Similar to the dressing of the Christmas tree, Nora’s fancy dresses are also essential in developing her portrayal in her marital relationship. The dresses that Ibsen describes throughout the play are subtle ornaments used to display her physical position in the marriage. For instance, when Mrs. Linde suggests that Nora should tell Torvald about the secret of the fraud, she smiles and states that she will do so when he is no longer as devoted to her as now, or “when [her] dancing and dressing-up and reciting have palled on him” (12). Nora is relying on her dresses to play a role of the ideal objects that will continue to cause Torvald to be fond of her physical beauty. She is proposing that only when she becomes old and unattractive that her dressing will no longer be of use to act as the underlying cause for the role of a wife for him. Accordingly, it is revealed that the relationship between them is merely a superficial one. Their relationship only has to do with Nora’s fancy dressing to please Torvald’s sensual desires, devoid of actual love and compassion. Nora can further be seen as a plaything to her husband when she wishes for Torvald to choose a dress for her in a flirtatious manner. Evidently, she says, “There is no one has such good taste as you…Torvald, couldn’t you take me in hand and decide what I shall go as, and what sort of a dress I shall wear?” (26). Nora is placing much importance to his approval of a dress, depicting how imperative it is for her to look wonderful in his eyes. In turn, Torvald is thrown into a state of erotic fascination as she dances in it, reinforcing the idea of her physical representation in their relationship. The only way Nora is capable of pleasing Torvald is with her elegant dressing up and dancing, thus outlining her exposé as a wife in only a physicality of the dress and as an embodiment of her being. Interestingly, Nora herself wishes to tear the dress into a hundred thousand pieces, thus proving how she detests the façade the dress puts on for Torvald. The relationship is considered to be dysfunctional because of the fact that Nora has only the role of physically pleasing her husband, while at the same time evading the cardinal components of love and compassion found in a true marriage.
Ibsen’s use of the dollhouse ornament that develops Nora’s physical and psychological portrayal can be examined as a final symbol that is implemented during the closing act of the play. In Act three, Nora finally comes to a realization of her inferior position in the Helmer household as she says, “our home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll-wife…and here the children have been my dolls” (67). According to Nora, Torvald has committed a great sin against her by withholding her from pursuing a womanly character that she subconsciously desires the whole time. The symbolic use of the dolls and the playroom that Nora expresses in her dialogue with Torvald represents an entirely separate realm of reality that she considers she was living in. The doll represents her being not only as Torvald’s physical entity, but also a plastic or glass figurine found in a child’s playroom. The simple object is a child’s toy, filled with a bleak representation of the real world. The doll and the dollhouse are fake items which attempt to better represent real life objects, showing limited signs of flaws, similar to Nora’s understanding of her relationship. Like the dollhouse containing a doll, Nora has been portrayed as a physical object who, in her relationship, does not get involved further than pleasing Torvald’s father-like attitude towards her. Once Torvald’s fear of his reputation being at stake due to Nora’s fraud was over by reading Krogstad’s letter of repentance, he suddenly changes his tone towards her. He goes back to behaving like she was his “little skylark, [his] doll, which [he] would in future treat with doubly gentle care, because it was so brittle and fragile” (70). Nora torments herself in thinking of the time she passed with a man who was such a stranger. Torvald’s treatment of her as a doll represents Nora’s psychological state as being ‘brittle’ and ‘fragile’, similar to that of a glass doll. Although she did not directly display such a mental state, it was apparent as her only hope in her marriage with Torvald was perhaps in raising her own children also as dolls, just as she was raised by her father and Torvald. Thus the dollhouse scenario that Nora discusses as a final release of her psychological feelings displays both her mental and physical involvement in a meaningless relationship with her husband.
The way that symbols can be used as an effective literary technique is evident in Henrik Ibsen’s, A doll’s House. Ibsen is subtly able to incorporate various symbols, grouped together as household ornaments, in developing both the physical and psychological portrayal of the central character, Nora. After exploring such symbols of the Christmas tree, her dresses, and the dollhouse imagery outlined in the final act, it can be concluded that Nora’s depiction as an unsatisfied woman in her marital affiliation with Torvald was put to a more heightened level. Considering Ibsen’s use of this literary effect, it can be made certain that the development of Nora’s physical and psychological aspects throughout her dysfunctional relationship with Torvald have been crucial in contributing to the play’s realistic style, giving it both success and a topic of great controversy.
Works Cited
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House. Trans. Stanley Applebaum. Dover Publications, 1992. Print.
Reflective Statement
The interactive orals pertaining to Henrik Ibsen’s, A Doll’s House effectively broadened my cultural and contextual considerations of the play. Firstly, the setting of Christmas helped contribute to my understanding of the inequality of gender roles as an important cultural aspect of that time. Prior to the oral, I had not realized that the time period of the festive season was culturally important in facilitating the differences between Nora’s role as a wife to that of Torvald’s role of a husband. The obvious dissimilarity between the genders become clear when Nora is shown to be the one largely involved in the festivities, such as in decorating the tree and arranging presents for the children. Torvald on the other hand, was seen to play the more serious role during this time; one of financial concern and the well being of the household. Moreover, the lack of interaction with his children illustrates how the male gender at that time was the more dominant, indulging in issues of greater concern, rather than those of happiness and childish pleasantries which the women had to do. By utilizing a joyful setting, Torvald’s indifference to his children and the festival are blatantly highlighted to further aid in portraying the male-dominance over the weak housewife, typical to Ibsen’s time.
Additionally, the feministic ideologies of the time were brought up to be a major cultural difference that, to me, were considered to be important in retrospect. Unlike today’s society, Nora and other women alike were unable to be free in determining their rights in a relationship as it was not considered a cultural norm. Since divorce was frowned upon in society, Nora did not have much of a choice with Torvald. The microcosm of the Helmer household displayed the rise of Nora’s character as a changed woman after realizing Torvald’s over-dominance to her growth as an independent individual. In relation to Nora’s role as a wife, she also had to carry on the duty of a mother. The children were probably a major reason which caused her to remain in the household, since society at the time generally sought the women to be good family members by raising children and taking care of the husband. In conclusion, the class seminars were specifically able to play a major role in increasing my understanding of the male dominant culture of the play’s time period.
by
sarang10 (student)
