A Doll's House By Henrik Ibsen Christina DeLane AP English The theme of this novel has basically been the theme of America since the beginning of time, men making women their homemade puppets. Women are not what or who they are, they are what and who the man wants them to be and they don't even realize it. Women can not do or become what they want, they have to mold themselves into what will fit the man in their life. Women are not human beings to men but mere dolls to be made. Women don't form their own opinions they just believe what the man has installed in them. Ibsen makes the reader fall into the deep ocean of fairy tale life with Torvald and Nora. He makes the reader believe with nonbelief that there life is just unbelieveable. It was just like a doll's house. So perfect in everyway.
Title page in the manuscript of A Doll's House, pl...
English: Vera Komissarzhevskaya as Nora in Ibsen's...
English: Vera Komissarzhevskaya as Nora in Ibsen's...It takes so long to build and when the masterpiece is finally finished one protects it with their life. A finalized doll house is a fragile as a egg in a elephant's mouth, it will only last for a matter of seconds. The doll house that Nora lived in was made by her father and her husband. Nora was a woman who seemed to fit under all of these themes. She loved her husband and father more than anything in the world. She would put them way before herself anyday, which she shows in A Doll's House. By Nora doing that she numbs her feelings, thoughts, beliefs and true heart to the point that she can not even remember how it felt to be herself. Nora first dedicated herself to her father and his opinions. She heard so much of his opinion and spoke so little of her own that they became obselete and she did not even realize it. She thought as her father, the man in her life at the time, not only because his opinions were so strong but because her opinions were so weak. A memory that Nora has of her father is that he had the nerve to call her doll child. A doll is something that is already been decided on how it going to look, sit, and talk. There is a blue print to a doll, not to a child. For a man to think that he can actually make his daughter into something so perfect as a doll is pratically saying that he wants the doll to be just like him. Torvald was worst although the length of her time with him was shorter than the length of time she was with her father. They were married with three kids and he was still calling her pet names. Pet names are sweet when you are dating but as you get older and you get married things tend to get a little more serious. Throughout the entire novel, exempting the end, Torvald and Nora does not have one single conversation without him calling her some pet name. He seemed not to take Nora seriously at all. She was merely a true puppet to him. To him she was perfect in every way not because "she"� was perfect but because of the idea of her was perfect. Torvald did not even know Nora for who she really was. He did not know what she really believed or what her true opinions were because he was to busy calling her pet names. Nora had even forgot what she believed in and her true opinions due to the fact that for so long they had to be her father's and Torvald's. Torvald felt as if he really knew her because everything was made to his taste and she had no chose but to oblige. She was a but a jester to him, someone to amuse him when he was bored but when he became busy he could just send her away. Nora did have everything material wise. If she did not he would give it to her. Nora did not even notice the bad treatment she had received all of her life because of how good they made her feel. Yes, she was treated like a queen, but a queen with no voice. Women have traditionally been known to be nothing more than a housewife. Nora fell into this tradition head first and did not even notice. All of her life she had been accustomed to living the way men wanted her to live, not they way she wanted to live. She had made nothing more of herself then a pretty little puppet doll. Her life with Torvald was a prolonged game of playing house. He really believed that Nora was a wife and mother before anything else, which many men still believe today. He did not care and did not want to care if she was really taking care of herself. As long as he was happy and she seemed happy and the world thought they were happy, then all was good. But one has to take care of theirself before they can take care of anyone else. Nora had truly neglected her inner self for so long that she felt as if she was not good enough to raise her own kids. She had come to realize that she did the same thing to them that her father and husband had done to her. Nora had played a puppet and doll for so long that she no longer knew who she was. She needed to go find herself. There life was just to close to a fairy tale all the way up to the unhappy ending. Nora had committed and devoted herself fully to a man who was not truly in love her but loved the idea of being in love with her. Torvald cared not for Nora, the person, but Nora the skylark. When Nora was revealed by Krogstad as a person with real faults he felt as if he had to reject her, as if he could no longer be with someone who was not perfect in his image. Torvald had not even taken time to see that she was not perfect in every way. Nora did not realize how Torvald really percieved until the second letter. As soon as he received the second letter from Krogstad he felt he was out in the clear so once again he wanted her to be his little baby doll. That is when she stood up and told him that she is woman and she has to go take care of herself. She could no longer tolerate a man telling her how feel, think, and eat. The theme of this novel is a real eye opener for women all over the world who are living in a doll house and don't even know it.
English: Betty Hennings as Nora in Ibsen's "A Doll...
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