A Doll's House critic quotes (AO5)

Baser (2013)

Nora is ‘meant for [the] enjoyment and pleasure of her husband Torvald’

Wright (2011)

Dr Rank’s syphilis acts as ‘a brutal and physical reminder of the consequences of sin’

1. Soloski (2013)

‘the play manifests the frequent anxieties about parental legacies’

2. Soloski (2013)

‘though Syphilis is depicted as a terrible malady, restrictive social norms are, for Ibsen, the worse disease’

1. Garland (2008)

‘Conversations are the battlefields where characters fight for authority and strive for understanding’

2. Garland (2008)

He describes Nora and Torvald’s relationship as ‘an unresolved battle for power’

1. Duncan (2018)

‘Torvald is explicitly attracted to… her fragility and helplessness - and sees his own identity as predicated on this’

2. Duncan (2018) on Torvald

‘He is unable to imagine any future where they are equal’

McNamara (2016) on Nora and Torvald

‘a relationship that is ultimately parasitic’

Moi (2006)

The tarantella represents ‘a woman’s struggle to make her existence heard’

Sartre’s theory of existentialism (20th century)

Freedom is not as liberating as it seems since it forces humans to bear full responsibility for their choices

Marxist Theory (19th century)

Nobody is free under capital.

Torvald is representative of the bourgeoisie and Krogstad is a victim.

Billington on Cracknell’s 2012 production of the play

‘As if to remind us that this is a play about domestic revolution, Ian MacNeil's design revolves ceaselessly’

Nietzsche, atheistic German philosopher

He declared “God is dead” (1884) by which he meant that modern societies were governed by the consent of the people rather than a divine order.