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Ibsen and Rossetti: Quotes, Context, and Theme Analysis. Good luck revising :)
Betrayal & Deceit : A Doll’s House and Fraudulence
Nora’s fraudulence and subsequent deception highlight how 19th century women must navigate social expectations and limitations.
Quotes on Betrayal & Deceit : A Doll’s House and Fraudulence
“No one said it was I who borrowed the money. I could have gotten it in some other way.”
“No, it was not. It was I who wrote pappa’s name there.”
Betrayal & Deceit: A Doll’s House and Infidelity
Nora’s tolerance of Dr Rank’s advances portrays her as an unfaithful wife- she uses Torvald’s innocent perception of her to get away with near infidelity.
Quotes on Betrayal and Deceit : A Doll’s House and Infidelity
“Oh well, I suppose you can look a bit higher if you want to.”
“What other wonders are to be revealed to me?”
Betrayal & Deceit : A Doll’s House & Escape
Nora’s escape from the Helmer household would have been seen, both in-play and by the audience, as a betrayal of her marriage and motherhood.
Quotes on Betrayal and Deceit : A Doll’s House and Escape
“But to leave your home, your husband, your children! Have you thought what people will say?”
“The miracle of miracles - ? The street door is slammed shut downstairs”
Betrayal & Deceit : Echo and Death
The speaker seems as though they feel almost betrayed by their lover’s death, as they have lost all joy in living without them. Still, they do not reject their lover, instead they attempt to reconcile and reform.
Quotes on Betrayal & Deceit : Echo and Death
“O memory, hope, love of finished years”
“Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live”
Betrayal & Deceit : Soeur Louise de la Misericorde and Replacement
Soeur Louise seems to feel very betrayed by her ex-lover (based on Louis XIV) and yet blames herself, perhaps due to societal standards and preference that prioritise younger women and shun elder women.
Quotes on Betrayal and Deceit : Soeur Louise de la Misericorde and Replacement
“Now dust and dying embers mock my fire”
“Where is the hire for which my life was hired?”
Betrayal & Deceit : Goblin Market and Apostasy
Laura’s betrayal of Lizzie’s advice and God’s path leaves her physically ill - and the cautionary anecdote of Jeanie suggests that extreme apostasy leads to death. The only reformation after betrayal is found through love and God.
Quotes on Betrayal & Deceit : Goblin Market and Apostasy
“We must not look at goblin men, we must not buy their fruits”
“While to this day no grass will grow where she lies low”
“For your sake I have braved the glen and had to do with goblin merchant men”
Desire : A Doll’s House and Macaroons
From the very start of Act One we see Nora’s desire and indulgence from her macarons which she shamefully hides from Torvald.
Quotes on Desire : A Doll’s House and Macaroons
“Pops the bag of macaroons in her pocket and wipes her mouth”
“Has my little sweet-tooth been indulging herself in town today by any chance?”
Desire : A Doll’s House and Wedlock
Krogstad and Ms Linde’s relationship represents the marriage that Nora desired to have with Torvald, perhaps suggesting that desires must be sought after in unconventional ways.
Quotes on Desire : A Doll’s House and Wedlock
“And you and I need each other. I believe in you, Nils. I am afraid of nothing - with you.”
“I won’t let this happiness slip through my fingers”
Desire : A Doll’s House and Freedom
Nora desires freedom from her predicament throughout the play, firstly through suicide, and then through escape. Whilst unorthodox, she desires to be herself, rather than all the things assigned onto her by her peers.
Quotes on Desire : A Doll’s House and Freedom
“So in case you were thinking of doing anything desperate-”
“My duty towards myself”
“I believe that I am first and foremost a human being.”
Desire : Echo and Death
The speaker desires to meet with their dead lover, initially hoping for their return to the living world, but progressing to wishing that they themself will die- effectively highlighting the extremities and danger of desire.
Quotes on Desire : Echo and Death
“Come back in tears”
“Whose wakening should have been in Paradise”
Desire : Soeur Louise de la Misericorde and The Past
Soeur Louise is both a perpentrator and victim of desire - she explicitly admits to experiencing this ‘masculine’ emotion, yet also focuses on the suffering it now causes her in the present.
Quotes on Desire : Soeur Louise de la Misericorde and The Past
“I have desired, and I have been desired”
“Oh vanity of vanities, desire!”
Desire : Goblin Market and Temptation
Laura is easily tempted by the goblin’s fruit, despite knowing of their tricks. This is very reminiscent of the Garden of Eden, suggesting that desire is inherently unholy and wrong.
Quotes on Desire : Goblin Market and Temptation
“Their offers should not charm us, their evil gifts would harm us”
“She suck’d and suck’d and suck’d the more”
“Till Laura dwindling seem’d knocking at Death’s door”
Secrets : A Doll’s House and Masks
Nora plays her part of a ‘songbird’ for Torvald to keep her secret - his patronising view of her only helps her further. Her Neapolitan outfit and frenzied Tarantella dance, used to distract Torvald, also function as masks of her true actions and desires.
Quotes on Secrets : A Doll’s House and Masks
“How he must wear a mask even in the presence of those who are dearest to him”
“Yes, yes, squanderbird, I know”
“But Nora darling, you’re dancing as if your life depended on it"
Secrets : A Doll’s House and Debt
Nora must work to repay her loan in secret as it is illegal for women to obtain a loan without their husband’s permission. Torvald is firmly against all kinds of debt
Quotes on Secrets : A Doll’s House and Debt
“No one has said I borrowed the money. I could have got it in some another way.”
“No debt, no borrowing. There can be no freedom or beauty about a home life that depends on borrowing and debt.”
Secrets : A Doll’s House and Desire
Dr Rank keeps his love for Nora a secret until after he reveals his imminent death due to the immoral implications of loving a married woman. Similarly, Krogstad and Ms Linde keep their past love a secret as widows.
Quotes on Secrets : A Doll’s House and Desire
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, now that the lamp’s been lit?”
“Do you know the man? … “I used to—many years ago.”
Secrets : Winter, My Secret and Power
The speaker in this poem uses their secret to gain power over the listener, as they now have something the listener wants. If the speaker is female, it could represent how 19th women had very little power, but could use secrets to leverage themselves.
Quotes on Secrets : Winter, My Secret and Power
“Or, after all, perhaps there's none: Suppose there is no secret after all”
“Perhaps some languid summer day … Perhaps my secret I will say”
Secrets : Shut Out and Ommittance
The speaker leaves out a lot of important details, such as their own identity, what the garden represents, and whether the garden is a physical garden or a metaphor. Their secrets create the same sense of uncertainty in the reader as the speaker may feel.
Quotes on Secrets : Shut Out and Omittance
“My garden, mine, beneath the sky, pied with all flowers bedewed and green”
“A shadowless spirit kept the gate, blank and unchanging like the grave.”
Secrets : Soeur Louise de la Misericorde and Redemption
Soeur Louise’s position as a affair partner to Louis XIV is expressed a vulnerable and immoral one. By revealing this secret - to both God and the listener - she is allowing herself to move on and redeem herself.
Quotes on Secrets : Soeur Louise de la Misericorde and Redemption
“I have desired, and I have been desired”
“Stunting my hope which might have strained up higher”
The Individual and Society : A Doll’s House and Expectations
Nora appears to be the ideal 19th century wife - motherly, submissive, and childish. However, as the play unfolds her true identity as a woman who subverts gender roles and expectations flourishes. Her final scandalous escape reaffirms her positive adversity.
Quotes on The Individual and Society : A Doll’s House and Expectations
“Papa didn’t give us a penny. It was I who found the money”
“But it was great fun, though, sitting there and earning money. It was almost like being a man”
The Individual and Society : A Doll’s House and Selfish / Selflessness
Throughout the play, Nora is presented as very selfless - she breaks the law for Torvald, and stays away from her children as she believes that is what is best for them. However, the other characters in the play (especially Torvald, and maybe even the audience) only see her as selfish - spending money and leaving her family.
Quotes on The Individual and Society : A Doll’s House and Selfish / Selflessness
“Hasn’t a daughter the right to shield her father from worry and anxiety when he’s old and dying? Hasn’t a wife the right to save her husband’s life?”
“She who was my joy and pride - a hypocrite, a liar - worse, worse - a criminal!”
The Individual and Society : A Doll’s House and Corruption
Torvald insists that one corrupted individual can corrupt an entire society, and in doing so, makes Nora fear for her influence on her children. Ironically, however, it is society’s strict expectations and roles that ‘corrupt’ Nora, rather than the other way around.
Quotes on The Individual and Society : A Doll’s House and Corruption
“A fog of lies like that in a household, and it spreads disease and infection to every part of it. Every breath the children take in that kind of house is reeking evil germs.”
“Corrupt my little children - ! Poison my home!”
The Individual and Society : No, Thank You, John and Gender Roles
The female speaker subverts Victorian expectations through her rejection, as she takes precedence in speaking - there is no reply from John and she has influential power over him. Similarly, the act of a woman rejecting a man would have been unusual.
Quotes on The Individual and Society : No, Thank You, John and Gender Roles
“I never said I loved you, John”
“I dare say Meg or Moll would take pity on you, if you’d ask”
“Use your common sense”
The Individual and Society : Up-Hill and Reassurance
The speaker turns to a second person to answer their questions about their imminent journey (presumably of that from Earth to Heaven), representing the need for a helping society like that of the Church to assist an individual in reaching Heaven.
Quotes on The Individual and Society : Up-Hill and Reassurance
“Will the day’s journey take the whole long day? From morn to night, my friend.”
“Will there be beds for me and all who seek? Yea, beds for all who come.”
The Individual and Society : From the Antique and Nihilism
The speaker has a lot of existential despair- she wishes not to be a woman, and whilst being a man would be better, she thinks that not existing at all would be best. Her identity and an individual is drowned out by society around her.
Quotes on The Individual and Society : From the Antique and Nihilism
“I wish and I wish I were a man: or, better then any being, were not.”
“I should be nothing, while all the rest would wake and weary and fall asleep”
Ibsen Context : The Importance of Laura Peterson
A friend of Ibsen’s (whom he nicknamed ‘skylark’) whose husband contracted TB and needed to be sent to a warmer climate to survive. She committed a forgery to do so and was sent to a mental asylum.
Ibsen Context : Fall from Affluence
Ibsen’s family became bankrupt, forcing them to move from their grand house to a dilapidated summer house, where they hide their poverty out of disgrace.
Ibsen Context : Realism
A Doll’s House can be considered a realist play as it focuses on character’s motives and interactions. The play is dialogue driven (the only action is the party that happens off-stage)
Ibsen Context : Naturalism
The play is set in a domestic sphere and the stage direction emulate this being set in a single room. The characters speak in prosaic dialogue rather than verse, mimicking real speech.
Ibsen Context : Yuletide
The play is set over Yuletide (Christmas), with the season representing the death of an old year and the birth of a new one. Similarly, Nora’s new life begins on Boxing Day, leaving her old life behind with the old year.
Ibsen Context : Darwinism
Just like Darwinism suggests, Nora has to evolve to properly thrive.
