A Doll’s House – A Realistic Problem Drama

A Doll’s House, a realistic problem drama by Henrik Ibsen, slams the door on the static social conventions of the nineteenth century European society. This slamming of the door resonated throughout the world, advocating for the liberation of not only women, but also for the liberation of individuals from the rigid institutions within society. Ibsen’s presentation of A Doll’s House moves away from the romantic drama genre to a presentation of an objective reality, trying to portray real social problems with a critical perspective as it challenges the values of a conservative established system. A Doll’s House traces the physical, mental and emotional odyssey individuals of this society undertake in order to define and establish themselves within a society that is constantly changing and reshaped by a series of social and political revolutions.

Ibsen was an advocate of equal rights and liberties of the individual within an oppressive society. His dramas centred on his society with its false morality and manipulation of public opinion and how individuals operated within this society. In A Doll’s House, Ibsen identifies various kinds of individuals and their relationshi

The publication of Darwin’s controversial yet revolutionary scientific theory of the Origin of Species (1859) proposed the theory of evolution through Natural Selection. From the publication of the Origin of Species, the concept Neo-Darwinism was developed. Neo-Darwinism is a social outlook whereby the strongest individual in society will survive. This theory also supplied Ibsen with material to illustrate the “awful entrapment by the united forces of heredity, environment, and history, the humiliation of romantic aspiration by the lump of psychological raw material in which it is encased, and a universe where only physical strength and the jungle law prevail” in A Doll’s House. Neo-Darwinism’s influence in the play is evident through the concepts of hereditary congenital disease, illustrated through Dr Rank’s disease, and Helmer’s belief in the transmission of moral corruption from parent to child, were prevalent ideals in Ibsen’s society.

Nora, too, rejects all Helmer’s rhetoric about what is required of a wife and mother in contemporary society. He appeals to her conscience; but conscience no longer functions for her as a guide in matters of morality. On the contrary, conscience in some cases becomes an organ of authoritarian and repressive social forces, an internalised control mechanism which conflict with the newly won insights of an individual. It is this that conflicts can arise within the individual between a social determined ‘conscience’ – which gives its allegiance to the past – and the a newer (‘free and true’) conception of what is right and wrong, positive and negative.

Right up to the dramatic conclusion, Nora has clung to the notion of ‘the miracle’, to the dream that Helmer will take upon himself the complete and full responsibility for her actions and thereby courageously defy the threat of society’s condemnation of her. The real Helmer is in his mental make-up much less liberated than Nora herself; he reveals himself as being a pitiable and egotistic slave of the male society of which he is so conspicuous a defender. It is not the human being in him which speaks to Nora at their final confrontation; it is society, its institutions and authorities, which speak through him. Ibsen’s exposure of Helmer is total; and Helmer’s exclamations when the danger is past, “Yes, yes. I’m saved. Nora, I’m saved” (Act III line 416-417), is on the verge of caricature.

At the time the play was produced, Norwegian society was undergoing social and political reform. Throughout the 1860s there had been growing agitation for legal rights for women. The rights for women to work on equal terms as males had been granted only in 1866. However, it was a patriarchal society. Men still had authority over their wives. Women were commonly regarded as superficial objects, whose main concerns were with their family and home. The small towns that had developed in Norway lead to women, in particular, leading a lonely, shut-off life. The people suffered from ‘small town claustrophobia’ and prying neighbours. Ibsen was subject to narrow-mindedness and selfishness from his culture and this prompted him to reconsider ‘old certainties’.

Some topics in this essay:
Doll’s House, Act III, French Revolution, Kristine Linde’s, Torvald Helmer, House Ibsen, Origin Species, Henrik Ibsen, Understanding Consciousness, Ms Linde, doll’s house, act iii line, iii line, act iii, forms consciousness, ‘the miracle’, nineteenth century, realistic drama, understanding consciousness, individual freedom, theory evolution, doll’s house ibsen, doll’s house nora, notion ‘the miracle’, phrase ‘the miracle’,