‘By the end of the play Nora is presented as having fulfilled her desire to be absolutely free.’ To what extent do you agree with this view?
The dramatic ending of A Doll's House, when Nora slams the door, clearly represents a critical departure from her former life. At the beginning of the play, Nora could be said to be either cocooned or confined within rigid social constraints - the institutional (mainly marital) forces which inhibit her individuality and moral freedom. She does, at this stage, enjoy a certain amount of domestic freedom. She is free to keep the house tidy and look after the children, and has, ostensibly, freedom from money cares, although we soon learn that this last freedom is very far from realised. As the play progresses, Nora's conception of freedom changes as she gains, perhaps for the first time, a personal voice. Freedom, then, for her becomes the casting off of patriarchal oppression and condescension. However, whether she is leaving behind the stultifying caged existence as an over-petted doll in order to step into a world of certainty, where she will be able to achieve fulfilment and develop into an absolutely free individual, is very far from being a definitive judgment of the play. Although Nora does escape at the end, it is at the cost of her home and children, both of which matter a great deal to her and so her final decision involves a great personal sacrifice. When she ventures out through the door before the final curtain, she enters an uncertain and potentially hostile world, which has no political structure to support her decision to develop into an independent human being.
The very fact that momentous decisions like this could even be staged and that rigid gender roles could be questioned was anathema and disturbing to contemporary audiences. Ibsen's aim, however, was to liberate society's imagination by forcing it to confront a more honest paradigm or representative of itself. Ibsen was aware that relationships are never black and white. They are complex and in life there are no clear winners. He eschewed stereotypes or the romanticized heroes or heroines of the early nineteenth century melodramas. His drama is interrogative rather than declarative. After the door slams, the audience is left to make up their own minds about what will happen to the couple. Ibsen, as an innovator, was more interested in producing a realistic drama that would provoke discussion and debate rather than give a clear outcome.
The door imagery throughout relates to themes of caged and free animals; to open and to closed possibilities; to the potentiality for change and its impossibility. The door to Torvald's study, stage left, for example, represents the authority he exerts over the household, almost by divine decree. It is a separate domain from which Nora is excluded. But the main living room, where Nora tends to dominate during the play, cannot be said to be her domain either. In the final act, she refers to this solidly, conventional, middle-class room as her playroom. The exit door, stage right, from this room is also an important symbol in the play, as it represents a barrier between the safety of her domestic world and the cold, and possibly, frightening world outside.
The slamming of this door during the first performance, representing Nora's dramatic exit, was so shocking that an alternative ending was also produced. During this performance, the actress who was chosen to play Nora refused to countenance the idea that she would ever abandon her children. Ibsen, therefore, ended the play with a scene in which Nora is taken to the door of her children's room and breaks down emotionally as the play ends. Ibsen strongly believed that this contrived ending is a distortion of the play and of Nora as a character. The original ending truly determines her character and questions the values and social norms of the people of her society. In the system of patriarchy, Ibsen demonstrates that Torvald, the person in authority, is unthinking and insensitive. Nora, however, who lacks any power in the play, is sharp, thoughtful and caring. Nowadays, audiences expect to see the door slammed - as it symbolises a move away from her enforced confinement towards a desire for freedom and the possibility of self-determination.
The build up to this climax is tightly structured in a naturalistic way by Ibsen, with the three acts closely incorporating the exposition, development and denouement. During the exposition in the first act, the past is constantly referred to. As a result of her exchanges with Kristine and Krogstad, Nora is forced to confront the fact that her own identity is inseparable from the conditioning that can be traced back to her 'loving' father and later to the other paternal figure in her life, Torvald. Freeing herself from this oppressiveness becomes a subtly progressive and subconscious struggle for Nora during the last two acts. She gradually realises also that she has no economic power of her own. In taking out the loan from Krogstad, Nora comes to appreciate what a controlling effect money has. Money is the central means by which the powerful - in other words, the patriarchy - exert control. However, Nora's decision to take out the loan was a moral decision, although in the context of her social position as a representative of a nineteenth century woman, it is considered immoral. Ibsen's concern was to challenge this assumption and he could not do that without giving Nora the moral right to make her own decisions. For him, this is not a feminist right but a human right. For Ibsen the potential strength of the individual is paramount.
This declaration of individuality is realised in the third act, notably when Nora announces that her first duty is to herself as a human being, which is an absolute rejection of what society expects of her. No longer prepared to accept the dictates of religion or the morality of a society whose laws would have condemned her, she is determined to educate herself:
"And you can't help me with that. It's something I must do by myself. That's why I'm leaving you." [Page 99]
She no longer has any faith in miracles. When Torvald fails to stand up to Krogstad's threats or take any of the blame for his wife's well-meaning error, he reveals his true nature - self-centred and self-obsessed to the core. This is probably the lowest point in our estimation of his character. To compound this weakness, he wanted to behave as if nothing happened. Nora no longer loves him because he is not the man she thought he was.
Torvald's true character is exposed once Krogstad’s first letter reveal to him the circumstances of Nora’s forgery and jeopardises his social respectability. His sanctimonious belief that “no man sacrifices his honour for the one he loves” emphasises that he is completely subservient to the attitudes of late nineteenth century society. Once his social standing is jeopardised Torvald is nothing other than a hypocrite preoccupied with his own welfare. Nora soon realises she had been living in a deep personal conflict between her personal morality and what one may perceive to be social morality.
Nora eventually leaves her husband as an independent women emphasising that she is to take her “own things” once she leaves revealing that she now has a sense of possession, when compared to when she would beg Torvald for money. Ironically, she has placed herself in a similar economic position at the end as Mrs Linde. Although it can be argued that Mrs Linde is not wholly convincing as a rounded character, she is important for providing a parallel situation to Nora, throwing Nora's frenzied girlishness into greater relief. Also, it is through the wisdom of Mrs Linde that Helmer is eventually confronted by the truth. Ibsen was able to synthesise and unify many forces into an integrated whole in his treatment of people and action. Where Mrs Linde gains security through her liaison with Krogstad, Nora leaves to face an alien world in which she must earn her living as well as her independence.
From Euripides Ibsen adopted the use of what is often referred to as the retrospective method of situation and character delineation. He begins his tragedy just before the catastrophe and uses dialogue to unravel the preceding events in retrospect. The influence of the past on the present and the future is fully explored. The action is concentrated into a very small space of time and the sins of the past are contrasted violently with the calm and comfort of the present. The whole play takes place over three days during Christmas. This time of year is a turning point symbolising the death of the old year and looking towards the rebirth of the New Year, with some possibilities of miracles, perhaps.
There is an anticipation that Helmer will perform the miracle that Nora expects, and we eagerly await this. In doing this he is using some of Scribe's techniques of a series of hints and ironies to suppose that Nora's dilemma will be happily resolved. However, part of the playwright's intention is to demonstrate the essential shallowness of the popular plays such as Scibe's 'well-made plays', which used platitudes to hide from the tragic seriousness of the human condition. Torvald is paternalistic; Nora childlike. Essentially, it's a parent - child relationship, playing rituals. She enjoys her role as the spoiled child. She may seem superficial but she knows that to tell Torvald the truth would be to "completely ruin our relationship. This life we have built together would no longer exist". There is a considerable amount of repression beneath her flighty and jaunty surface.
It can be argued that all the psychological complexities in her character surface during the final confrontation and, through Nora's force of character and courage, achieves a resolution and a new status as a free and independent women. Because of her unique stance and action, she was regarded as a mould breaker by contemporary audiences. Everyone at the time questioned her choices and considered her fate through the prism of the patriarchy. There has been so much controversy about the play from its first performance to the present day. Ibsen’s drama continues to raise uncomfortable questions about society, marriage, masculinity, sex and motherhood. In refusing to provide comfortable answers or impose conventional resolutions, Ibsen’s denouement consciously denies resolution about aspects of freedom in favour of debate.
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