Eric Knickerbocker
May 14, 2003
In “ A Doll’s House,” Henrik Ibsen primarily addresses issues not only relating to women in Norway, but to women embarking on twentieth-century life in general. To achieve his desired effect, he employs the use of contextual dialog and places Nora as the central character, which gives her a great edge. Because of her prominent role throughout the play, she becomes familiar, and what is familiar is favored. With the lone exception of the exchange between Mrs. Linde and Krogstad at the beginning of Act III, there is not a single scene that features a dialog that in some way does not include a prominent part from Nora. It soon becomes apparent that Nora emerges from the dramatis personae as the pièce de résistance Ibsen intends to win our sympathies.
In Act I, scene I, the stage is set, bringing the meaning behind the play’s title into sharp focus. Here, Ibsen uses contextual dialog to demonstrate that Nora is indeed, as the title implies, little more than a doll in a toy house, a plaything that Torvald doesn’t take seriously. For instance, Torvald asks: “Is that my little lark twittering out there? Is it my little squirrel bustling about?” (Ibsen 500). A short pace later, he calls her “a poor little girl,” and then adds “you needn’t ruin your dear eyes and your pretty little hands” (502). Nora appears willingly—if not a little naïvely—to play into this role: after clapping her hands she replies, “No, Torvald, I needn’t any longer, need I! It’s wonderfully lovely to hear you say so” (503).
A second issue Ibsen presents for consideration in the first scene is a discussion of money, Nora appearing to play the role of the pampered child with a penchant for shiny coins clinking together:
Nora (playing with his coat buttons, and without raising her eyes to his). If you really want to give me something, you might—you might—
Helmer. Well, out with it!
Nora (speaking quickly). You might give me money, Torvald. Only just as much as you can afford; and then one of these days I will buy something with it.
Helmer. But, Nora—
Nora. Oh, do! dear Torvald; please, please do! Then I will wrap it up in beautiful gilt paper and hang it on the Christmas tree. Wouldn’t that be fun?
Helmer. What are little people called that are always wasting money?
Nora. Spendthrifts—I know. Let us do as you suggest, Torvald, and then I shall have time to think what I am most in want of. That is a very sensible plan, isn’t it? (Ibsen 501)
For all appearances’ sake, we are led to believe that Nora has her every whim indulged by her husband, the two engaged in a mutually dependent game—just as one might expect when playing a game of tea time with the frilly dolls arranged expectantly around the table. Few are the vestiges of respectability and maturity; the exchanges seems almost saccharine and we are inclined to view both characters askance. Ibsen, however, has a few tricks up his sleeve: he is not prepared to leave his mouthpiece in such an inglorious poise. In fact, he is gearing up to turn us against Torvald: we will ultimately blame his wife’s behavior on him, excusing her on behalf of naïveté and lack of experience.
Yes, Ibsen intends to show us another side of Nora, for precisely as she herself says, “But ‘Nora, Nora’ is not so silly as you think” (504). In addition to this subtle foreshadowing, we glean some important information as Nora converses with Mrs. Linde:
Nora. A barrister’s profession is such an uncertain thing [. . . Torvald] is to take up his work in the Bank at the New Year, and then he will have a big salary and lots of commissions. For the future we can live quite differently—we can do just as we like. [. . .] It will be splendid to have heaps of money and not need to have any anxiety, won’t it?
Mrs. Linde. Yes, anyhow I think it would be delightful to have what one needs.
Nora. No, not only what one needs, but heaps and heaps of money.
Mrs. Linde (smiling). Nora, Nora, haven’t you learnt any sense yet? In our schooldays you were a great spendthrift.
Nora (laughing). Yes, that is what Torvald says now. (Wags her finger at her.) But “Nora, Nora” is not so silly as you think. We have not been in a position for me to waste money. We have both had to work. (Ibsen 504)
Ibsen has just clued us in on two important details: Torvald’s new job starts at the New Year (which, we soon learn from contextual clues, is right around the corner), and the Helmer’s are not in the best of financial situations. This point is brought home with Nora’s recounting to Mrs. Linde of the money used to “save Torvald’s life,” which was not paid for by Nora’s father, as everyone has been led to believe: “It was I who procured the money” (507). We also learn that at this date and time, a wife cannot borrow money without her husband’s consent, so we don’t immediately know where Nora got the hundred-and-fifty pounds, though we soon are provided with the secret behind the mysterious cash flow as well as a clue about why Torvald’s life “needed saving”: when Krogstad comes to speak to Nora, he says “when your husband was ill, [which lends support to Nora’s claim] you came to me to borrow two-hundred-and-fifty pounds,” (516).
It is here, when Krogstad comes to see Nora, that we uncover the fact that Nora has forged her father’s signature for the money. Still, Ibsen intends us to side with her in hoping the secret will not be uncovered, despite Krogstad’s threats to the contrary. Ibsen accomplishes this feat by making Krogstad look like an opportunist and painting Nora a victim of an unjust law, suggesting that under whatever wrong-headedness she may have displayed resides a good and virtuous heart:
Krogstad. The law cares nothing about motives.
Nora. Then it must be a very foolish law.
Krostad. Foolish or not, it is by the law by which you will be judged, if I produce this paper in court.
Nora. I don’t believe it. Is a daughter not to be allowed to spare her dying father anxiety and care? Is a wife not to be allowed to save her husband’s life? [. . .]
Krogstad. [. . .] Very well. Do as you please. But let me tell you this—if I lose my position a second time, you shall lose yours with me.
When we read these words, we think of Krogstad as villainous, just as Ibsen intends.
In the episode with Dr. Rank, we get a further slice of Ibsen’s selectivity, this time regarding Nora’s virtue: when Dr. Rank expresses his infatuation with her, she obviously finds his behavior inappropriate as any faithful wife should: “To think you could be so clumsy, Doctor Rank! We were getting on so nicely” (531). While we may not disdain Dr. Rank nearly as much as we initially do Krogstad (at least until he retracts his claim), we still side with Nora, again just as Ibsen intends.
In the fallout to follow, we are turned against Torvald as well:
Helmer. What a horrible awakening! All these eight years—she who was my joy and pride—a hypocrite, a liar—worse, worse—a criminal! The unutterable ugliness of it all! For shame! For shame! I ought to have suspected that something of the sort would happen. I ought to have foreseen it. All your father’s want of principle—be silent!—all your father’s want of principle has come out in you. No religion, no morality, no sense of duty—. How I am punished for having winked at what he did! I did it for your sake, and this is how you repay me.
Nora. Yes, that’s just it.
Helmer. Now you have destroyed all my happiness. You have ruined all my future. It is horrible to think of! I am in the power of an unscrupulous man; he can do what he likes with me, ask anything he likes of me, give me any orders he pleases—I dare not refuse. And I must sink to such miserable depths because of a thoughtless woman.
This display, closely followed by Torvald’s extreme readiness to forgive once the reversal of fortune occurs, makes us a little sick to our stomachs, poisoning our minds against him. Ibsen further reinforces our impression of whom we are supposed to side with in the dialog to follow in which Nora seems to have gained a sudden epiphany and a rush of maturity along with it.
Helmer. You think and talk like a heedless child.
Nora. Maybe. But you neither think nor talk like the man I could bind myself to. As soon as your fear was over—and it was not fear for what threatened me, but for what might happen to you—when the whole thing was past, as far as you were concerned it was exactly as if nothing at all had happened. Exactly as before, I was your little skylark, your doll, which you would in [the] future treat with doubly gentle care, because it was so brittle and fragile. Torvald—it was then it dawned upon me that for eight years I had been living here with a strange man, and had borne him three children——. Oh, I can’t bear to think of it! I could tear myself into bits!
This scene represents the beginning of the end, in which Nora walks out on Torvald: just as Ibsen intends, we feel a certain sense of vindication in seeing her do so. Yet isn’t it interesting how Ibsen accomplishes this feat?
Can we honestly say that Nora is any less self-centered or any less guilty than Krogstad or Dr. Rank or Torvald? Wasn’t it her lie and her deception that brought about much of this undoing? And what of her rationalization of the law that didn’t treat forgery fairly: why do we define fairness as resting on her side? Isn’t fairness in the eye of the beholder, depending on which end of the stick our sympathies lie?
Ibsen reveals to us what is going on in the mind of Nora through countless scenes with many different people. We become familiar with Nora and accept her point of view, because we “know” her. But isn’t this observation so often the case, that when we know someone involved in a mutual conflict that is roughly fifty fifty, we favor the one we know, sympathizing with their side while turning a blind eye and deaf ear to the other?
What are we told of Torvald’s mind? Does he have any chance to clear his name or his honor? How might the play be different if Torvald was given opportunity to appear in virtually every scene in interaction with many different characters? Would we side with him instead, because we “know” him better? When you stop and consider, we don’t have any really good reason for favoring Nora beyond our sense of familiarity with her: she lies, she cheats, she rationalizes, she walks out on her husband and children—she is not an innocent character. But is this tendency not the wont of human nature, to excuse that which is connected to us while failing to consider there is a whole other side to the issue?
It would seem that by the prominence Ibsen affords Nora, he masterfully steers our sympathies in her direction like a crafty rhetorician employing the Greek concept of kairos. By what he chooses to reveal (and conceal), Ibsen has us feeding out of the palm of his hand, for in the end, it could be said that life is all a matter of perspective . . . almost.
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