A Doll's House

A Doll's House has proven to be a remarkably relevant play, no matter when it's read or performed. The messages espoused in the play--about marriage, women, and human rights--may not be subtle, but they are conveyed in a way that modern audiences seem to appreciate. Our growing sympathy for Nora is always accompanied by an awareness of some injustice in our own life or society.

Class Handouts for the Play:

Background: Ibsen and his Plays
Background: Ibsen and Feminism
Background: Ibsen's Life
Background: About the Play
A list of things to think about in Act One.
A list of things to think about in Act Two.
Some questions about the play overall.
Reviews of modern productions of A Doll's House: an experimental version by Mabou Mines at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; one from the Young Vic in London.
Ibsen's speech to the Norwegian League for Women's Rights.
The alternate ending to A Doll's House Ibsen wrote for a German production of the play.
A chart to organize your thoughts about death-related symbols in the play.

Internet Resources:

A translation of the play (the same as the one we're using in class!) can be found online here, at ProjectGutenberg.org, in a variety of formats.
Iowa State University has put together a text search engine and a concordance of words in the play.
If you must read a summary or online notes, try the one at Shmoop, where the insights are deeper and at least there is a sense of humor.
Some thoughts on all the characters--including minor ones--from professor William L. Urban.
Before or after you read the play, view this trailer of a New York stage production and ask yourself, "Is Ibsen's play this...sexual?"

On the Context of the Play:

The National Library of Norway has assembled some really good resources about Ibsen and his life and plays (click on English!). In particular, their Doll's House resources include some photos of the original 1880 production, and early newspaper reviews--some positive, some negative.
I had never heard of Jiffy Notes before, but their short entry on the context of A Doll's House is a concise place to start your thinking.
"Why is this play about a Norwegian housewife so enduringly popular?" asks an article called "Why A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen is more relevant than ever".
Remember, you can always go to the Sturgis library's own list of databases (in this case, one useful resource might be Questia School, which has a rich collection of literary journal articles and reference books to search through; your username and password are available from your friendly librarian).
For a short biography of Ibsen, try the one at the Theatre Database, or the one at Great Norwegians.
The revolutionary and activist Emma Goldman had some thoughts on Nora and her marriage, writing in 1914.
Ian Johnston's lecture "On Ibsen's A Doll's House" has some personal thoughts on the play's context, from a teacher at Vancouver Island University in Canada.
This introductory PowerPoint on A Doll's House may spark some ideas for your background discussion.
A recent New York Times article wonders if, in a modern age when half of marriages end in divorce, instead of saying "'til death do us part," couples might instead enter into a marriage contract good for, say, 20 years. "The rough idea: two people, two decades, enough time to have and raise children if that's your thing; a new status quo, a ceremony with a shelf life, till awhile do us part." It might be a discussion point, contrasted with older, 19th-Century views of marriage.
Perhaps the strangest site on the internet dedicated to Ibsen and his plays is "Explore Ibsen: A Virtual Walk in the Spirit of Ibsen," in which (after Ibsen dies in the first part of the site) you walk from place to place following Ibsen's spirit, in a weird mix of past and present Christiania/Oslo, "from his residence in Arbingsgate to his favourite cafe in Grand Hotel." Along the way, bits of letters, newspapers, and signs (sometimes only in Norwegian as far as I can tell, unless there's a way to get a translation on the screen that I couldn't find) are presented, along with actors performing dialogue from the plays. Use your headphones; the sound is a big part of the site.
Why, after so many years, is Ibsen still performed so often on stage? That's a question Lyn Gardner asks, and attempts to answer, in her blog for The Guardian newspaper, "Henrik Ibsen: The Demon Inside the Doll's House".
"Blaming Nora" is an interesting personal response to the play and the character by the novelist A.S. Byatt.

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