A Doll’s House a Realistic drama
Shamana Yasmin
“‘A room is to him a room’ wrote Virginia Woolf of Ibsen , ‘a writing table a writing table, and a waste paper basket a waste paper basket .At the same time the paraphernalia of reality have at certain times to become the veil through which we see infinity.” Ibsen transforms the stage from mirror into lamp; he reveals the invisible forces behind the phenomenal world. (1)
Without ‘truth’ there should be no change, no genuine freedom. This was the basis for that quartet of realistic social play which Ibsen published in the year between 1877 - 1882.Ibsen’s first realistic play coincides with the perspective of Brandes’s lecture series on “Main Current in Nineteenth Century Literature” .Brandes believes that Literature should not be an instrument of concrete debates of prevailing problems, it had to grip with those condition which invade and determine the concrete existence of individual.
Ibsen within the frame work of these dramas concentrate on some phase I the contemporary situation where a latent crisis suddenly becomes visible. (2)
A dolls house relentlessly reveals the great lie beneath conventional roles play by man and woman in their marriage; here love and marriage are dramatically scrutinized. Ibsen believes that a stage should be a place for confronting real social, economic, psychological problem through the medium of individual destiny. A Doll’s house is a story of an immature girl who suddenly wakes up and see the life lie on which she has based her life ,right up the final show down Nora has clung to the notion of ‘the miraculous’ that Helmer will take upon himself all the responsibility for her action ,the act of forgery that she has committed eight years ago to save Helmer’s life, she “did it for love”(act 1),her husband life was endangered to collapse unless he take a tour in the Southern Italy. Nora does not tell this secret as it will hurt his self respect. Reality is sourer than what Nora expected. When Krogstag black mails Nora, the secret reveals to Helmer. Instead of defying all the charge of society’s condemnation of her, he accused Nora as the destroyer of his social reputation “you have destroyed my whole happiness, you have ruined my future”. In mental make up Helmer is less liberated than Nora herself, he reveals himself as being a pitiable and egotistic slave of patriarchal society of which he is so conspicuously a defender.
According to Rene Wellek realism also denied romantic characterization and link to realism’s demand for objective reality and to its implicit didactic tendency. Another of realism’s main tenets in the matter of individual’s characterization: a particular is to throw light on general.(3)
Helmer and Nora conjugal life was a façade of happiness and love. Helmer calls Nora “little skylark”, “little squirrel”, “little song bird”. Nora also acts according to the desire of her husband; she pretends to become child wife. Helmer possesses Nora as his doll wife. Helmer’s final behavior counters his romantic outburst “Do you know, Nora, I often wish some danger might threaten you, that I might risk body and soul and everything, everything, for your sake.” Helmer’s selfishness is reflected in his failure to appreciate Nora’s sacrifice. He is thoroughly unsympathetic to Nora, he never understands what Nora has been going through all these years.
Helmer is the representative of rising middle class society of nineteenth century. Helmer has also inherited all the pretensions, fears, prejudices and petty –mindedness of the middle class. Besides, he is a stuffed up hypocrite. He admits to Nora that it is not impossible to ignore Krogstad’s moral failings. But what is unbearable to him is that being a subordinate, he takes the liberty to calling him by his Christian name because of a previous friendship. When Krogstag finally saved Helmer from the disgrace, he cries out sarcastically “I am saved, I am saved”; now Torvald pretends to be a benevolent master over his wife, “Oh my poor Nora I understand you cannot believe that I have forgiven you.”
Mr. Rank rightly considers Nora a “riddle”. Nora was mature and flirtatious to Dr. Rank, who was a foil to Helmer , he only values Nora’s intellectual self. Nora always pretends to be a childish wife for his husband secretly eating macaroons, she is a loving mother for her children, playing hide and seek with them, she loves to have a secret which foreshadows the presence of a secret in their happiness, Nora’s torn Neapolitan foretells upcoming revelation of her secret which will cause the final segregation between Helmer and Nora. Nora’s tarantella dance reflects her isolated anxiety, she was paying back her loan from her pocket money, buying cheapest dress, she never shares her problem to anybody, this was a pride to her. She express to Mrs. Linden “Damn it all”, she wants to ‘free from all anxiety’. There was always a free soul in Nora.She is not a hypocrite she loves Helmer ,did everything for Helmer but her euphoria crack down when she finds out the life-lie around her ,she is a lady of a doll’s house devoid of the reality, the “house has been nothing but a play room”, So Nora cries “during eight whole years and more –ever since the day we first met—we have never exchange one serious word.” Nora took off her masquerade dress. A cruel blow of reality matures Nora. She no longer pretends for anybody, “before all else ,”she “is a human being”, he has Duties towards herself.
Linden shows realistic attitude towards life, she has gone through a childless marriage and a widow, she never loves her husband, and her marriage was motivated by prudence rather than love. Being a penniless widow she has to work hard to support her old deprecate mother and two kid brother.
Krogstag tries to regain his social position which he has lost by a criminal act of forgery; his job in the bank is his only hope. He is a ship wreck man. When Christina’s love consoles his soul, he forgets all villainy, he returns the promissory note to Nora, and thus saved her. There is humanity in him which is totally absent in Helmer.
A Doll’s House has few characters, these characters prototype of the members of the contemporary society.
Ibsen uses Dano Norwegian Language; Dano Norwegian tends to be simpler, using fewer words and adjectives. It will use a few very brief strong images rather than effusive descriptions. Characters use every day vocabulary and colloquial expressions. They interrupts themselves and corrects each other, they speaks in incomplete sentence.
Ibsen organized this play on a variety of principles ranging from epic to the classical, in a Doll’s House he used unity of scene, all the events take place in Helmer’s apartment, he came close to unity of time, and the play covers about sixty hours. There are only five characters .Such concentration contributes to the realism, places emphasis on character psychology, and intensifies the force of drama. Retrospective technique has been used to bring out earlier actions.
Under the mask of liberty this society has all the features of tyranny. Ibsen criticizes this society in A Doll’s House, in the final scene his heroine the New woman defies the society in her final exit away .Nora utters “I must try to discover who is right society or I”. Nora’s situation illustrates the pattern central to Ibsen’s realistic problem dramas: the individual in opposition to a hostile society.
Reference:
(1) Cambridge Companion to Ibsen
(2) Cambridge Companion to Ibsen
(3) Cambridge Companion to Ibsen
