Leaving the Doll House: A Critical Analysis of Nora Helmer

Ibsen’s A Doll’s House was published in 1879, making Nora Helmer one of the important figures of the Women’s Rights Movement. Ibsen’s development of Nora as a woman struggling with her identity and need for respect established his support for the movement. The decision to end the play with Nora’s unexpected choice to leave furthers the idea that women should be free to seek independence. Many women today still take on the same role that Nora plays in her family, as gentle mother and model wife, but the important difference is that they are generally freer to make this choice for themselves than women were at the time of the writing of A Doll’s House. The transformation of Nora Helmer is possibly to thank for this in at least some small way, for providing audiences with an example of what female liberation could look like.

The play opens on Nora at the height of her domestic perfection. She is first seen bringing many gifts into the living room of her “tastefully” furnished house while humming to herself (Ibsen 962). Her husband Torvald’s treatment of her as more of a pet than a human wife, as well as her acceptance of this, is shown right away when he calls to her from inside his study:

HELMER. (in his study) Is that my little sky-lark chirruping out there?

NORA. (busy opening some of the parcels) Yes, it is.

HELMER. Is that my little squirrel frisking about?

NORA. Yes!

HELMER. When did my little squirrel get home?

NORA. Just this minute. (963)

As the scene goes on, Torvald continues to refer to Nora by patronizing names like “pretty little pet,” and, “pretty little songbird” (964-965). He also calls parts of her body, “dear little eyes,” and “dainty little fingers,” which shows that he sees her as both a pet and a child—not a wife and a woman (966). Nora’s acceptance of this treatment shows that, at the beginning of the play, she has not yet thought about whether or not this bothers her. She has blindly followed the path that many other women, especially of this time, feel they are supposed to follow: marry, start a family, and remain subordinate to the husband. This seems to have naturally happened to Nora without her giving it a second thought, but the next scene reveals that she is more complex than the audience is led to believe from the start.

When Nora’s friend Mrs. Linde arrives, Nora confides in her that she borrowed a large sum of money behind Torvald’s back, to pay for a trip to Italy. She has since been working in secret to pay back her debt. Her decision to get the money on her own, and to keep it a secret from Torvald, shows her desire for independence. She wants to be able to take care of some things without the help of her husband and gets joy from being self-sufficient. However, she is still far away from making the full transformation that she completes by the end of the play, as she speaks highly of her own attractiveness—assigning to it the same kind of value that a man would. She also expresses how valuable her husband’s money is to her when she talks about the things she is excited to be able to do now that he is making more money:

NORA. …Just think of being without a care in the world… being able to romp with the children, and making the house nice and attractive, and having things just as Torvald likes to have them! And then spring will soon be here, and blue skies. And maybe we can go away somewhere. I might even see something of the sea again. Oh yes! When you’re happy, life is a wonderful thing!

Nora, at this point, still believes that these are the things that will make her happy. She has not yet discovered for herself that she is unfulfilled by the role she believes she has willingly chosen, but that has actually been assigned to her by society.

Even though she tries to keep it from happening, by the end of the play Nora’s secret is revealed. When this happens, Torvald shows his true nature by calling Nora “a hypocrite, a liar, [and] worse than that, a criminal” (1021). He also tells her that she has “ruined [his] entire happiness, [and] jeopardized [his] whole future,” and goes on to say that he is “done for, a miserable failure, and it’s all the fault of a feather-brained woman” (1021). When Torvald finds out only a minute later though, that Krogstad has sent Nora’s IOU back, he tries to take back everything he has just said. It is too late, through this display of his true nature, Nora is forced to discover her own as well. He has failed to truly support her, in exchange for the selfless support she has given to him. Ultimately, there's a collapse of the Doll House when she decides to leave Torvald and the children so that she may educate herself, and “learn to stand alone” (1026):

HELMER. This is outrageous! You are betraying your most sacred duty.

NORA. And what do you consider to be my most sacred duty?

HELMER. Does it take me to tell you that? Isn’t it your duty to your husband and children?

NORA. I have another duty equally sacred.

HELMER. You have not. What duty might that be?

NORA. My duty to myself. (1026)

Through this series of what she at first thought would be unfortunate circumstances, Nora discovers that she and Torvald are strangers trying to share a life together. Torvald, however, is only willing to share a life with her if she is nothing more than his devoted pet. He does not want her to think or act for herself unless it is to his benefit. This, sadly, is still a common attitude in a male-dominated world. Luckily, women in many of today’s societies are given opportunities, unlike Nora, to educate themselves before being pressured to marry and start a family. But this wouldn’t have come about if women, both in fiction and reality, hadn’t shown the world the value in this experience of self-discovery. Nora’s transformation likely helped influence the transformation of many women after her, who did not realize that they could be happier living a more independent life.

Work Cited

Ibsen, Henrik "A Doll's House." Literature: a pocket anthology. 3rd ed. By R. S. Gwynn. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2007. 961-1030. Print.