A woman becomes empowered19 February 2015)tI had given this play a fairly ordinary review when I first commented on it (and that review is below this one), simply because when I studied it at high school I was put off by the fact that Nora simply up and left, and in a way it felt like she had undergone an inexplicable and sudden change. However, after reading Peer Gynt I decided that I should give A Doll's House another try. So, when I visited the bookstalls at Federation Square I kept an eye out for a collection of plays containing this particular one – obviously since I am now writing a second review on this play indicates that I was successful in my quest.tThe one thing that I paid particular attention to as I read this play was the events leading up to Nora's decision to leave Tolmer and in a way it sort of starts to make sense. Okay, I am still not convinced that Nora made the right decision, however I can appreciate a little more of what Ibsen was getting at when he wrote this play, and we also must remember that the play was somewhat controversial at the time, namely because women simply did not up and leave their husbands for any reason. In a way, what the play is doing is showing how Nora, by leaving her husband, has become empowered because by doing so she says to Tolmer that she is capable of making her own decisions, living her own life, and making her own mistakes – she does not need Tolmer to make those decisions for her.tThis, I believe, is the key to the play because back then it was believed that women were not able to make their own decisions. Women would grow up under the guardianship of their fathers until such a time as they married at which point the guardianship would pass over to the husband. Tolmer clearly believes that this is the case, especially in the way that he speaks to Nora and treats her as if she were a child that is in need of protection. He holds all of the money and makes all of the decisions – Nora is simply expected to follow along and not to ask any questions. The catch is that there was a point in their marriage when Tolmer developed a serious illness and the doctors had said that if he did not leave Norway for a time then he would likely die (it sounds as if it may have been pneumonia). However, they did not have any money. While Tolmer is a barrister he was very particular about the cases he would accept (though barristers, at least in the common law jurisdictions, aren't allowed to turn down cases due to 'moral scruples'). Obviously, having such principles meant that he wasn't any good at being a barrister, which meant that they did not have all that much money. So, to solve that problem, Nora borrows some money, forges her father's signature, and then tells Tolmer that it was a gift from her father.tDuring the play all of this comes to a head because the person, Krogstad, who leant the money to Nora is also an employee at a bank of which Tolmer becomes the manager. Now, Krogstad doesn't have a very good reputation (and with a name like Krogstad, I am not surprised – sorry to any Krogstad's that may be reading this) so Tolmer sacks him. Krogstad, to whom Nora is indebted, then approaches Nora and blackmails her by telling her that unless Tolmer reinstates her then he will spill the beans about the loan, and the forged signature – of which he knew about all along. So, things come to a head, Tolmer discovers the truth, flies off the handle, and basically disowns Nora, though does not go as far as kicking her out of the house because that would make a bad situation much worse. However, Krogstad repents of his actions and destroys the letter, but the damage has already been done.tIt is not Tolmer that is left with a bitter taste in his mouth – he is glad that Krogstad has let it go because all that he was worried about was his reputation. No, in fact it is Nora who is left really, really upset because this little episode has shown her the type of character Tolmer really is, and she comes to the conclusion that she really wants nothing to do with him anymore, which is why she leaves. In a way it is a complete rebuke against Tolmer because it is clear that Tolmer did not care that Nora saved his life, nor did he care that Nora could go to gaol – all he cared about was his reputation and that through Nora's actions his reputation was going to be ruined.tIn a way, what is happening is that Nora is not being treated as a human, but rather as a child – this is what she resents, and this is why she walks out. She wants a real marriage where she is an equal, an adult, and a human, not some child that needs to be cared for and looked after by a responsible male. In fact, Tolmer's actions when he learns about the debt clearly demonstrates how he really cares very little about Nora. While I still do not approve of Nora walking out on Tolmer, I have a much better understanding of why she did, and how Ibsen is using this play as a rebuke against the chauvinistic attitudes of his conservative society.The liberation of divorce20 October 2012tI am a little unsure about this play the more that I think about it. This was one of those plays that I read in year 12 English that my English teacher loved and that I hated, but the reasons that I hated it back then have changed a lot now and I suspect that if I were to see it in a book shop (along with some of Isben's other plays) I would be tempted to purchase it. The reason being is that Bernard Shaw seems to write a bit about Ibsen and as I look at some of the images of this book which shows an open bird cage, it makes me think that this book is a lot deeper than I expected.tThe play is effectively in two parts and deals with a husband and a wife. The first part of the play the wife is a loyal subservient wife to her husband and from what I can remember the husband is not a particularly bad person (though I cannot remember his character all that well). In the second part the relationship suddenly changes (something that put me off the play) and the wife is suddenly talking about leaving her husband. The play finishes with her walking out of the door.tLeaving behind the dramatic change in the wife's character, the reason that I hated the play was simply because of the Christian propaganda that was being piled onto me at the time. Okay, granted, God hates divorce because the idea of marriage is supposed to be permanent in that it is a representation of our relationship with God. God is ever faithful and expects the same faithfulness in return. However, we cannot forget that this is a reflection of a perfect world and we cannot expect people to be loyally faithful to somebody who does not show the same faithfulness in return. Divorce is what I call a necessary evil.tNow, Christians are up in arms over the changes to the divorce law (at least in Australia) in 1975 when they made divorce a no fault system. This was because prior to this change there had to be a reason for a divorce. The idea for the change was not so much as to make divorce easier (it was still pretty easy back then) but rather to take the whole mudslinging that fault based divorce systems (which still exist in the United States) out of the court room. Okay, it does not actually do that because there is still a lot of mud slung during broken marriages, and I guess it does make divorce easier, but then again it is another example of a minority attempting to impose their morality onto a world that does not want it.tThe cage, I suspect, represents marriage as a prison. I have suggested previously that marriage is a form of chattel slavery, particularly in the 19th century, in that the wife was simply seen as the possession of the husband. Unfortunately that still continues today. For instance, when a pastor preaches on the passage in Ephesians regarding marriage, many of them seem to talk about the husband loving their wives (though not always drumming the point of 'as Christ loved the church and gave up his life') and then spending more time on wives obeying their husbands (as well as proving that the Greek says exactly the same thing). Even if they do give each equal weighting, many of the husbands will simply glaze over the 'love your wife' part of the sermon and focus on the 'obey your husband' part, and then proceed to remind their wife of such when they get home.tThe interesting thing that I have noticed is the whole hypocrisy of this. One example was an old friend who got married and discovered that her husband was a violent pig, so divorced him. She was immediately excommunicated because she had broken the bonds of marriage (despite the fact that the marriage had already been broken when he became violent) and the husband kept as a privileged member, moreso after his wife walked out of him. The second was a couple in the church that held positions akin to that of an elder. They were the perfect couple with the perfect wedding. Everybody wanted to be like them, but then they went overseas to live, and after a number of years we hear that they have become divorced. I simply do not know the facts behind the divorce, and I am loathe to speculate, but they are two examples of how this whole idealistic marriage idea has broken down. Further, the other thing that goes out of the window when there is a marriage breakdown is truth (much like war). I hear of an elder in the church getting divorced because his wife walked out on him, and he tells me the story of what happened, and I feel sorry for him. Then I wake up and realise that I have never heard her side of the story.tHowever, at this stage, I am now hesitant to trash this play on the grounds of my previous, narrow minded, Christian outlook on the world. Further, since it has been a very long time since I read this play, it may be an idea that if I do see it, to pick it up again and reread it.
Helmer: Just think how a guilty man like that has to lie and play the hypocrite with every one, how he has to wear a mask in the presence of those near and dear to him, even before his own wife and children. And about the children- that is the most terrible part of it all, Nora.Nora: How?Helmer: Because such an atmosphere of lies infects and poisons the whole life of a home. Each breath the children take in such a house is full of the germs of evil.Nora (coming nearer him): Are you sure of that?Helmer: My dear, I have often seen it in the course of my life as a lawyer. Almost everyone who has gone to the bad early in life has had a deceitful mother.Nora: Why do you only say-- mother? I wanted to see Nora dance her Tarantella. I can see her husband correcting her steps, a dark Geppeto holding the strings. Curtain closed before she can hear the applause, or search for understanding eyes in the audience. How did she feel when she was put on the shelf again, only sure to be taken down again when he remembered to want her. I didn't need anything but the way he talks about Nora to someone else as if she wasn't in the room. I could hear his bitchy inner junior high school girl complaining to Nora about the woman he had been talking to before his two faced nature has had the chance to show itself. Those cookies are bad for your teeth. Where is my cute little dog. I think that the way to understand another person is through understanding yourself. Nora comes to understand that she has never understood anything. Before her husband Helmer there was her father. If we are to know him through Helmer he was a disreputable sort of person. I could see him petting Nora and teaching her to not want anything that matters. Helmer likes to think a lot about himself. I had a sense of him (mind not based on many interactions, although I'm positive they were enough) that he has morals to look good with his nice suit. Helmer would always dress well. Nora has to employ her imagination on how to look good with nothing to go on. She has slowly been paying back a fraudulent loan. The chips are called in A Doll's House when the weight is finally lifted from her shoulders. Helmer has the bank manager's position. Good for him. I can see his smug face with or without an actor to fill his bloated head. Nora is in the same sucky boat as a lot of people in the past few years. Loans given out to people who cannot afford to pay them back, let alone their interest rates. I'm not sure how she managed. It must have taken more energy than she realized until it was over to keep the game going. Smile for your husband. Be a sexy little kitten. Don't enjoy it too much. Sitcoms weren't invented yet when this was published (1897) or perhaps those pristine wives might have proven inspiring role models. I think that Nora let go of her illusions of dancing for a good cause when Helmer rejects her when he learns of her crimes. Accepting blackmail from the loaner is among them. I felt for her trying to hold onto the illusion a little longer, dancing a little longer. More than that I wanted her to get it over with already. Nora makes her speech to her husband about a life lived without choice. She's going to run away. No, I won't see you or the children ever again. It's a childish speech, made from a voice unused to speaking. It's hurt and it doesn't have words for anyone else. See, she plans to run away to her friend Christine first (the same Christine she didn't take the time to send a letter to when her friend's husband had died). Then her home village (bad idea. Everyone will know she left her husband) and then everything will fall into place. At least she will make her own choices. I hear that, but she doesn't ask Christine if this is okay. How adult is it to acknowledge you let two men live for you only to burden someone else with your troubles? Was there nowhere in her heart that didn't hope Christine would have her answers? Teach me how to live? I can believe it. It does make me wonder how far her words are going to carry. They are on wobbly Bambi legs. Her freedom from social scandal and likely jail is because Christine happened to have once been loved by the banker blackguard. Well, what about the doctor friend in love with Nora? He leaves his card that he is going off to die all alone. Maybe Nora knew he was in love with her and maybe she didn't. To her credit she didn't take money from him and solve the Helmer doom. Maybe all she wanted was for her life to not have been a lie. Why did it take Nora this long? She closed her eyes and danced? A childish hope or was it parts the callous voice that thought it for the best her friend go off to die by himself without a kind word for him. Don't trouble me with it, I don't want to hear it, this house is my own. I wonder what will happen to her on her own. I don't believe Christine isn't going to help her again. Christine walked into that house and asked Nora to ask all of those questions. She didn't have to see much of it. If Nora's world was as small as a doll's house maybe some of it was because she didn't take her experiences and push them back until they were bigger. She doesn't know anyone, let alone herself. I can't eat what cookies I want. She snuck them into her pocket and ate them on the sly. She should have eaten them in the open. But she didn't want to look into the audience and see something else. I wish I could see what happens to her when she goes into the world and it isn't a smiling audience. Then she'll be a real person. I read this/saw a televised version in high school drama class (I suspect this may be the case for others?). I remember that I wasn't too taken in by it. I don't think that I liked the actors too much. What I would like is an actress who could show when Nora hopes that Helmer is going to believe in her. This is why she stayed with him. It was a refusal to accept that she hadn't been living this way her whole life. She babies herself too. It isn't only Helmer who belittles her. That she took out that loan, forged her deceased father's name for it, and frittered away a small fortune on an Italian vacation to "save" her ill husband's life speaks to me the same as the young woman who blew money she didn't have. She reminds me of young women I know who go on massive credit card sprees on clothes and they can never afford it. It's digging a hole. If she wanted to dig a hole, and wanted Helmer to stick up for her anyway, her I want to choose for myself speech feels a bit of a lie. It's a bit temper tantrum-y. She runs away to Christine. I don't know. I want to feel this is a feminist play because there were (still are) many trapped under another person without the will or courage to break out. Maybe Nora was one of those people.Anyway, I hadn't meant to reread this initially. The Recognitions and Woodcutters got me curious about Ibsen again. I had this in my huge box of plays so that's how it happened. It's interesting to go back and compare how young me felt to how older me feels. Fourteen year old Mariel holds out sometimes. That's a relief, really. I read Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird between classes. Simply couldn't put it down. That is still one of the best feelings I've ever known. To get so lost in something, to believe in fictional people so much. I'm really happy that I'm thirty-three and never lost it. Nora is real to me only... I feel like I got the lay of the land and there's a part of her that she doesn't know so I can't know it? It's a play, though, so maybe I'm missing the part that a person shows and they don't know they are showing it. What did she look like when she was performing? What was she trying to get (other than money to pay off that stupid loan). Did she ever love anyone without thinking about how much they loved her?
What do You think about A Doll's House (2015)?
راستشو بگم ویژگی این کتاب - اعم از دو پیوست مترجم و نمایشنامه - به نظر من اطنابه.در مورد دو مقاله ی مترجم این به خصوص در مقاله ی "چند اشاره به چالش ترجمه" به چشم می خورده. حرف های نویسنده را جمع کنی به زور بیست صفحه می شه اما شصت صفحه مطلب نوشته و چیزهایی را آورده که جز منم منم فایده ی دیگری ندارد - مثلا اینکه یهو جمله ای از ادیب سلطانی را بیاورد و نشان دهد که از نظر معرفه و نکره اشتباه ترجمه کرده ( جدای همان بحث همیشگی کلمات نامأنوس امثال ادیب سلطانی ). من خواننده هر چه زور زدم ضرورت آوردن این ها را متوجه نشدم ( نویسنده که خود دم به دم دعواهای حیدری و نعمتی را طرد می کند عملا خودش هم در آن وسط هاست ). کلیت حرفش این است که اگر ما زبان گفتار را به رسمیت نشناسیم و دائم از هزوارش ها استفاده کنیم - یعنی چیزی بنویسیم و چیز دیگر بخوانیم - نمی توانیم به شکوفایی ادبیات نمایشی خود امیدوار باشیم. جالب اینکه همین مطلب که محوری است را باز نمی کند بلکه دائم صرفا اینکه باید به زبان گفتار توجه کنیم را تکرار می کند. البته اینم بگم که من در کل با ترجمه ی گفتارگونش تا حد زیادی موافقمو اما خود نمایشنامه. پرده ی اول و دوم برای من جذابیت خاصی نداشت. خصوصا اینکه شخصیت توروالد هلمر کاملا بیرون از افق فهم انسانیم قرار می گرفت - شاید از دلایلش نوع خطابایی هم باشه که نسبت به نورا به کار می بره و برای من خیلی زیادی متکلف بودند ( احتمالا چون در زبان ما چنین خطابایی زیادی عجیب یا نامعموله ). راستش رو بگم زیادی تصنعی به نظرم می رسه این شخصیت. اما وقتی پرده ی سوم را می خواندم حس کردم لحظه به لحظه اوج می گیرد و نقطه ی اوجش آن وقتی بود که هلمر شروع کرد به تخطئه ی نورا و حداکثر آنجا که بعد از روبرا شدن همه چیز به نورا گفت همه چیز تموم شد و من تو رو می بخشم و ... . اما در یک روند فرساینده نمایشنامه نه تنها آنجا که باید تموم نمیشه بلکه من خواننده شاهد یک سخنرانی در مورد همون چیزهایی هستم که تا به حال به طور اشاره و به نحوی ظریف متوجهش شده بودم و این سخنرانی جانکاه بود. به همین دلیل نمایشنامه یهو از همان اوج سقوط می کنه و با کله میاد پایین.نکته ی دیگر پادرهوایی نورا است، نورا می خواهد از همه چیز کناره بگیرد و دو دو تا چهارتایی بکند که با زندگی خود چه باید بکند، این کاملا قابل فهم است. اما آنجا که به هلمر می گوید من شایستگی تربیت بچه هامو ندارم و ... دیگه بوی آن تردید و برم فکر کنم و ... نمی آید. خلاصه آنکه آخرش نورا معلوم نیست قرار است با خودش فکر کند یا اینکه فکرهایش را کرده - برخی جمله ها این ورند برخی آن ور.همه ی اینها به کنار آن بخش خوب نمایشنامه واقعا خواندنی است و انسانی و تأثیرگذار. راستش برای من شخسیت لینده و کروگستاد خیلی جذاب تر بودند از باقی شخصیت ها
—Mohammad Ali
A doll's house. What image comes to mind when you hear those words? A "perfect" family? A peaceful, innocent domestic situation? Friends dropping in? Preparations for a holiday celebration? Play-time! Yes, Nora and Torvald seem to have the perfect life. Certainly, they have weathered some challenges in life but they have survived. Here we see them with a lovely home, two servants, three playful children, friends, and enough money to celebrate Christmas in the traditional way.Nora plays with the children while Torvald chats with a friend in his study. Another friend arrives unexpectedly. There are fond memories of "the old days". How pleasant! But ... enter one more character - a childhood friend, a disgruntled colleague, a jilted lover, a partner in crime (all wrapped up in one person) - and the situation deteriorates quickly. Beneath the calm surface swirls an overwhelming tangle of secrets, fears, suspicions, deceptions, and expectations.Ignorant of her own complicity, Nora attempts to manage the situation but the tangle is too complex. The unravelling is beyond anyone's control. Nora is panic-stricken, anxious, and agitated; she distracts herself by "waiting for a wonderful thing to happen" after the Boxing Day costume party, after she dances her famous tarantella for all the party-goers. In the end, though, the " wonderful thing" was not what anyone expected - neither Nora nor Torvald nor the reader/audience. Play-time is over. The doll's house is a house of mirrors. The distortions are revealed for Nora to see. How will she respond?Listening to the Librivox recording of this play has been my first experience of the work of Henrik Ibsen. This single short review cannot do it justice. I continue to pore over my notes. I continue to be amazed. I need to hear it all again. You need to read it for yourself.
—Sandy
I can’t understand why this is considered by many to be the first true “feminist” play. I cannot stomach many more stories of “feminists” who feel the need to abandon home and family to “find” themselves. What is feminine about walking out on your children, and in this case not even saying good-bye? For a couple of days, I have been pondering what the masculine counterpart to a feminist is. I threw the question out to my family, and my 15-year-old daughter said, “You mean a jerk?” I think that sums up how I feel about the degeneration of feminism to the notion of self-centeredness and lack of responsibility for one’s actions. This play is very well-written, even intriguing, up until the end, but I’m giving it one star for the lousy ending.
—Lisa N
