A Doll’s House: Criticizing Through Exaggeration

*My apologies for my late post, my internet was not functioning for some time last night.

The theme of Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House is simple and has been used many times in literature: to criticize the accepted customs of a time by depicting an exaggerated version of them. Ibsen makes his statement by criticizing the customs of relationship between husband and wife in nineteenth century Norway. And yes, it is exaggerated. Were most wives treated like pets or toys by their husbands? Most likely not. However, through his use of exaggeration, Ibsen is able to convey this sense of inequality between spouses, subordination of wives, and comical misunderstandings of marriage in a mere couple hours, that many women lived through for many years.

In Ibsen’s play, Helmer literally treats Nora like “a doll.” While I seriously doubt most nineteenth century husbands treated their wives like dolls, women of the time had practically no say in marriage or family matters beyond accepting or declining a proposal, and even many proposals were accepted for the wrong reasons (such as money, aristocracy, etc.) as depicted in Ibsen’s work and many others of the time.

Of course this large, general, central theme of the play is supported by less developed surrounding themes, including women’s rights, the morality of lying and forgery, and conflicting ideas of why and when a woman should marry. However it is very interesting to consider the play’s overall theme with relation to its author. We can gain a sense of Ibsen’s character by considering the fact that he, a man in the nineteenth century, for whom society’s customs benefited, wrote a play criticizing said customs. Therefore we come to understand that Ibsen was a very forward thinking individual. We also come to understand that said customs of inequality in marriage must have been great for a man of the time to find them substantial enough to write a play criticizing them. (307)