A Doll’s House AO3

Ibsen’s background

Was born in Norway in the 19th century & left there, after an impoverished childhood with an absent mother & an alcoholic father, in 1864 to live in Europe for 27 years, but never fully integrated into it. He was an advocate for individual freedom & rights but saw himself as a humanist not a feminist. He apprenticed as a pharmacist after his father went bankrupt during which he got a girl pregnant & left her. He rarely returned to Norway after he left & summarised this as being due to ‘small-mindedness’.

Ibsen’s exile

He underwent a self imposed exile to Europe from Norway in 1864 due to disappointment with the social & financial struggles in Norway - and his own financial difficulties - and the reception of his work as controversial & uncomfortable in Norwegian society due to the topics he made critical commentary on. He experienced a lack of success in Norway & only took off as an internationally famous writer in Europe.

Ibsen’s reputation

He was known as the ‘Father of Modern Theatre’ or of ‘Realism’ as he pioneered realism by shifting away from melodrama to focus on a realistic style using believable characters and dialogue that explored contemporary issues. He introduced realism to the stage to further explore social problems & ordinary people’s lives.

Rights of women in Norway at the time

Women had been part of the workforce with much more regularity & less stigma than elsewhere in the world. Single women were given the right to work as early as the 1830s & gained inheritance rights & full legal capacity in the 1850s & 60s, but married women weren’t granted these as marriage & motherhood was still the preferred route for women. At the time of Ibsen writing, a movement for more equal treatment of all women was gaining traction. Women were given access to education in 1876 & the Norwegian Association for Women’s Rights was set up in 1884. In 1888 married women became able to manage their own earnings & were given full legal capacity & universal women’s suffrage was achieved in 1913 - one of the first countries in Europe to achieve it.

Realism

A movement that aims to accurately represent real life on stage by setting a story indoors/with a simple set, creating authentic & relatable characters & by showing an accurate & minimalist imitation of real life. It is driven by psychology and the interactions of the characters with each other.

Naturalism

A movement that aims to present humans as being controlled by heredity & their environments. It uses characters who are trapped by social position and biological traits & are often victims of their own circumstance. It is a more heightened version of realism & uses detailed sets & often depicts & explores taboo subjects.

Significance of the Norwegian landscape

Its known for being very dark & cold all day in the Winter - creating a miserable and bleak atmosphere. Ibsen told a friend that to understand him, people needed to understand the severe Norwegian landscape & the impact it had - leaving people isolated & alone. Ibsen expressed that ‘its bleakness permeates’.

The separate spheres of 19th century society

The private sphere of home life & domesticity was seen as the female sphere & as a woman’s natural domain. Women were seeing as having a role to uphold certain morals despite remaining constrained by the values of proper womanhood. Men were allowed into the public sphere & were free agents outside the home - allowing the empowerment of their manhood. The ideology of the separate spheres reinforced the social constructions of gender. Morals & expectations also varied by class.

Patmore’s ‘Angel In The House’

A poem by Coventry Patmore that affirms traditional Victorian values regarding domesticity & gender roles - mainly for working and middle class women. It idealised women as devoted, docile wives & mothers & as paragons of domesticity, virtue & humility. It can be seen to represent the expectations & stereotypes that women like Nora & Mrs Linde were expected to adhere to.

The context of the Well-Made play

Was a 19th century play that Ibsen drew inspiration from & a carefully crafted work. It was neat in structure & contained numerous twists & turns. The emphasis was placed on the plot rather than character development & the characters tended to be uncomplicated & usually identifiable as good or bad. Relied on exposition from plot complications of lost/forged documents. It had 3 stages - exposition, complication & resolution.

The background of A Doll’s House

The story was inspired by real events that happened to a young Norwegian women Ibsen knew named Laura Peterson. In real life, her husband Victor Kieler reacted badly to her lies & forgery, calling her an unfit wife & mother & demanding a divorce. This caused her to suffer a nervous breakdown but she eventually managed to convince Victor to take her back for the sake of their children. Ibsen saw her story as proof that certain consequences existed for women from the unequal role they played in a patriarchal society & his first edition of the play sold out within a month & reached immediate success.

Restrictions placed on the play

Aside from Ibsen being made to change the ending for the German production, the play was also censored & banned in certain places when it was first written as it was seen as scandalous and controversial for challenging the patriarchy of the time. Its first premier in London was in 1889 which was ten years after its first performance in Copenhagen. It was also banned in China in the 1920s & in Spain from 1940 until 1966. Many other countries as well as Germany required rewrites of the ending for it to be performed.

The unconventional ending of the play

Many saw the ending as a major technical advance on his previous play. However, he was forced to address the German actress of Nora Hedwig Niemann-Raabe’s call for a traditional ‘happy’ ending. She argued she would only play Nora up to a point as she would never leave her children. Ibsen then provided an alternative ending himself in which the Helmers stay together with a significantly weakened relationship. This version toured Germany but caused outcry in Berlin at such a narrow minded distortion of Ibsen’s intentions & wasn’t as successful. Hedwig then agreed to play the original version.

Effect of the play on the Kielers’

Ibsen’s stealing of Laura’s story only served to cause more friction between her & her husband & Laura was indignant that Ibsen had made use of her dilemma in this way, despite his portrayal of Nora as sympathetic & courageous.

Ibsen’s hypocrisy

He got a maid called Else Birkedalen pregnant during his apprenticeship at the pharmacy & left her. He paid for the child support but never acknowledged his son publicly or even met him. This is significant when exploring the theme of consequences of lies & deceit that he emphasises in A Doll’s House as it makes him appear hypocritical for never accepting the consequences of his own affair & secrecy.