A Doll's House
Ratings8
Average rating3.5
Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House premiered in 1879 in Copenhagen, the second in a series of realist plays by Ibsen, and immediately provoked controversy with its apparently feminist message and exposure of the hypocrisy of Victorian middle-class marriage. In Ibsen's play, Nora Helmer has secretly (and deceptively) borrowed a large sum of money to pay for her husband, Torvald, to recover from illness on a sabbatical in Italy. Torvald's perception of Nora is of a silly, naive spendthrift, so it is only when the truth begins to emerge, and Torvald appreciates the initiative behind his wife, that unmendable cracks appear in their marriage.
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This play follows Nora, a married woman whose seemingly loving husband, Torvald, thinks is not very careful with money. When a secret that Nora has been keeping for years threatens to come out, she tries to hide it from Torvald and resolve the problem on her own. Unfortunately, her efforts do not succeed, and her life begins to unravel and she is faced with the reality of what her husband's priorities are.
I was not expecting a powerful play when I started listening to this. My first thoughts were that Nora seemed to be sneaking behind her husband and was in fact squandering money. But it became quickly clear that that was only Torvald's narrow and ignorant perception of her. My heart was broken for her when she decided to stay away from her children believing she was poisoning their lives with her secret. And I felt betrayed when Christine went back on her plan of helping her. However, as it helped reveal Torvald's true person which led Nora to leave him, I could find it in me to forgive her.
