A Doll's House

On Saturday I picked up a copy of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House from the back of the English A classroom. Elaine's English B class will read it next year. 

I have never read Ibsen before, which I'm ashamed to admit considering that I taught a unit specifically on drama in the fall to the twelfth grade, and in almost every piece of commentary and analysis I read on our plays (which included works by Lorraine Hansberry, Arthur Miller and George Bernard Shaw) mentioned Ibsen's massive influence on all those who wrote plays after he did. 

This morning I woke up at four and, unable to drift off again, read the play on my sofa. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm particularly intrigued by what Ibsen meant when Nora was expecting "the miracle" to happen when she revealed to her husband that she had hidden from his a significant scheme which might now ruin his reputation.  In the final act, Nora takes off her fancy, performing dress and, in plain clothes, speaks the plain truth, which she herself has only just realised:

Nora: It gives me great pain, Torvald, for you have always been so kind to me, but I cannot help it. I do not love you any more.

Helmer(regaining his composure). Is that a clear and certain conviction too?

Nora. Yes, absolutely clear and certain. That is the reason why I will not stay here any longer.

Helmer. And can you tell me what I have done to forfeit your love?

Nora. Yes, indeed I can. It was to-night, when the wonderful thing did not happen; then I saw you were not the man I had thought you.

Helmer. Explain yourself better — I don’t understand you.

Nora. I have waited so patiently for eight years; for, goodness knows, I knew very well that wonderful things don’t happen every day. Then this horrible misfortune came upon me; and then I felt quite certain that the wonderful thing was going to happen at last. When Krogstad’s letter was lying out there, never for a moment did I imagine that you would consent to accept this man’s conditions. I was so absolutely certain that you would say to him: Publish the thing to the whole world. And when that was done —

Helmer. Yes, what then? — when I had exposed my wife to shame and disgrace?

Nora. When that was done, I was so absolutely certain, you would come forward and take everything upon yourself, and say: I am the guilty one.

Helmer. Nora —!

In the translation I read, "wonderful thing" is "miracle". Nora observes that "the miracle never happened". It seems to me that she's referring to the moment when a partner's love is tested, when the partner's name and reputation are put on the line, and he has to put the relationship, put his wife, ahead of himself. And here he doesn't. In some ways this must be the most devastating thing a wife can experience. He's "not the man" she thought he was. He's not in love with her. But at the same time it's the most liberating and empowering piece of information she's ever come by: he doesn't love me. All play long she's been dancing to maintain his interest, playing, frolicking, the way he likes. Yes, he likes, but he doesn't love. And now she knows it, and it's enough to allow her to recognise her own lack of love, and her own readiness to leave the marriage. 

When Monica was here, a twelfth grader in English B approached her in the library one day and said "Do you think Nora should have left?" The girl was ambivalent. She agreed that a woman should be able to live the way she wants, but she could not reconcile a mother's decision to leave her children and husband. 

Nora says, "I have other obligations, just as sacred" as those to her husband and children. 

"To myself."

Review of a recent production of A Doll's House in The New Yorker. 

Here's the 1973 film adaptation.