous transformation.” This in itself is a proleptic sign of what momentous change will eventually come.

Question 26

Transformation: cyclical form

Answer 26

Ibsen plants the transformative seed right from the start by echoing certain ideas at the beginning of the play in a vastly different light near the end in order to show how deeply Nora has changed. E.g, opening: “oh, I only wish I’d inherited some of Daddy’s qualities.” But by end, she is rejecting this patriarchal inheritance entirely, simply saying she has been “passed out of Daddy’s hands into yours.” With no innate ideas of her own.

Question 27

Illusions

Answer 27

When Nora announces that she’s taking off her masquerade costume, she is saying that she’s finished performing a role, what women have to do to exist in society. She is a fearless truth-teller, a crusader willing to brave a hostile world for the sake of following through on her beliefs. Certainly, Nora will pay a huge price for her idealism (destitution, prostitution, humiliation by being forced to return due to circumstances)
maybe living with self-delusion would have been better. Ibsen’s next play Ghosts explores exactly this; a woman who does remain in an unhappy marriage for the sake of maintaining an illusion.