Ibsen Context main

NORWAY

NORWAY

When and where did Ibsen write A Doll's House?

In Norway in 1879

What kind of home is it set in and what does this demonstrate?

A upper-middle class home. The play demonstrates the importance of social class, but also the rigid expectations placed upon its members

When did Norway see the upper-middle class growing?

In 1843, with a great economic boom

What was Norway becoming?

More industrialised, which brought more money into the country as well as creating more jobs and opportunities. Thus, the upper-middle class became larger

What did this economic boom bring?

Prosperity, but also an obsession with, and an over-awareness of, money

What else was forming during this time in Norway?

Expectations about being upper-middle class - commonly referred to as "bourgeois respectability", expectations included financial success without any debt, good morals (or at least making it appear that's the case) and a stable, patriarchal family

What was a woman's main responsibility?

Being a housewife, whose most prominent task was to serve her husband and children

What shows Ibsen was aware of the subordination of women in late-19th century Norwegian society?

"A woman cannot be herself in contemporary society, it is an exclusively male society with laws drafted by men, and with counsel and judges who judge feminine conduct from the male point of view"

Were the also laws that correlated with the patriarchal ideology?

Yes - women were not allowed to borrow money without their husbands' consent or vote, for example

What did the Social Demokraten newspaper say about the play, and what does this reveal?

"Oh yes there are thousands of such doll-homes", suggesting their relationship was typical in a Norwegian, upper-middle class home in the late 19th century

DRAMA IN THE 19th CENTURY

DRAMA IN THE 19th CENTURY

What was theatre like in the 1850s?

Intellectually unadventurous

What had begun to outlive their appeal?

Melodrama, farce, comic opera etc.

What was this a time of?

Political and intellectual emancipation that saw the emergence of: the New Woman, advances in science, increased prosperity (for the middle classes) and agitation for universal suffrage

However, regardless of these improvements, what was the modern world into which Ibsen's plays were launched beset with?

Uncertainties about identity and personal destiny

According to George Bernard Shaw, how was contemporary theatre obliged to respond?

By developing a new drama, a new style of acting and new subject matter that should reject sentimentalised 'reality' and refuse to shrink from questioning marriage, motherhood, the sexual sins of fathers or the corruption of capitalist society

What had drama before Ibsen sought to do?

Uphold and reinforce traditional views about social organisation, gender and morality

What were characters in melodrama like?

Stereotypical - there was always a villain, a wronged maiden and a hero

What settings did melodrama often have?

Romantic settings, such as ruined castles and wild mountains

NATURALISM

NATURALISM

What is naturalism a type of?

Extreme realism

When did it start as a literary movement?

In the late 1800s

What did the movement suggest shaped human character?

Family background; social conditions; environment

What do naturalistic works often expose?

The dark sides of life, such as prejudice, racism, poverty, prostitution, filth and disease (contrast to the Romantic movement and melodrama)

What was thus rejected?

Representing drama in artificial and contrived ways - melodramatic and romanticised approaches to dramatic form are rejected

Was Ibsen a naturalist?

Not entirely - he favoured work that reflected social problems, making him a realist, where Emile Zola, a naturalist writer, advocated scientific observation where life was revealed indiscriminately in a non-selective, photographic way

What is a key difference between naturalism and realism?

Naturalism portrays a deterministic view of character's actions and lives, whereas realism simply depicts things as they appear

What other similar distinction can be made?

Naturalism concludes natural forces predetermine character's decisions, making him/her act in a particular way, whereas in realism decision of a character comes from his response to a certain situation

GENERALITIES

GENERALITIES

What genre is A Doll's House?

Realist

In what ways does it challenge the traditional well-made play mode?

The last moments of the play where Nora tells Torvald she will leave him turns the tradition upside down for the audience - the play doesn't work from the exposition --> rising action of the situation --> final solution or unravelling of the play's issues

How are the characters portrayed?

In realistic mode as imperfect and dimensional

What is the setting of the play?

Dramatic action takes place in one room where Nora has been described as being 'trapped in domestic comfort'

THE NEW WOMAN

THE NEW WOMAN

What have some critics categorised Ibsen as?

A feminist dramatist. Although Ibsen did not seem to think this was the case, in creating characters such as Nora Helmer, Ibsen was imagining a woman for whom marriage and motherhood were not, eventually, to be the only means to personal satisfaction and/or authentic identity

What is the New Woman?

A feminist ideal that emerged in the late 1800s and had a profound influence on feminism. It described women who were pushing against the limits which society imposed on them

Who coined the term?

Sarah Grand, in her article 'The New Aspect of the Woman Question', published in 1894

In what ways did the figure of the New Woman threaten conventional ideas about ideal Victorian womanhood?

Free-spirted; independent; educated; uninterested in marriage and children. This threatened conventional ideas about ideal Victorian womanhood

What did the 1880 German production of A Doll's House see?

Hedwig Neimann-Raabe, who wanted to play the lead, refused to play the final scene as she "would never leave [my] children"

How did Ibsen respond to this?

Attempted to write an alternative, happy ending himself. In this version, Nora does not leave the house, but she is forced by Helmer to the doorway of the children's bedroom. She sinks to the door, and the curtain falls

Did this version open in Germany?

Yes - but Niemann-Raabe eventually reverted to the original text

How did many view the play?

As a direct attack on the custom of marriage and family life

Which of his plays trumped the outrage caused by A Doll's House?

Ghosts - performances of it were banned in Britain and other countries - syphilis and attacks on religion did not go down well in Victorian society, and the play was labelled "revoltingly suggestive and blasphemous" by critics

GENDER ROLES IN THE 19th CENTURY

GENDER ROLES IN THE 19th CENTURY

During what period did men and women's roles become more sharply defined than at any time in history?

The Victorian period

What sphere were women confined to?

Domestic sphere - they were best suited to this sphere as they were physically weaker yet morally superior to men

What was it their to do?

Counterbalance the moral taint of the public sphere in which their husbands laboured all day, but also to prepare the next generation to carry on this way of life

What did many respectable young men do before getting married and why?

Using prostitutes, as they would often marry in the late 20s or early 30s, once they had found a secure career and were earning enough money to support a wife and children

What were thus rife?

Syphilis and other sexual dieases - many passed on the infection to their wife. The result was sometimes a painful and lingering death, usually in their mid-40s

What law was thus passed in 1860 to prevent sexual disease amongst the male population?

Contagious Diseases Act - allowed, in certain towns, for the forced medical examination of any woman who was suspected of being a sex worker

What did Ibsen declare in a speech to the Norwegian Women's Rights League in 1989?

He wasn't even 'quite clear as to just what this woman's rights movement really is'

What was Ibsen's concern rather with?

The human soul. He described the play as 'humanist' rather than 'feminist'

Tony Garland: Incomplete repetitious language

portrays Nora's fear of the suicide she has chosen.

Brittany Wright: the protagonist

enters a brave new world of female liberation which is neither endorsed nor glorified bur rather deemed necessary in the face of the oppression of the marital home

Worral

'[Tolvald is] as much a victim as Nora'

Alison Ross: even in the smallest social unit

of a family, there is a hierarchy

Joan Templeton

Nora....is denounced as an irrational and frivolous narcissist ... who abandons her family in a paroxysm of selfishness.

gray

the play is more of a melodrama and torvalds character is hugely exadurated to make it true

brum

a real wife' would forgive 'and theow themselves into their husbands arms