A Doll's House

Original post - in french - on my blog:
Overall">http://moncoinlecture.over-blog.com/article-une-maison-de-poupees-henrik-ibsen-88501013.html

Overall, I have to say that I really, really enjoyed this play. We meet Nora, a charming little bird who chirps around the house, with a smile and a loving word for her husband, who wouldn't want her to be anything else. Torvald, the husband, has a new job, one that will allow them to live a little more comfortably.

But soon, we realise that there's trouble in paradise and with this situation, we'll see Nora changing. Or realizing who she really is. This play is about many things. About the condition of women, of course, but also about appearances and about the game people have to play to please everyone. Nora will be deceived by many people. She will question what she took for granted and confront her own actions and values with those of the society and of her husband.

I got so angry at times, when I was reading this! I don’t know who between Krogstad and Torvald I wanted to kick the most. Let’s say that I had very, very strong reactions, even if, I can imagine, this situation was not that strange at the time. I really liked the ending and was very touched by some of Nora’s words by the end. A gread read!
( )

Nora a woman who comes to understand that her marriage wasnt as she supposed it to be , an illusion, and that her husband is a very different person from she once believed him to be..when he cant undergo one of the hardships in their life for her sake ....

She leaves her husband and her children because she feels it is for their benefit..
her husband accused her of being a "child-wife"she feels that he was right, that she is a child who knows nothing of the world. Since she knows so little about herself or society, she feels that she is an inadequate mother and wife.....

her last words was that they could become a man and wife once again, but only if a miracle occurred.......

i liked the last scene.... ( )

A good play, fun to imagine as a play instead of how I usually handle books. ( )

A play based on a couples presumption of each other. When a wife borrows money to allow the husband to take a much needed vacation, she lies to her husband about where the money came from. When she is about to be found out, things change. ( )

Henrik Ibsen's play 'A Doll's House' was written in 1879 and shocked theatre-goers of the era. It is a drama about a woman in what may have been a typical marriage of the time. I do not pretend to be a social historian, so that is a guess. Nora is told by her husband what she can eat (no sweets), what she can spend, what she can do with her time, and how she is to comport herself in matters of dress and behaviour. It is a stifling marriage in which Nora has no freedom of choice or ability to complain of the restraints placed upon her.

Ibsen gives Nora a way out. She rejects the confines of her marriage in search of a life where she is able to make her own choices and to explore what she is capable of doing. It is a revolutionary outlook for a playright, especially one who is male and living in the late 19th century, and I can only imagine the outrage that this drama must have caused.

I was absolutely impressed by the play. It's so forward-thinking, and so open to the ideas of individualism for everyone, and of personal freedom for women. I was severely irritated by the way in which Nora's husband, Torvald Helmer, addressed his wife: he spoke to her as if she were a child he was indulging: "Is that my little lark twittering out there?", and chastised her in the way one would an unruly child. With finely-scripted dialogue, Ibsen makes it plain to the reader or theatre-goer that there is no real relationship between Nora and Torvald, and that she is very much the inferior in this marriage.

Enlightened and enlightening; this play is so very worth reading by anyone interested in the earliest days of women's rights and the fight for individual freedoms. ( )