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Posted by Juliana on December 12, 192003 at 00:21:20:
The Absurdity of Acting as a Doll
Nora portrays, in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, a character that is caught in an irrational predicament. According to her individualistic and as/sertive personality, which develops progressively throughout the play, it makes little or no rational sense for Nora to submit herself to her husband’s domineering demands. Nora, nonetheless, concedes to this personal absurdity until the end of the play because she fools herself into believing that her role as a housewife is completely reasonable. For example she explains to Mrs. Linde the pleasure she envisions from being able to please her husband and perform the traditional tasks of a housewife: “Free from care… to be able to play and romp with the children; to be able to keep the house beautifully and have everything just as Torvald likes it!”(Ibsen 13). By the end of the play, however, Nora realizes that what she had envisioned as a dream was more like a nightmare. She recognizes the absurdity of living in a doll’s house and takes action to change this situation by abandoning it.
The men in Nora’s life have been extremely important, to the point that she has lived her life through theirs: “When I was at home with Papa he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions…He called me his doll child and he played with me just as I play with my dolls…I was simply transferred from Papa’s hand to yours”. When her secret of having forged a signature in order to save her husband’s poor health is revealed, Nora finds herself in another irrational dilemma that opens her eyes to the irrational predicament that has been her life so far. She risked her honor and reputation to save her husband’s life, but now that he knows about it and it is his turn to recognize and admire her for it, Torvald, on the other hand, rejects to risk his honor and reputation to save his wife. Nora finds it absurd that “…no man would sacrifice his honor for the one he loves.”, when “It is a thing hundreds of thousands of women have done.” This conflict provides an awakening for her because she realizes she is not happy, and has never been happy, living her life controlled by someone else. There is nothing rational about a marriage and a family whose happiness is based on games and not on love.
“…our home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll wife, just as at
home I was Papa’s doll child; and here the children have been my dolls. I thought it
great fun when you played with me, just as they thought it great fun when I play
with them. That is what are marriage has been, Torvald.”
Having realized that she has made nothing of her own life so far, Nora decides she wants to begin to live. She must defy the absurdity of acting as a doll by taking control of her own life, once in for all, and start acting as an individual. In order to transform herself from a doll to a reasonable human being, she abandons the doll’s house she was trapped in and steps into the world where she can find an education and serve her “most sacred duties”, the duties to herself.
Nora’s actions at the end of the play epitomize the meaning of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Ibsen presents a woman, who defies the controlling male power and takes control of her life, as an example of a person considered socially subordinated who decides to make of herself a respectable person above all else. The greatest irrational predicament a person like Nora can encounter is not being able to live life according to her personal standards because someone else believes she lives to please that other someone. Ibsen teaches us not to allow women, or anybody, to be clas/sified as inferior and not to let their lives be controlled by people who consider themselves more capable for the task. He encourages people, particularly women, who find themselves trapped in an absurd situation that deprives them of their happiness, to follow Nora’s example and take control of the situation, abandoning it if necessary, improving the quality of their lifestyle.
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