Dollhouse Excerpt Essays

The following are all my dollhouse essays regarding excerpts.

How does Ibsen present Torvald and Nora’s relationship in this excerpt?

Examinations Torvald & Nora at the Start of A Doll’s House

At the beginning of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Torvald and Nora’s relationship is poignantly portrayed as doting and sweet, but unrealistic and unsustainable upon further examinations: with roots deep in Torvald’s control, conscious and subconscious, Nora is, at the moment, his doll who only has her eye on her pecuniary obsessions, reflecting the Victorian Norway’s household dynamic and a housewife’s relationship with society.

While initially sweet and loving, it is clear that the relationship is dominated by Torvald and Nora is in an obedient role. Torvald’s nicknames of “skylark” “squirrel” and “bird” may initially seem loving, but they are actually infantalizations of Nora’s persona and objectification of her social role. This could further be seen from the fact that Nora doesn’t speak for herself, but instead only responds to torvald’s nicknames for her, hinting that she does not have an assertive role in this relationship. Torvald also “playfully takes her by the ear”, seemingly loving and innocuous but actually exerting control upon Nora, the stage direction showing this control both cosmetically and metaphorically, Ibsen shows the dynamic of the couple as obedient and harmonic, yet it cements the fact that Nora is always the “little” child in the relationship, with Torvald as her guardian and overseer, calling into question the sustainability of such a relationship.

With this inequality in mind, it is seen that Torvald has a clear construction of Nora’s personality, and sees her as childlike and irresponsible. He calls her “frivolous” and “just like a woman”, yet she is acting in the exact way he wanted her to behave – revealed in Act 3 as “doing tricks for [him].” This negativity towards the image he himself creates for Nora shows Torvald’s hypocrisy and further cements him enforcing a personality upon Nora, a “costume” that turns her into a “doll.” Nora’s excited behavior – “Pooh!” “Yes!” “Sh!” only confirms her passive acceptance of this construction, one that perhaps she is not even consciously aware of, further confirming her performance in Torvald’s construction. This is later pointed out by Nora herself in Act 3, stating that her excitement results in being “just gay” and that she was Torvald’s “doll-wife, confirming the interactions here foreshadows the eventual breakdown of their relationship.

The unsustainability of the relationship is further seen from the secrets and lies that Nora does behind Torvald’s back as well as her manipulations of him for money. Nora hides “the hay of macaroons” because Torvald forbids her to eat it, immediately establishing conflict and rebellion underneath a sweet facade, foreshadowing her eventual detachment from Torvald. The macaroons here further act as a symbol for secret happiness that she could only access in his absence, confirmed later with her sharing macaroons with Rank, further establishing her in conflict towards Torvald’s control. Nora even takes advantage of Torvald’s construction of her personality, behaving childishly and flirtatiously, but secretly manipulative of him in return for money. As Nora behaves obediently and obsequiously – “ just as you say” – Torvald buys into her act and gives her money, which she accepts with excitement and glee-

How does Ibsen create tension in this extract?

As the hidden conflict unfolds during this duologue in Act 2, Krogstad’s blackmailing of Nora eventually results in both the dismantlement of her family as well as the acquisition of her personal freedom. As Krogstad reveals his motivation and inner, conflicting humanity in this scene, Nora undergoes growth along with the affinity and cautionary relationship that unfolds. By placing these protagonists in both juxtaposition and alliance with each other, Ibsen creates tension dramatically and thematically in his condemnation of the underlying social difficulties that cause the miseries of Nora and Krogstad, posing question to the very validity of self-interest and zero-sum games.

Through the revelation of Krogstad’s true motivation in this scene, Ibsen directly creates dramatic tension in his blackmail of the protagonist Nora. Krogstad’s initial assertion of power firmly placed Nora’s uncertain fate in his hands: he lightly taunts Nora with his leverage in a light remark of ‘just keep it’, creating a nervous mood that is further amplified by the potentially powerful delivery of ‘possession.’ He then ‘tactful[ly]’ reveals his motivation to Nora in a monologue, in which the first person pronoun ‘I’ appears 14 times to emphasize his self interest, placed in stark contrast with Nora’s obvious fear in this scene, creating polarizing tension. This is also amplified by his obvious ambition, in that he compares one’s social standing to a ladder in which one must ‘work [one’s] way up step by step’ to get to ‘the top’, an honest display of societal power dynamics in which he must prevent himself from being ‘kicked out’ again, raising tension as well as the pace of the scene. His consistent dark tone, in attempt to cause dismay to Nora, is affirmed at the end of the scene amidst an overshadow of suicide: he jeers at Nora to be a ‘precious, pampered little thing’, strangely echoing Nora’s husband Torvald, albeit with threatening and dismissive tonal differences from Torvald’s infantalization. However, his continuance of the suicide imagery in ‘the cold black water’ in order to scare Nora from ending up ‘bloated, hairless, unrecognizable’ became futile at the end, as Nora gains a defiant footing against his blackmail.

Initially frightened and desperate at Krogstad’s threats, Nora sheds her fear over the course of this scene as she becomes calm and assertive in the end. Nora was complacent and emotional to Krogstad’s suggestion of suicide, perfunctorily answering ‘which I am – How did you know?’ in conjunction with a profuse use of question marks and exclamations, showing her unstable mental state in the stichomythic conversation between Krogstad and Nora. Ironically, this parallels her conversation with Torvald at the beginning of the play, where she provided similar replies to her husband’s infantalizing remarks. This creates thematic tension as Torvald, a representation of society, comes to parallel the role of Krogstad, who represents Nora’s issues, implying a cause and effect relationship between the two. However, as stage directions marks Nora to become ‘toneless’ after she admits to not committ suicide, she grows increasingly bold at Krogstad’s remarks. Her frequent use of ‘never’ parallels her state of denial upon the curtain fall of Act 1, yet here it was used in a defiant and braev tone as Nora ‘now [has] the courage,’ growing increasingly assertive in Krogstad’s threats which foreshadows her similar progression at the end of Act 3 with Torvald. This conflict of tone raised Nora to become an equally powerful character in juxtaposition with Krogstad in this scene, raising tension not only within their cosmetic conflicts but also in their subtle alliance.

From the painstaking cyclicality in Nora and Torvald’s identical character arcs and the parallelism of their current situation, Ibsen combines the dramatic and the thematic to elevate the tension through the complexity in both character’s tentative care and alliance, albeit coexisting with blatant selfishness and competition. Krogstad used the first person plural verb of ‘us’ to refer to Nora and him when talking about suicide, and this collective pronoun gestures a sign of affinity and sympathy in Krogstad’s view of Nora, humanizing the character in contrast to his previous presentation. Sadly, it is indeed excruciating to note that it was the topic of suicide that granted these characters commonality, raising tension in that characters come together because of their miseries yet still have to extort each other to preserve the self. Krogstad is also ‘relieved’, as per the stage directions, in that Nora will not commit suicide, albeit it is not clear whether this is out of a genuine care for Nora or the selfishness in wanting his plan to succeed – or both. By the end of the scene, Nora and Krogstad repeat each other’s lines which simultaneously shows their parallelism and their conflict: both repeat ‘You can’t frighten me’ to show their power over the other, holding each other’s words as leverage to better their situation. This elevates tension to the highest as the scene ends in a deadlock between the two characters, without a compromising solution for either.

Throughout Nora’s growth and Krogstad’s humanization, Ibsen foreshadows the eventual redemption of Krogstad and liberation of Nora in Act 3 with the struggle and conflict of both in this scene. By placing Torvald in parallel with both Krogstad and Nora as each other’s enemy, Ibsen shows the root of these social dilemmas to be ultimately rooted in the society itself. Ibsen implies that in order to resolve the tension, change must be internal to the character and directly impacted upon the society, and invites the audience to participate in such a rite.