Given Circumstances for Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll's House.
1. Who are the Central Characters?
Nora Helmer: Nora is the protagonist of the play. She is Torvold’s wife and a mother of three. She is very upbeat, but she is also naïve and sometimes flaky.
Nils Krogstad: He claims to sympathize with Nora, but he blackmails her. He uses unethical methods in order to achieve his goals.
Dr. Rank: Torvald’s best friend. He is basically the only character in the play who doesn’t seem to care about what others think of him.
2. Define the relationship between the characters.
Nora and Torvald Helmer are married. Nora is a very committed and loving wife and mother. Torvald does seem to love Nora, but he condescends and patronizes Nora; he treasts her like a child.
Mrs. Linde and Nora were best friends as children and now they seem to treat each other like sisters. They sort of act like each other’s support system with the decisions that the made in the past.
Dr. Rank and Nora are friends (but seem to feel more than that for each other). Dr. Rank sincerely loves Nora and treats her as an equal –unlike her husband.
Nils Krogstad is a Banker who knows what Nora has done. He blackmails her by threatening to tell her husband, Torvald, what she has done.
3. What is the back-story of the characters?
In the past, Torvald was very sick. His doctor suggested that he take a trip in order to recover his health. At this time, Torvald and Nora were fairly poor and could not pay for the trip. Nora told Torvald that her father would help them pay for their trip to Italy. She really illegally borrows money to pay for it by forging her father’s signature on the loan papers. Nils Krogstad finds this out and threatens to tell Torvald about it. Krogstad works for Torvald and it is likely that he will soon be fired. Nora must use her influence over Torvald to sway his decision.
4. Where does the action of the story take place?
Place: They are in Norway. Much of the play takes place in the Helmer’s living room.
Time: It takes place around the late 1800s.
Season: It is winter, around Christmas time.
The setting is really important to the play since most of the play occurs in the Helmer’s home. This is important because of Nora’s leaving Torvald, her family and their home in the end. It’s important that this takes place during the Christmas season because that just adds stress to the fact that Nora has no money to pay her debts. Nora leads Torvald to believe that their money is being used for the gifts she buys when she actually buys cheaper gifts and saves the money to pay the loan.
5. What is the inciting event?
Nora took out a loan (with her father’s forged signature) behind her husband’s back and she is now afraid that he will find out about it. Krogstad, a banker working for her husbands, knows that she did this and blackmails her for it. I’d say that the inciting event is when Krogstad enters her home and blackmails her into trying to influence her husband into not firing him.
6. What are the rules of this world?
The play is set in the 19th century. During this time it is expected that the wife stays home, takes care of the children and obeys her husband. It seems normal for a husband and wife to not be in love and for them, but for the wife to be almost a possession of the husband’s for him to take care of. Women were to not work and not make important decisions or have opinions on politics or their husbands’ work.
7. What is the central conflict in this story?
The conflict is that Nora forged her father’s signature in order to receive a loan to pay for a trip to Italy that her husband needed for his health. She does this because he would not accept her help –he believed that he was to take care of her, and not the other way around. An employee of her husband’s –Nils Krogstad- knows that she does this and threatens to tell her husband, Torvald. Torvald later finds out that this has been happening behind his back. Even beyond that, Nora is in conflict with herself. She realizes that she is not completely happy with her life. She does not want to be treated as her husband’s pet –she wants more out of life. She also does not want to keep up with the façade of keeping her home and her family to be that of a doll’s house. She knows, however, that to remove herself from that environment would be to remove herself from her family and the security that they provide
8. What changes at the end? What is the dramatic transformation?
Nora knows that Torvald does not love her, but loves the idea of her –and she feels the same way. She realizes that she can’t live the way that she has been. She knows that she would not be able to handle living that fake, dollhouse sort of life. She needs freedom and independence, something that she cannot have at home. She sacrifices her family life (and the security that comes with it) for that freedom. At the very end, she walks out the door as Torvald watches.
9. What is the genre (or sub genre) of the story?
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