An Analysis Of A Doll s House Essay -- A Dolls House, Henrik Ibsen

A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen, has created huge controversy since its creation in 1879. In fact, in order for Ibsen’s play to be shown in some theatres, he was required to rewrite an alternative ending, which he called â€Å"a barbaric outrage.† The three-act play is about an everyday housewife and mother of three children, Nora Helmer. In order to save her husband’s life, she forges her dying father’s signature and takes out a loan from Nils Krogstad. She spares any money Torvald gives her and secretly writes documents for money to pay back the loan in small portions. When her husband is promoted to manager at the bank, his first task is to terminate Krogstad. Krogstad threatens to tell Torvald about the crime Nora has committed unless she is able to persuade her husband to keep Krogstad. When Nora fails to preserve his job, Krogstad places Nora’s doom in the mailbox. Out of rage, Torvald demands his wife to leave but reads another letter from Krogstad saying he had a change of heart and would not reveal her crime to the public. Torvald begs Nora to stay. Nora senses she has been a doll to her father and husband her entire life and needs to leave to gain her independence. During this time society would reject the thought of a mother ever leaving her family; after all, this is her greatest duty. The United States government collected data of divorces over a one hundred year span from 1867 to 1967 and found â€Å"a consistent increase for a period of 80 years, 1867-1946† (Plateris 9). They also discovered that the rates â€Å"indicate that in 1890, the first year with data by martial status, 3.0 couples per 1,000 were divorced† (Plateris 9). Since we know there is a constant increase, we can also conclud 385). This quote proves her foolishness when she blames Torvald and her father for her own sin. No one forced Nora to commit her crime; she made the fully conscious decision by herself. Overall, Nora is unjustifiable for leaving her children and husband in order to find herself. Some say this was the beginning of the feminist movement but it was not. â€Å"All female or no woman at all, Nora loses either way, qualifying neither as a heroine nor as a spokeswoman for feminism. Her famous exit embodies only ‘the latest and shallowest notion of emancipated womanhood, abandoning her family to go out into the world in search of ‘her true identity’ † (Templeton 117). Nora is without justification when she chose to leave. She could have found alternatives to handle this situation in a better way but instead she remains narrow-minded, sophomoric, thoughtless, and self-centered.