Prevailing Power Structures, Ideological Forms, and Ibsen’s A Doll House

Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House is a play that questions the bounds of morality, commodity, and what marriages are meant to look like in the wake of capitalism and ideological forms that emphasize materialism. The amount of lying and criminal activity in order to sustain a particular lifestyle are problems highlighted by Ibsen’s play, Barry Witham and John Lutterbie’s Marxian critique on Ibsen’s play, and Karl Marx’ critique of ideological forms. The play concludes with Nora leaving her husband and her role as the financially-dependent, submissive wife. The ending is symbolic of the play’s ultimate message which stresses the presence of ideological forms that perpetuate power cycles, systems of materialism and subversion, and the socioeconomic forces that cause people to jeopardize their relationships with others in order to attain and keep social status.

The question then becomes: are women and men actual victims of the economic background of which they are used to, and how does this comfort destroy relationships? It seems that Nora and Torvold’s marriage was based on economic comfort rather than love. As Witham and Lutterbie state “…while the characters accept the social realities of their misfortunes, they do not appear to question how their human attitudes have been thoroughly shaped by socioeconomic considerations” (Witham and Lutterbie 1785). In fact, Karl Marx’ philosophical views were based on readings of how socioeconomic values misplace and even replace senses of personhood.

For example, we even sympathize with characters because we actually understand and relate to the crimes they commit and their attempts to sustain their lives in a capitalist society. Krogstad, the antagonist of the play whose character is constantly being questioned, is even relatable because he is simply a man trying to keep his job in order to live within the bounds of a materialistic society. He fights for his job at the bank “as if it were life itself” (Ibsen 1742). Interestingly, Krogstad is a morally questionable character just as Nora is. Both have committed white-collar crimes in order to live the middle class lives they struggle to maintain. As Krogstad asks Nora to influence her husband’s decision so that he can keep his job at the bank, he tells Nora that “It’s not just a matter of income; that’s the least of it. It’s something else…I took up those various activities you know about. I had to grab hold somewhere; and I dare say I haven’t been among the worst. But now I want to drop all that. My boys are growing up. For their sakes, I’ll have to win back as much respect as possible here in town” (Ibsen 1742). Krogstad is the most unsavory character in the play, but even his criminal actions are understandable in intent. Before threatening Nora with blackmail and notifying various parties of the forgery that occurred in order for the Helmers to take a vacation, he justifies his actions and explains his position and his desire to earn an honorable income in order to provide for his family. Not only is it the ideological form of materialism that influences Krogstad, it is the ideological form of earning capital and wealth through legal means that justifies one’s place in middle class society.

Additionally, life, and even death, is constantly discussed in financial terms. For example, the ailing Dr. Rank, while attempting to reveal his ailing condition throughout the play, is entirely concerned with finances in order to actually be put buried. He states, “These past few days I’ve been auditing my internal accounts. Bankrupt! Within a month I’ll probably be laid out and rotting in the churchyard” (Ibsen 1752). Dr. Rank speaks of his illness and his death in terms of finance, articulating the fear that he won’t be able to pay for his own grave rather than articulating the fears of dying, further exemplifying that personhood is commodified.

As Witham and Lutterbie discuss, the other characters serve as additional platforms that highlight the financial dependence and interdependence between Nora and Torvald (Witham, Lutterbie p.1786). The play has moments of joy and moments of frustration that are always caused by financial stability and economic prosperity or the lack thereof. For example, the way that Anne-Marie accepts the ways in which her daughter is alienated from her because she is far away from home and can’t provide the desirable amount of attention to her daughter Nora questions how Anne Marie was able to stand being away from her children and how she was able to allow strangers to look after her family. Anne-Marie responds by stating, “When I could get such a good place? A girl who’s poor and who’s gotten in trouble is glad enough for that. Because that slippery fish, he didn’t do a thing for me, you know” (Ibsen 1747). Anne-Marie reminds Nora that her daughter does write her when something important occurs, accepting that she is alienated and doing the best given the socioeconomic situation that she is in, continuously taking care of Nora and her middle class family.

In the beginning of the play, it is Christmas Eve, and Torvald greets Nora with joy and then scolds her for spending too much of his money buying Christmas gifts. Initially, in the first Act, Torvald sweetly calls out to his wife in the apartment, asking if his ‘little lark’ is ‘twittering around out there’ (Ibsen 1728). Torvald continuously patronizes Nora, and then he discovers that she’s bee shopping, asking “Has the little spendthrift been out throwing money around again?” (Ibsen 1728). She justifies it by reminding him of the raise he just received and he continues to ask her if she is ‘scatterbrained’. Torvald is continuously rude in his questioning and patronizes her like a child. Ensuing discussion of debt arises and Nora justifies it by lying and saying she borrowed money from strangers. It becomes clearer that Nora is dependent on money that isn’t hers while still attempting to hold on to a sense of independence even as she says things to Torvald like “I could never go against you” (1730).

It also should be pointed out that this is a middle class family in the 19th century. The Helmers were never necessarily impoverished. However, due to Torvald’s raise, Torvald states to Nora that “You wanted so much to please us all, and that’s what counts. But it’s just as well that the hard times are past” (Ibsen 1731). Therein lies the irony that suggests a Marxian critique. The definition of ‘hard times’ for a middle-class family is very different from the definition of hard times for an impoverished family. The fact that, although crimes are committed in order for Nora to maintain her sense of socioeconomic status and Torvald to keep his trophy wife while also keeping the family clothed and cared for in addition to being able to provide the ‘finer things’ in life such as Christmas decorations, the fact that, if they went without Christmas decorations, that would constitute ‘hard times’ suggests the ideological form of materialism and the dangers it poses. Materialism in it’s ideological form disconnects materialistic people from actual problems, and people suffering from actual poverty are left in squander while middle class families are suffering ‘hard times’ that might imply something as little as having to go without Christmas decorations. Therefore, existing power structures and ideological forms and materialism characterize the entire plotline of the play and therefore the personality of the plays’ characters.

This is symbolized quite clearly when Nora is having her conversation with Mrs. Linde, joyfully discussing her husband’s new raise. Nora delights in stating that she ‘feels so light and happy’. She delights, “won’t it be lovely to have stacks of money and not a care in the world?” and Mrs. Linde responds “Well, anyway, it would be lovely to have enough for necessities” and Nora responds with “No, not just for necessities, but stacks and stacks of money!” (Ibsen 1732). The conversation continues, and Mrs. Linde reminds Nora that she used to be a free spender, and Nora talks about how she has had to take a variety of odd jobs in order to supplement her husband’s income in order to live comfortably as products of their socioeconomic status in the middle class.

Nora’s lies and her struggle to understand life and herself, her relationship to her husband and, in Marxian terms, enslavement to her husband and to a system that perpetually causes female enslavement to men in societies that perpetuate male gender roles as breadwinners and female gender roles as the submissive and even passive money spenders and of the money that is earned and secured by men in the workforce. With this realization it is important to integrate a discussion of Marxian ideological forms and what they mean for Ibsen’s A Doll House.

Marxian ideological forms serve to define why changes within societies occur while also contributing to the adherence of social forms that already exist. For Marx, the ruling classes use societal ideological forms (embedded in religion, legal and political systems) to justify the vicious perpetual cycle of alienation and estranged labor that leads to estrangement of personhood which then takes the form of materialism (Marx). Marx also acknowledges that this particular malicious use of ideological forms (by the ruling classes) has not always been the case historically and/or cross-culturally. Even in a pre-capitalist society (as defined by Marx) ideological forms have been used to justify the characteristics of society through the use of the political, religious, and social meanings ascribed to them. The social means during the setting of Ibsen’s A Doll House are embodied through material wealth and socioeconomic status. Socioeconomic status means everything to the Helmers, and Nora realizes by the end of the play that there is more to life than wealth. Throughout the play she remains the materialized wife, and even commits crimes and tells various lies in order to maintain that role.

Additionally, Marx contends that even within some forms of pre-capitalistic society (which is not the setting here but is worth a brief discussion), the community itself was the presupposition of unity, and the community itself has always created ideological forms that members must have adhered to. However, the social consciousness of the producers and those who control the social modes of production results in the alienation of personhood and negates the will of those who produce, whom are simply trying to survive in the society in which they exist. Therefore, ideological forms are embedded in capitalism and are used to disadvantage others. For Marx, all human meaning is derived or related to administrative institutions through processes that commodify the use of ideological forms. (Marx). Therefore, the embeddeness of ideological forms that stress material wealth for the Helmers and the other characters of the play actively lead to the destruction of relationships and a lessened sense of morality in order to maintain socioeconomic status. Nora’s leaving is anomalous to the adherence of roles due to ideological forms, but it nonetheless represents a perpetuation of the system.

Nora’s leave-taking overall can be considered as an act of self-discovery, but it is an additional manifestation of materialism and ideological forms that produce the master-slave as well as male-female power structures due to socioeconomic emphases on desirable lifestyles. Nora experienced an existential collapse of the "Doll House" and may have discovered at the end of the play that money does not equate happiness and that her marriage was simply an economic and status symbol exchange between her and Torvald. However, given the time of the play and the prevailing power structures, if the play were to continue with a maintained theme of realism, the future Nora is likely to attach herself once again with a different male in order to achieve financial comfort. She is, after all, a ‘victim’ of her socioeconomic status. While she may have achieved temporary personal freedom at the end of the play, a Marxian critique would suggest that this sense of achievement would not last throughout one’s life due to existing power structures.

However, it is possible that Nora is in denial of this, in her realization that she can, in her mind ‘take her freedom’ as exemplified by this quote as she walks out the door: “Listen, Torvald-I’ve heard that when a wife deserts her husband’s house just as I’m doing, then the law frees him from all responsibility. In any case, I’m freeing you from being responsible. Don’t feel yourself bound, any more than I will. There has to be absolute freedom for us both” (Ibsen 1775). She even refers to herself as a doll, therefore justifying the title of the play, suggesting that she is herself the toy that he has provided for and cared for. Interestingly, even as Nora might be saying these things sarcastically, it again suggests the power structure and the ideological forms that characterized not only their marriage but also society at the time. As Torvald realizes that the trouble with the illegally loaned money is over and after Torvald insists that she ‘thinks and talks like a silly child’, Nora responds “Perhaps. But you neither think nor talk like the man I could join myself to. When your big fright was over-and it wasn’t from any threat against me, only for what might damage you-when all the danger was past, for you it was just as if nothing had happened. I was exactly the same your little lark, your doll, that you’d have to handle with double care now that I’d turned out to be so brittle and frail” (Ibsen 1774).

The ideology of the play from a Marxist critique isn’t as easy to understand and can take multiple forms that are not mutually exclusive. Witham and Lutterbie beg the question: does the play reproduce the status quo or does it advocate a radical restructuring, such as a Marxian desire for a communist-like system? (Witham and Lutterbie 1787). While Nora’s leaving might be a blatant suggestion for change or at least the acknowledgement on the part of viewers that ideological forms manifest in materialism that can cause families to fall apart, friendships to deconstruct, and generally good people to lie, cheat and steal, it also suggests a perpetuation of the status quo blatantly. If anything is clear, the play at least asks viewers to question their personhood and accept that they are not just a product of their socioeconomic status, which essentially argues at the very least for a reform of thought that can drive changes in society.

Works Cited

Ibsen, Henrik. “A Doll House”. Approaches to Teaching Ibsen's A Doll House. Ed. Yvonne Shafer. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1985. 1785-787. Print.

Marx, Karl. "First Manuscript: The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844." Marx and Engels Internet Archive. Marxist Internet Archive Library, n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2013.  <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/>.

Witham, Barry, and John Lutterbie. "A Marxian Critique of Ibsen's A Doll House." Approaches to Teaching Ibsen's A Doll House. Ed. Yvonne Shafer. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1985. 1785-787. Print.