Analysis of a doll's house - Essay Example

The thesis statement is that: “A Doll’s House” emphasizes upon self-actualization and independence of choice, for all human beings and not just women, especially when it comes to the bond of marriage. This paper is an analysis of the play. The world took Nora as a hardcore feminist who slams the door upon a man, revealing the fact that a woman can do much more than just running the house and bearing children. This feministic view was quite alien to the Victorian era people, who kept themselves from discussing the play at gatherings due to its controversies.

Ibsen was criticized as writing plays intended to destabilize the society and the bond of marriage. He was considered as a challenger of societal norms and traditional values. However, he did not accept the title of a feminist; rather, he called himself a humanist. He emphasized upon the fact the human rights must be respected, by giving every individual the chance and choice to live a life of his own, rather than staying tied to bonds that he can hardly spend his life with. He made Nora leave Torvald, not because he favored women, but because he favored humanity and liberalism.

Through his play, he encouraged people to stand up for their rights, against those who did not deserve to be done good to. For him, it was a matter of human rights, and not of women rights. He used women to express how humanity was being repressed, because normally women are the repressed ones in our society. Hence, a shadow of feminism is there, which cannot be denied. We come to know this when Mrs. Linde says, “I only feel my life unspeakably empty. No one to live for anymore…” (Ibsen 19), which shows how she lived life serving others and not herself.

An example of male chauvinism comes when we hear Torvald say to Nora, “I shall not allow you to bring up the children: I dare not trust them to you” (Ibsen 107), which shows how man can demean a woman by being able to snatch from her most basic right. The play shows the couple leading themselves to the dissolution of their marriage, because they were not able to understand the status of one another. For Ibsen, a marriage is successful if the two spouses come to join one another on an equal level.

The couple must understand that none of the two is supposed to be dominant or recessive. The disparity of power leads to problems and misunderstandings. Torvald has been shown as a dominant, providing husband; while, Nora is a recessive wife who dreads the disclosure of her crime over her husband, like when she says, “…how painful and humiliating it would be for Torvald, with his manly independence, to know that he owed me anything. It would upset our mutual relations altogether …” (Ibsen 23-24).

She gets blackmailed by Krogstad. Torvald treats his wife as an inferior being, by calling her by pet names, as he says, “Is it my little squirrel bustling about?” (Ibsen 8). So, we see that there was no equality between the two spouses, which gave rise to misunderstanding between the two, so much so that the wife preferred to leave the husband instead of living with him anymore. Hence, Ibsen has, through his play, been able to provoke a thought among the people around him, regarding the humiliation of mankind and the violation of human rights.

He has been able to give a strong meaning to the institution of marriage, where both the spouses are supposed to live together on