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Summary: This book was way before it's time - Ibsen was a genius!
Review: The Norwegian author Henrik Ibsen wrote an insightful play about marriage and the role of women in Ibsens time (19th century Europe). I am sure that "A dolls house" must have been a shock to the European society when Ibsen first published this book. He criticised the system that demoted women to mere property and this must have been an outrageous statement in a society where women didn't even have the right to vote! The author himself said that this play was about human rights, not women's rights. While I believe this to be true, I still have no problems understanding why the female rights groups says that "A dolls house" is about women's rights. Whilst this play was written over a hundred years ago, many of the issues about women discussed in "A dolls house" are still applicable today. I think Nora is a *great* role model for a woman of the new millennium! If you, like me, had to read this as a part of your college literature requirements, give it another try! It is a wonderful book.
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Summary: The start of Realism
Review: When Ibsen's "A Doll's House" came out, it would be a start of a new revolution in the theatre. Science and Society was changing so the theatre had to change too. Instead of seeing Kings and Historical figures on the stage, we would see the common person and their role in society and their environment. Everything(Dialouge, props, acting etc.) would be all Real and be as if the audience were looking through a keyhole in these peoples lives and the people unaware of the audience. Audiences now would see a "slice of life." Ibsen's "A Doll's House" along with Strindberg's "Miss Julie" would establish the Realism movement and inspire the future of playwrights such as Chekhov, Shaw, Wilde, O'Neill etc... "A Doll's House" is a play about the role of women in Ibsen's time. Nora who struggles to bring happiness to her family. When her husband Torvald is sick, Nora borrows money from a co-worker(Krogstad) at her husband's bank to pay for a trip to heal her husband. The play takes place after this trip and we see that Torvald is restored to full health. Torvald treats Nora just like a doll and nothing more. We find out that Nora secretly is saving up to pay back the money she borrowed by buying cheaper clothes or not eating. An old friend named Mrs.Linde comes to Helmer's house in search for a job and Nora persuades her husband to let Mrs.Linde have a job at his bank. Meanwhile Krogstad comes to visit and hears this. He is very afraid that his position is at risk and thinks Torvald will fire him. He tells Nora that if she doesn't convince her husband to keep his job, he'll tell her husband of her borrowing money. This sets up the conflict and the way Nora deals with it, is not the traditional way a character like hers might in previous plays. If you have not read the play and don't want the ending spoiled don't read on. After Torvald finds out, instead of Torvald being thankful for his wife for trying to save her husband for a dreadful illness, he is furious and says he will be humiliated and torn by Society when they find out what his wife did. We the audience/reader think that it is all over for Nora, that Torvald will leave her and she will be a cast out. Instead in Act 3, in a moment of epiphany Nora's whole life goes past her. She realizes that her whole life she has just been a doll in a doll house passed down from her father to Torvald. She tells Torvald how hard she has tried to be a good wife and build a family but it won't work. She decides to leave Torvald. This action went against all the traditional values at the time and sparked a revolution. Ibsen showed the world a reality, society didn't want to see. Nora leaving Torvald was unheard of at the time and that is why "A Doll's House" is so important. Ibsen's "A Doll's House" aside from starting Realism, is just a well written piece. Anyone who loves literature or theater must read it. Ibsen from "A Doll's House" would question the role of people in Society and question authority like no other playwright before him had.
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Summary: What is happiness?
Review: This book is hailed for giving females a voice. Although it does speak for women, it really speaks for society as a whole. Just what is happiness? Living in a comfortable house with not a care in the world? Or, defining who you truly are by working hard at whatever you're good at? The story will seem slow at first. There's just character development/background and an introduction to the "troubling" dilemna of Nora in the early parts of the story. The perfect pacing builds up so much until the big devastating end, where the characters make huge life changing revelations. I started questioning what happiness was after reading what the characters went through. Are people so caught up at trying to maintain the ideal image of the "good" life that they forget to find out what they truly want? Real good book, I read the whole thing in one sitting.
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Summary: Powerful play with a lot of meaning about human rights
Review: I read this play first for pleasure and years later for a English composition II class several years ago and as I read some of the reviews before writing and posting this one I can see that a lot of reviewers that came before me didnt understand the play at all. This play took place over a hundred years ago. The choices for women then were limited plus Nora and Tovald lived In Norway whose laws are sgnificantly different from ours due to time and culture. Nora certainly had her faults but sometimes we are just found stuck in roles society gives us. And what would take more courage to remain in a bad role after a moment of self discovery is made or to walk out of that role and try to grow as a person and discover things about yourself on your own? Nora's choices were very limited. It was stated in the play that by walking away from the marriage she would also have to disclaim any rights to her children in Norway. She had no choice but to give up the rights to her children. Neither Nora nor Tovald knew who she was very well. Sometimes it is much better for the children if a marriage ends because it is bad and has no foundation. But Nora is a very strong and determined character. She forged a bank note to save her husbands life when no one else could. She saves and earns money to pay back the loan. But also she is trapped in the facade of her marriage with Tovald who neither respects her or knows who she really is. Lies beget lies and it is out of the lie of the marriage she is in that she is made to conceal what she did to save her husbands life and tell lies herself. Finally after her husband finds out and is so consumed with how it will look to others that he tells her that the marriage for now on will just be a cover for the benefit of the outside world but he can no longer trust her nor shall she be trusted with her children etc a self discovery moment occurs. Nora and Tovald didnt really know each other nor was the marriage real in any meaning of the word. But when something happens and he has a change of heart about Nora in the blink of an eye Nora realizes that the whole marriage was a lie and in a moment of strength and determination she decides to leave the situation to find something better and grow as a person. But here is the rub Tovald said that she can not be trusted after what she did was revealed to him and that she has lost his respect but this is just a circumstance we are made well aware of in the play . Tovald shows us that he never did trust or respect Nora in the first place so what she is rejecting is a fruadulent marriage. She refused to go on living in that lie any longer. And that decision takes more courage , strength and determination than anyone who has never been in that place will know. I say three cheers for Nora for finally waking up and doing what she had to do!
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Summary: You Go Girl?
Review: Henrik Ibsen has written a penetrating play about marriage and gender roles in 19th century Europe. In what was surely shocking to European society at the time, Ibsen attacked the system that reduced women to mere possessions. In a society where women didn't even have the vote, this must have been a shocking statement. The play is very short at 72 pages. I'm not going to divulge the plot but I will say that I found the play to be average. I will also say I'm not a big fan of reading plays, since they are usually written in a form to be performed, not read as literature. I also fault Ibsen with writing a play that fails to show the consequences of his characters actions. When Nora changes and leaves at the end, we get no information on what happens to her children, who have now been officially abandoned by their mother. In this way, Ibsen's play can be seen as a precursor to today's problems, where both men and women duck out of the family life. While this may be "liberating" to the woman (or the man, for that matter), it doesn't bode well for the kids. Maybe Ibsen could have written a sequel showing the kids growing up without a mother and getting hooked on liquor, or getting pregnant at age thirteen. This play is most likely a big hit in the feminist cliques and the "find yourself" crowd. For me, I'd have rather read something else. It still had some good points, though. The dialogue at times was pretty snappy, and I kept picturing actresses that might play Nora as I read through the play. Ibsen is also certainly adept at characterization and pacing. Overall, average.
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Summary: Not needed, but still helpful.
Review: "Spark Notes A Doll's House" was helpful in clearing up small, subtly plot facts, but the play is so straightforward, that "Spark Notes" is essentially unnecessary. I "sorta" recommend.
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Summary: Splendid!
Review: "A Doll's House" is a book that should be read by all women, but should also be read by men. The story is so powerful, intriguing, heart wrenching, nail biting, ulcer giving, and just fantastic! For Henrik Ibsen to write this during his time must have sent wives into fantasies and men into worries. While I'm unsure about Nora's final decision, I was positively sure that Torvald was a pathetic husband and didn't deserve a wife. I recommend!
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Summary: Dated but still important
Review: There is no doubt that Henrik Ibsen's 'A Doll's House' is his masterpiece; one of the most famous plays ever. Notwithstanding it is very dated, and today's readers/audience may find it boring and hard to understand, because there is a very long interval since its first performance to the XXI century. Although women, unfortunately, still have much to fight for when it comes to rights, they are no longer like Nora, the play's protagonist. She is a complete doll, living to his husband's, Torvald, will. Due to his health problems, she has involved with not reliable people, and borrowed money. Years later, when he is safe and sound, she is still paying her debts --however, he doesn't know it. In order to keep her lie, Nora is involved by a snowball effect, where one lie leads to another one, until the moment when it becomes unbearable. While I much like the feminist thematic of the play, analyzing it as a literature work I think there are some flaws in the text. The most important character, Nora, is not very well developed. We can easily notice how repressed she is; and we do expect her to take charge in her life and do something, but when it happens, in the very end of the play, it seems to be so unrealistic that it is hard to believe she is a human being rather than a character of a play. Another thing about Nora is that she is extremely selfish. If on the one hand, she does things to help her husband recover, on the other, she's doing it because she's afraid of losing him, and being left helpless alone. Moreover, in the end, she simply quits her life --good for her!--, but she doesn't care about her children. How convenient it is to leave their three small kids, claiming she is not a good person and will harm them. She becomes a free person, and under no shadow of doubt, her children will grow up problematic people. Above all things, 'A Doll's House' is a play, and it doesn't deny its origins. The dialogues are very theatrical. The monologues pop up in almost every page, compromising the natural flow of the events. All in all, it is still a good play, and has its cultural and social importance. It portraits the hypocrisy of XIX Century European society, when women had no power at all, and were brought up to satisfy their huband's will. It has lost its freshness and power, but still stands up as one of the first work with a feminist thematic, and for that matter should be read and known.
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Summary: Breaking out of the doll house
Review: A Doll's House proves to be a short, yet highly provocative play, nonetheless. Nora, feeling constrained by the Norwegian male-dominated society of the 19th Century, literally - and metaphorically- breaks out of its walls, so to speak. Torvald Helmer, valuing his honor over his love for his wife Nora, galvanizes her to figuratively abandon her doll house - replete with her husband, 2 children, & 2 servants. She, in striking out on her own, concurrently abandons the rigid social class system of the time, as well as the unwritten rules and mores of society. Notwithstanding the final act being a bit less than I had hoped for, and perhaps being less relevant and poignant now than in the 19th Century, A Doll's House was nonetheless an enjoyable and compelling play worth reading.
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Summary: A brilliant play on Marrige, Supression and Feminisme.
Review: Henrik Ibsen in one of the most famous Norwegian writers thoughout the world. And he is known for his plays where he gives a critical view upon the society.
In this play, everything happens around the main character Nora. She is innocent, naiv and has no education at all, just like most women of her social rank had at that time. Her husband, Torvald, is well known in the city, and his wife is just a "doll". She isn't supposed to have opinions on anything, just smile and look pretty in this male dominated world.
When Torvald Helmer finds out that his wife has "stole" money from her father to be able to pay for a health insitution for him, he's shocked. Nora, not understand what she might have done wrong, was only trying to help her husband, and yet protect her dying father. She wakes up, starting feel independant, wanting to discover herself...
Ibsen was a master of showing different sides of the social levels, and giving a critic view on what he didn't like. He has done it yet again, focusing on the marriage of these two people. Supression and a male dominated world is central aspects, and also the growing feminisme.
The book is worth reading for anyone how loves to read. It is truly one of Ibsen's best plays!
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