In the late 1800’s, Europe was experiencing rapid industrialization and women were beginning to work outside the home. This sociological development led to a public debate on the role and rights of women in society (Pinchbeck 11). At this time a woman was generally legally under the control of her husband or father due to societal norms which were based on antiquated ideas that women were physically and mentally inferior to men and needed to be “looked after” (Pinchbeck 12). However, this hierarchical view of gender roles in families and society were beginning to change around the time A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen was published in 1879.
In the play, Ibsen shows the ways women from all social classes have to navigate complex social relationships and are often forced into situations that are unfair, cruel or demeaning. Ibsen shows a world where women from all classes and circumstances play a sacrificial role in the society, and are forced to behave according to norms that do not allow them to have their own lives, ideas or dreams. The play has been seen as a feminist critique on the role of women in society, however, Ibsen himself felt the play was talking about more universal issues about the human condition, and not particularly about the plight of women.
The women characters in A Dolls House have all suffered at the hands of society and its patriarchal norms. Nora feels like she is a doll, manipulated by men, living in a doll house. When her friend Mrs. Linde asks her if she will ever tell Torvald about the illicit loan that frames the story, Nora says that she might, but not when everything was going so well for them. She will tell him “Many years from now, when I’ve lost my looks a little. Don’t laugh. I mean, of course, a time will come when Torvald is not as devoted to me, not quite so happy when I dance for him, and dress for him, and play with him” (Ibsen 40). Here Nora is describing herself as a doll in a dollhouse, and not a real person. Nora dances, dresses and plays for Torvald. However, things are about to change for Nora and Torvald. Throughout the play she experiences an awakening that allows her to abandon her dollhouse and controlling husband.
Nora is being blackmailed for forging her fathers signature on a loan so Torvald could receive medical treatment in Italy. She feels guilty and even contemplates suicide, however, she was forced commit this crime to save her husbands life. Deep down she believes her husband will support her if he finds out. Instead, when her husband learns of her transgression, he berates her and tells her that she is not morally fit to raise their children. Nora was forced into a situation and then judged harshly for something largely outside her control. She also realizes she was sacrificing her life for a husband who was not noble or caring, but was only concerned with his own goals. When he finds out about Nora committing a crime to save his life, he does not feel guilty, indebted or compassionate; instead he blames her for ruining their reputation. He tells her that “From now on, forget happiness. Now it’s just about saving the remains, the wreckage, the appearance” (Ibsen 166). The dollhouse was largely Torvalds construction, Nora just took care of it.
Likewise, her friend Mrs. Linde feels that she too was forced into a bad situation because of money. She really wanted to marry Krogstad – a blackmailer who works for Torvold at the bank. However, she was forced to marry a richer man she did not love. The nanny had to abandon her own child work as Nora’s maid. These three women are from difference social classes, but all had to subvert their true desires for economic reasons. At the time, during the Industrial Revolution, women were beginning to work outside of the home. However, for most, they still were forced to rely on their husbands for financial subsistence. Men were dominant, and women had few real rights, could not vote and were not independent. Women with lower socioeconomic status – like Anne – supported themselves by any means necessary. The middle and upper classes suffered a claustrophobic and cloistered existence, with little social or economic freedoms.
Indeed, money and economic necessity is at the heart of the play. Because women rely on men for money, they do not have equal rights. Even for Nora, an upper middle class women, economic stability is a fragile construct. Even though Torvald has been promoted and the family is becoming more prosperous, there are indications that they had struggled economically for years. The previous Christmas she had made the ornaments by hand. With Torvald’s promotion they can begin to lead the good life. However, Nora realizes that the relationship is so unequal that money will not make her happy. Because of social norms, she cannot tell Torvald about her loan. He would not like the idea of a women paying for his medical treatment. At the time, it was illegal for a wife to apply for a loan without her husbands permission. When he does find out, he feels disgraced. From the beginning, he bosses his wife around and is very condescending, often treating her like a child. At the beginning of the play, she is a little like a doll, who accepts her position and second class status with magnanimity. At the end, she abandons her family, after realizing she was sacrificing everything for a jerk. Like committing a crime to save her husbands life, Nora’s abandonment of her children - Ivar, Bobby and Emmy - can also be interpreted as self- sacrifice. She loves her children but hates her family and her home.
At this time, in England and the rest of Europe, there was a public debate over what was called the “woman’s question,” which focused on the rights of women in a quickly evolving society (Pinchbeck 14). Women worked outside the home, primarily in textile factories. More women could read and participated in activities in their communities. Along with these changes came basic questions about the role and rights of women. In his 1869 essay, The Subjugation of Women, John Stuart Mill argued for gender equality, which was a radical idea at the time. Mill advocated perfect equality that encouraged women to become fully realized people:
The principle that regulates the existing social relations
between the two sexes—the legal subordination
of one sex to the other—is wrong itself, and is now one
of the chief obstacles to human improvement; and it
ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality
that doesn’t allow any power or privilege on one side
or disability on the other (Mill 19).
Mill was both a philosopher and economist and he saw the women’s rights movement from both contexts. Women were humans and deserved to be treated like any other human. Moreover, women played an important role in human economy, and needed education, training and financial incentives to become good citizens. He asserted that humanity needed to focus on intellectual and moral advancement which would result in a more educated and civilized society. Along with these new responsibilities - like working outside the home, there should be new benefits. Mill argued that women should be able to vote to “defend their own rights and to learn to stand on their two feet, morally and intellectually” (Mills 21). At the same time, women were idealized in society, being seen as an “angel at the hearth” and the heart of the family (Pinchbeck 44). This archetype of the ideal woman as mother, wife and homemaker was a powerful idea in the 1800’s, and can seen as a conservative reaction to a rapidly changing world. These ideas were swirling around Europe in the decade leading up to the publication of A Doll’s House.
Ibsen and Mill both present arguments and evidence about the inequality of women being an antiquated social norm. By the late 1800’s society was not longer comprised of cavemen dragging women around by the hair. Philosophically, the subordination of women was “a relic from the past that had no place in the modern world.” (Mills 21). Economically, it also stymied production and increased technological civilization. Mill recognized that women were a valuable part of the workforce and had talents and could make valuable contributions to society outside the home. His chapter subheadings, “Reason over Instinct” and “Modern Changes of Attitude” outline a basic idea that civilization was moving away from a male power hierarchy. According to Mill, This “old” system of inequality “never was the result of deliberation” or what was good for humanity of society (Mill 24). It was pure barbarism. Men were stronger than women and placed women in a state of bondage because “she was of value to him” (Mill 24). Ten years after the publication of The Subjugation of Women, Ibsen offered a less analytical perspective, that nevertheless captured the zeitgeist of male-female relations during the Industrial Revolution. The play is critical over basic marriage norms, and larger sociateal ideas about what women should be, and what they can do. Nora ultimately wants to discover herself, and be herself outside the confines of her doll house, which was a soirt of pretty prison that diminished her as a person. She tells her husband that “We must come to a final settlement, Torvald. During the eight whole yearswe never exchanged one serious word about serious things” (Ibsen 177). Tired of being a doll, Nora abandons her family to find some new path. Nora is a complicated character, who transforms so drastically over the course of the play that many reviewers have seen “two Noras” (Templeton 27). First, a manipulative, overly-sexualized and childish plaything, and then a hardcore feminist. This “second” Nora, is awakened, and abandons her family once she realizes she is sacrificing her identity for a husband that does not even think of her as a person (Templeton 28).
Ibsen denied writing A Doll’s House to advocate for women’s rights, saying it just represented elements of the universal human condition (Templeton 30). However, for its time, it offered a radical view of women’s discontent in a “modern” society. Things were changing, but certainly not overnight. In Ibsen’s own country of Denmark, women did not get the vote until 1908, almost thirty years after a publication of A Doll’s House. Currently, there are debates on gender issues in societies and cultures around the world, from wage equality to reproductive rights. Women leaving the home and entering the workforce was just the start of a long fight for equality which continues today.
Works Cited
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll's House. New York: Dover Publications, 1992. Print.
Mill, John Stuart. The Subjugation of Women. London: Electric Book, 2001. Print.
Pinchbeck, Ivy. Women Workers in the Industrial Revolution. Routledge, 2013.
Templeton, Joan. "The Doll House Backlash: Criticism, Feminism, and Ibsen." Publications of the Modern Language Association of America (1989): 28-40.
