A Doll's House

By: Henrik Ibsen

"A Doll's House" (Et Dukkehjem), the earliest of Ibsen's "social dramas," was the first of his works to compel attention outside of Scandinavia. His reputation at home had gradually grown through a series of romantic and historical plays of less eventual importance, and had been sealed by the immense success of his Brand, which was published in 1866. From that point in his career, his work took mainly the form of political or social satire, for which he found an abundance of themes in the narrow and self-satisfied provincialism of Norwegian town-life. "A Doll's House" was written in 1879, when Ibsen was fifty-one, and published in December of that year. Shortly afterwards it was acted in Copenhagen. It was first seen in London in 1889, and in Paris in 1894; subsequently it has been widely translated, and the part of Nora (its heroine) has been included in the repertory many world-famous actresses. The theme of the play, with its insistence on the woman's right to individual self-development, provoked a storm of discussion, and, in many quarters, an outpouring of violent abuse. The latter was possibly a good deal due to the fact that in this play (as, afterwards, in "Ghosts") Ibsen seems unable to keep away from the topic of disease in its hereditary aspect. In "A Dolls House," however, the topic is by no means essential to the scheme of the play as it is in "Ghosts." The subject of "A Dolls House" - the awakening to the sense of individual responsibility on the part of a woman who has always been treated as a spoilt child - was of itself sufficient matter for any amount of discussion. Whether Nora acted rightly or wrongly, naturally or unnaturally, in leaving husband, home and children in order to develop her own 'individuality'; whether her casting herself adrift was indispensable to her development'- all this was hotly debated. Though it may seem to some that, in his statement of the case, Ibsen thinks too much of a woman's rights and too little of her duties, it must be borne in mind that in all his 'social plays' he contented himself with stating problems as they appeared to him, and did not attempt to answer them. His reply to those who accused him of a merely destructive philosophy was that his task, as he conceived it, was to point out the weaknesses of the social fabric, and to leave constructive philosophy to those who were not dramatists. He diagnosed, and left the cure to others. Moreover, however sound or unsound his theory of Nora's action may seem to us, it must be remembered to his credit that Ibsen, in spite of his enthusiastic advocacy of a woman's right to the development of her own individuality, would never give any countenance to the self-styled "emancipated" woman." He had no patience with those whose idea of self-development seems to consist chiefly in the abandonment of the sphere in which woman is pre-eminent and the invasion of spheres for which she is organically unsuited. Women, he used to maintain, must inevitably in the future have an immense influence in the practical world; but as mothers, and as mothers only.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1490531254
• ISBN13: 9781490531250
• Release Date: June 2013
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 98 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"