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Women's Fiction
A Doll's House (Plays for Performance)

A Doll's House (Plays for Performance)

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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Still thinking about it...
Review: I finished Ibsen's "A Doll's House" a few days ago, and it's still haunting me. Well-crafted with interesting (albeit, at times, superficial) characters, it raises questions that still matter today. Nora craves a chance to find herself, yet at the same time, has enjoyed her sheltered life. This contradiction is still central to modern women - how much freedom do we really want? Nora demonstrates this clearly by craving freedom her own life, while also being surprised that her husband didn't stand up for her and defend her honor by tarnishing his own.

Ibsen was one of the first to ask these questions so blatantly and in the theater, but they continue to resonate today. Overall, a great, thought-provoking, quick read that will stick with you.

Rating: 4 stars
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.

Rating: 5 stars
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!

Rating: 4 stars
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.

Rating: 4 stars
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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