Dolls House Analysis
To view a work of art separately from it’s environment, ignoring the
context,
will often undermine important aspects of the work. However,
embracing the
context will allow one to appreciate the full scope and depth
of the piece. In
order to fully absorb and understand it, one must consider
factors in the
artist’s life and surroundings, i.e. the context. Henrik Ibsen
created A
Doll’s House between 1878 and 1880. Like any significant work
of art the
context not only influenced the play, but were essential parts of
it. Norway, in
the early 19th century, was united with Sweden, who maintained
seniority in the
relationship. Norway’s crown was based in Sweden, and most
Norwegians felt
thier freedom was restricted. The linguistic difference that
existed prohibited
any cultural merging. A good example being the
relationship between Denmark and
Norway, the latter being a colony of
Denmark’s until 1814. During the Danish
rule of Norway, there was a cultural
synthesis involving literature. This
influence was still prominant during
Ibsen’s time and throughout his work.
During the early part of the 19th
century a patriotic movement materialized,
mainly sparked by a student named
Henrik Wergeland. He studied and popularized
neglected folklore and other
forgotten art and renewed confidence and pride in
the otherwise disappearing
Norwegian artists. Wergeland and other patriots,
including Ibsen had their
opposition. The Party of Intelligence felt that Norway
could only be redeemed
by staying involved in the Euro- stream, while the
patriots preached
isolationism and felt that Norway could only find new strength
from within
itself. The Party considered the patriots crude and violent, while
the
patriots saw in the Party the future of the establishment they were
currently
trying to derail. Nasjonalromantikken, or national romaticism, became
a
widely popular idea, in part because of Wergeland’s writings. This
movement
centered around a restored appreciation for Norway’s non- material
resources,
including the painters, musicians and folklorists. Asbjornsen and
Moe
researched, rewrote, and published collections of Norwegian folktales
and
restoration was begun on the Trondheim Cathedral, a very important piece
of
national pride. There was much debate regarding language when new
Norwegian
dialects were created while the most commonly spoken language,
Landsmaal, was
not yet accepted as a written language. This caused many
problems for the
writers, as they spoke one language, but were forced to
write in another.
Aasmund Vinje, a schoolmaster and writer, created a
written lanuage based on
Landsmaal and helped advance towards a solution.
Ibsen, like most writers,
though, continued to work using the Dano - Norsk
dialect, (Danish influenced
Norwegian) called riksmaal, and spoke out
against Landsmaal. A Euro- romantic
movement around the middle of the century
produced many Norwegian artists
including Andreas Munch, Bjornstjerne
Bjornson, and Vinje. Wergeland’s sister,
Fru Collett, published The
Sheriff’s Daughters in 1855 and it was considered
the first Norwegian novel
of any stature. Danish writers continued to exert
their influence when Hans
Christain Anderson and Ingemann became popular and
many Norsk writers looked
to them for ideas and techniques. During the 1870s, a
Realist movement
hit Norway and changed the writing of Ibsen, Bjornson, and the
‘Father of the
Norwegian Novel,’ Kielland. During this time, prose drama and
fiction
dominated this Norsk, artistic rennaisance, while poetry had little or
no
place in it. Some saw poetry becoming popular around 1890, but this was
more
of a prose poetry, or prose that invoved the evocation of moods. Henrik
Ibsen
was born on March 28, 1828 in the small, southern town of Skien. When
he was
young, Henrik’s father went bankrupt, which was considered very
disgraceful at
the time. This affected young Ibsen greatly and he used it to
allegorize in The
Wild Duck. Henrik attained an apprenticeship for a
pharmacist, but despised the
job and moved to Christiana, where he intended
to attend school. Instead, he
became the house poet and eventually stage
manager at the Norske Theatre in
Bergen. He then went back to Christiana
where he directed at the Mollergate
Theatre until 1862. During this time
he married Susannah Thoreson and wrote The
Vikings in Helgeland, which
popularized him as a writer in Norway. In 1864 he
applied for a poet’s
pension from the government but was refused. He became
enraged at his
homeland and left it, headed for Italy and Germany, though he
still made
known his love for his homeland. He continued to write and produced a
number
of plays and traveled to Egypt, among other countries. Ibsen was not
pleased
with the nationalism of the foreigners he traveled with. He offended
many
when he commented on this in a poem to a Swedish lady he knew, referring
to
"A herd of German wild pigs, almost tamed." It made him glad he
was
from a smaller, ‘non- competative,’ country. He was also disgusted with
the
lack of religious importance in the Middle East, stating that the gods of
Greece
still live, and Zeus still moves in the capitol, but "Where is Horus?
Where
is Hathor? No trace exists, no memory." When in Rome, Ibsen began work
on a
play titled Et Dukkehjem. A Doll’s House (in English) is a drama in
which a
woman (Nora), as a result of certain events, realizes how one - sided
her love
for her husband is. Throughout their marriage, she is viewed as an
object,
rather than a caring equal. She leaves her husband, and her children,
in the
search for individuality and freedom. At the time of it’s peformance,
most
viewers were offended at the way Nora spoke to her husband. At the
time,
marriage was a private thing, not suited for discussion in one of the
most
public of art forms, and divorce was something one did not bring up at
all. Many
called Ibsen an anarchist for suggesting that women leave their
families in
search of themselves. Ibsen was not suggesting anyone do
anything. His reply was
that his job was to ask questions, not to answer
them. He was mearly requesting
that people look at, and think about, the
social structure they support. One of
Ibsen’s main ideologies was that
every human being has the right to act on
private judgement against
conventional beliefs. The play reflects this clearly,
and the rebel in it is
a woman for a reason. Ibsen knew no one would contemplate
his theme so
thoroughly had Nora been a man or child. Many view this play as a
feminist
drama, one created to better women’s lives. Ibsen’s only purpose
was to
better human interactions. He once offended a dinner party, thrown in
honor
of him, by a woman’s rights group, when he stated that he did not know
what
the woman’s cause was. He did not see woman’s causes as any different
than
human causes. In Ibsen’s notes for A Doll’s House, he speaks of two
types of
moral consciousness, one for men and one for women. He felt that the
two did
not understand each other, but, in practical life, women were judged
by
masculine law as though they were men. "A woman cannot be herself
in
today’s society." He was also quoted as saying that: "A man is easy
to
study, but one never fully understands a woman. They are a sea which none
can
fathom." The rule over Norway, by Sweden, made freedom a popular topic
of
that time. Ibsen, though, saw political freedom and personal freedom as
two very
different things. I shall never agree to identify Freedom with
political
freedom. What you call Freedom, I call freedoms, and what I call
the battle for
Freedom is nothing but the continuous pursuit of the idea
of Freedom. He who
possesses Freedom otherwise than as something to be
striven for possesses
something dead and meaningless, for by it’s very
definition Freedom
perpetually expands as one seeks to embrace it, so that
if, during the quest,
anyone stops and says: ‘Now I have it!’ he shows
thereby that he has lost
it. According to Ibsen’s view of ‘Freedom,’ it is
not something that can
be given to someone, the way Denmark had "given" it to
Norway, with
the stipulation that Sweden be the big sister in the
relationship. Norway was
considered ‘free’ by the Swedes. They had thier own
crown, and government,
but it was so closely intertwined with that of Sweden
that any Norsk
individuality was lost. Sweden, like Nora’s husband Torvald,
was undoubtedly
dominant. Norway had freedoms, and could be involved in the
legislation of
itself. Nora had freedoms, and was allowed her own life, to
some degree. But any
concern for Nora’s (or Norway’s) personal being was
purely superficial.
Eventually both became tired of having thier
‘Freedom’ restricted and took
action. The search for ‘Freedom’ for Nora, like
Norway, began from within.
The most direct historical comparison that can
be made with the play is with the
woman it is based on. Laura Kieler was a
woman whose conduct was admired greatly
by Ibsen. So much so that he based
his most rebellious character on her, clearly
solidifying the connection
between context and art. Laura, unlike Nora, did not,
however, leave her
husband. It swiftly became common knowledge that this was the
woman that Nora
was based on, and Laura’a life was all but ruined. Ibsen
expressed much
concern and regret upon learning what effect his play had had on
her, but by
then there was nothing to be done. A Doll’s House had many
critics, and the
ending we know was not the one shown all over at first. One
actress refused
to participate unless the ending was changed, citing that she
would never
leave her children. Ibsen decided that, if it was necessary that the
ending
be changed, he should be the one to change it. He considered this the
lesser
of two evils, though still calling the situation a "barbaric
outrage."
Ibsen’s contemporary, Bjornson, said about the play, "It
is technically
excellent, but written by a vulgar and evil mind." Ibsen had
this to say
about his critics and his writing: Most critical objections boil
down to a
reproach against the writer for being himself, thinking, feeling,
seeing and
writing as himself, instead of seeing and writing as the critic would
have
done, had he been able. The essential thing is to protect one’s
essential
self, to keep it pure and free of all intrusive elements, and to
draw a clear
distinction between what one has merely experienced and what one
has spiritually
lived through; for only the latter is proper matter for
creative writing.
Ibsen’s supporters eventually outnumbered his critics,
and A Doll’s House,
with the original ending, made him artistically,
socially, and financially
successful. The play is not nearly the social
phenomenon it was at the time, but
it’s content, like that of all great art,
can be a lesson to us still.