A Doll's House

The play by Henrik Ibsen is definitely important in the scheme of the universal dialogue on gender roles. Written in 1879, it was one of the early works of literature to plainly exhibit a questioning of society’s strict gender roles. I can understand why, as Ms. Clinch said, audiences in European theaters during the time that the play was first performed saw it as unforgivably scandalous. After all, a wife suddenly leaves her husband and children. Even in today’s “immoral” times, this abandonment is almost always seen as unacceptable. Sure, Nora is unhappy with her life. She realizes that every aspect of her existence had been a sham. So is it her duty to herself to leave in order to discover who she is? Does she have no responsibility for her children because she left their upbringing up to a nanny?

I feel that it was a refreshing thing to witness Nora breaking free of the societal and self-imposed shackles that had kept her a macaroon-munching squirrel. But in the context of her life- the responsibilities she has to her children and to Torvald- I thought that her decision to leave suddenly without goodbyes was selfish and impractical. So it was depressing to consider that, even when she isn’t under the thumb of Torvald, Nora, the “liberated” woman has her interests closest to heart. It is therefore understandable that the point was raised- was Ibsen a sexist? I think that by modern standards Ibsen would be a sexist for implying that women are selfish and flighty but that he was practically a liberal radical by the standards of the late-1800s

Germans even went so far as to change the ending of the play, which in my opinion completely altered the meaning of the work and bastardized Ibsen’s original intent. Instead of stealing away silently without more drama and weepy goodbyes, they changed the play for their audiences, having Torvald force Nora to go and see the children she was going to abandon (which in real life is the responsible thing to do but for some reason in the play just was depressing- like the shackles she had just thrown off were being clamped back on). Nora breaks down upon seeing her children and collapses, no longer with the intent to leave. If what Nora does in the original version is strength of self character, her failure to carry out her plan of abandonment in this altered version is perhaps a return to normal in terms of gender roles, but ultimately makes that version of the play into a statement on the weakness of women- since Nora returns to her family, she has made no growth as a character and is in nearly the exact same position she was in at the beginning of the play.

So while I don’t agree with the notion of abandoning family in favor of self-fulfillment, I do prefer Ibsen’s intended ending to the play. While Nora in my opinion is not exactly the epitome of female progress and intellect, she progresses in Ibsen’s play, just as the modern day woman evolved from her more restricted counterpart from centuries ago.