The Controversy Over The Role and Gender of Women in “A Doll’s House”

Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) made a real name for himself in the mid-nineteenth century when he tackled the traditional marriage model and the role of the woman in the home with the play A Doll’s House, first performed in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 1879. Ibsen’s character Nora shocked contemporary audiences by leaving her husband and children in an effort to find herself—an endeavor largely unheard of for the time period. Nineteenth-century women were supposed to stay home and contentedly care for their husbands and children. Ibsen’s direct critique of this social norm put him at the center of controversy on gender and the role of women during a time when many feminist women’s organizations were being created in Northern and Western Europe. The use of language by Ibsen helps us visualize the nature of the characters, and we also find out their behavior as well as the organization of the characters’ relation. Each character has an exceptional language use. The strength helps us get the variance between the characters and their associations. The usage of language becomes vibrant as we read through or watch the play A Doll’s House when we learn about Nora and Torvald’s bond and the way it alternates in the play.

The language that Torvalds employs in the play gives us his strange priceless vision. His linguistic upholds confidence and constancy in the piece, and he never appears to be wedged on what to utter. Torvalds views himself senior to Nora. He is a governing and leading person and uses firm language regularly and interrogatives in superseding discussions. He uses a mocking dialect which includes “do I have to tell you.” At some point, he gets stunned that Nora doesn’t understand him for he expects her to be having comparable views as his. The act was always heard of at the time when the play was first produced. In that community, men worked whereas women took care of the children at home. We get to visualize Torvald seeing himself better than Nora, and he trusts that Nora is not going to prosper in being self-determining. He uses the word ‘little’ too frequent and demoralizes Nora when he says “Aha! So little miss independent is in trouble and needs a man to rescue her, does she?”(Ibsen 2018). Here, he employs the word little to undermine Nora. He habitually uses such language all over the play. He talks down to Nora.

In conclusion, I would state that Nora was right to leave. The opinion is justified because, throughout the play, Torvald is unaware of Nora’s compassion and craftiness. At the end when he ascertains the truth, he is irritated at a point where he should be modest. Nora was humiliated as a mother and taken as a child-wife.

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