Ibsen‘s biographer Michael Meyer once said: ―The theme of A Doll‘s House was a need of every individual to find out the kind of person he or she really is, and to strive to become that person‖. A Doll‘s House is a realistic drama written by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen in the year 1879. His plays attacked the age worn values of male dominated society. He discarded outmoded dramatic techniques such as soliloquies and monologues. The theme of the play ―A Doll‘s House‖ is individual freedom and emancipation of self. The protagonist of the play Nora is the wife of Torvald Helmer and they are married for the last eight years. They have three children. ―A Doll‘s House‖ is a problem play because Ibsen deals with a social problem. It is the status of a woman in relation to her husband and home. Ibsen shows the pathetic situation of Nora being treated by her husband as a mere child who doesn‘t know anything and she is called the squirrel, the skylark and a doll.
A Doll’s House is a play of social criticism in the sense that it has criticized the traditional marriage, manwoman relationship and the domination of the female by the male in the name of love or family. It has thrown a number of questions in the face of the so-called values that were traditionally supposed to make the family happy and the society civilized. At the time that A Doll‘s House was written, women in Norway had very little economic agency. Lower-class women were restricted to low-paying domestic and clerical roles,
and there was a negative stigma attached to working women. Married women were arguably more financially restricted than single women, who often controlled their own finances. Married middle-class women like Nora were heavily discouraged from working, because it reflected poorly on their husbands. Nora and Torvald’s relationship is not really a fundamentally strong one because it is founded on appearances rather than trust and truth. Nora keeps up appearances and acts a bit like a child when she is with her husband, making him believe that she obeys him in all things when; in reality, she disobeys him in many ways, both large and small.
The title of A Doll’s House is symbolically significant as well as highly suggestive of the message that Ibsen seems to have intended to convey through the play. There are two important aspects of the play, which the title directly points to: the doll and the house. The doll represents Nora the central character, and the house stands for the house of Helmer where Nora lives. “Doll” signifies passivity, beauty, and the basically feminine nature which is seen in Nora when we look at her from outside. Indeed, from the viewpoint of Helmer, who is basically a traditionally possessive husband, Nora the doll is something like an inanimate object with which he can play and enjoy. Nora is not a real doll but an apparent one. She is subservient; she is designed as per the demand and desires of Helmer, who would like to think that he makes her what he wants her to be; she is also perfect and unchanging, insentient and easy to handle like lifeless dolls, that is, in the eyes of Mr. Helmer. Her opinions and interests are fully determined and controlled by him. She is his doll, like she was her father’s doll till marriage, Helmer possesses her, basically and almost only for fun. Nora has herself explained the fun that her husband obtained whiles their playhouse
When the curtain rises, Nora is seen on stage telling innocent lies in a child-like manner. From the First Act onwards, the gradual growth of Nora is seen and it reaches its climax in the Third Act when she goes out of Helmer‘s home slamming the door against the male-dominated ideas, laws and social customs. Another ironic indication in the use of the word “doll’s” is that the house does not belong to the doll. Nor is it made or maintained for her. The house, not home, is Mr. Torvald Helmer’s. In one sense, he possesses the house, along with the doll. The house, therefore, seems to belong to the doll; but actually it is her cage. Thus, Nora is the doll, and the house is a cage or ‘case’ for her. Indeed, the theme of the play suggests that her house (or home, or family) is a limitation on her freedom and prospects of life. The word “house” also has symbolic suggestions and thematically significant connotations. “House”, as contrasted to “home”, means ‘a structure or shelter to live in’, unlike “home” which means ‘a house where one’s family lives and one gets love and
care”.
Thus A Doll‘s House can be viewed thematically not only as a picture of an innocent nineteenth century woman struggling to achieve self-definition but also as a devastating indictment of a routine marriage between two ordinary people who lack awareness of themselves and who have differing views of right and wrong. The play ―A Doll‘s House‖ has dropped a bomb into the male dominated society not only in Europe but all over the world. Social life in the cities has changed fast since the publication of this play and woman
has gradually attained equal status with man in all fields of life. To quote Kate Millett it can be said that ―Nora confronted every convention…that caged her