The first thing that the reader will notice regarding gender is the title of the play “A Doll’s House”. This reveals to the reader, Nora’s and possibly Torvald’s status within the play. Nora is unable to be herself as she is not seen as an equal in her marriage. Instead, she is something to be admired and flaunted. Her role is the marriage is to be something that Torvald can show off. Both Nora and Torvald are living lives based on illusion. Torvald has made Nora his perfect little doll so that he can look good. She thinks that he is a person with incredible strength. She becomes disillusioned with him at the end of the play when he exposes himself as just a man. This paper will look at the way that society’s expectations of gender roles are perceived by the Helmer’s in the play and how the later reversal of roles affects the Helmer marriage.
The first act reveals how Torvald sees Nora. He does not see Nora as a wife or an equal partner inside their marriage. Instead, he sees her as a cute animal. “Is my lark twittering there?” (Ibsen and Archer). This reference indicates that he sees her as someone who is bright and happy, but also a spendthrift. The next thing he does to ask if his squirrel is home. Even though it appears that Torvald is saying that she is energetic and happy in both instances. There is a bit more to the squirrel reference because squirrels are also devious, smart and sneaky. This is the first hint that despite the faultlessness of the two characters and their lives, everything may not be that picture-perfect. Nevertheless, Nora knows her role and plays it splendidly, because while it is Torvald’s job to provide for Nora and their children. It was her job to entertain him “I will sing for you, dance for you” (Ibsen and Archer). One can ascertain that Torvald does not really love Nora, but the idea of her. This is because he is trying to make her into some idealized image, which can be determined from the fact that he controls what she eats. In turn, this control that he has taken over what she eats and her willingness to allow him to believe that he has that control by hiding the macaroons is an example of how they are both conforming to their gender roles within the family.
This idea of gender roles and how they are perceived is reversed later in the play. This occurs when it is discovered that Nora had forged her father’s signature and lied to Torvald about where she had gotten the money to move South. She did this so they could move to a healthier climate in order for Torvald to get better. The reason that Nora had to lie and forge her father’s signature was because “a wife cannot borrow without her husband’s consent” (Ibsen and Archer). During the time that the play was written women were seen as not being capable of having or obtaining money without the consent of her father or husband. Therefore, it was their husband’s job to provide for them. Women were also not able to take out loans without a man’s signature. Nora also does not want Torvald to know about what she has done for him because he would seem weak for not being able to keep his wife in line. She reveals this when she says “how painful and humiliating it would be for Torvald, with his manly independence, to know that he owned me anything!” (Ibsen and Archer). The reason for this is that men are expected to be overtly masculine. They not only act as the provider for the family, they are also the strict disciplinarians, and the person who makes all of the decisions within the household. Had it been discovered that he wife was the one who had actually procured the money for their move. He would have been emasculate and his reputation ruined in the town.
Torvald says something to the effect of everybody who is immoral has a bad mother. This is because men did not take responsibility for the care of children. Instead they left the child rearing up to their wives. Therefore, in their opinion if a child had issues or was ill-behaved it was because the mother was not raising then properly. This could range from not disciplining them enough and making them rebellious to coddling them too much and making them weak.
Dr. Rank, who is dying had a conversation with Nora about syphilis and how his father passed the disease down to him. He told her how his spine is suffering from the actions of his father. However, contrary to the beliefs of some people, the disease that is killing Dr. Rank is not a gender issue. This is because Dr. Rank did not inherit the disease because he was male. He was afflicted with it, because his father did not take proper care of himself and had passed the disease down to Dr. Rank’s mother and subsequentially Dr. Rank himself. In regards to Dr. Rank’s father, the need to be overtly masculine and to prove one’s prowess with women may have contributed to him being infected with the disease. Nevertheless, his father’s ignorance and lack of care about his health or the well-being of those he was having sex is what caused Dr. Rank to be afflicted by the disease. Dr. Rank is surprised that Nora knows about the truffles and oysters because they are aphrodisiacs. Women are not supposed to know anything about sex. In fact, it was believed at this time that decent women did not enjoy sex. Any woman who did was labeled as having loose morals. Sex was to provide the man with pleasure and to procreate.
Finally, when throughout the play the reader is reminded of Nora’s place within the family structure. She is seen as being unable to think or act of her own accord The men around her see her as something to be used or manipulated. A doll without any real purpose. It is her realization that she and Torvald are not that different, which prompts her to leave. This is because she has shown fortitude just as he showed weakness.
Works Cited
Ibsen, Henrick, and William Archer. "The Doll's House." N.p., 1879. Web. 6 Aug. 2016.
