Feedback on exam question over Nora in Ibsen's A Doll House

In terms of the classification scheme within which the question is framed, the plot of the play qualifies as an instance of what is there labeled as "Progress":  "the character rises to insight, and/or achieves the requisite courage, self-mastery."

To develop this thesis fully, you would want to explain not only how Nora counts as a dynamic character but how it is that the play communicates that we are to take her change as ennobling rather than corrupting or deluded.

To take the latter here first:  note that it is conceivable that a change like Nora’s could be regarded as a kind of madness, on the grounds that this sort of autonomy is not appropriate for women, whom God has fashioned to be wives and mothers, dependent on their husbands, whose weaknesses they should strive to mend, and whom they should not just abandon to their personal failings.  As you might guess, this is the way lots of people in Ibsen’s original audience saw the matter. How do we know that the play, though, is designed to prompt us to see Nora’s change as positive, as a heroic elevation?  That is: those who were outraged by the play were correct in their interpretation of it.  But how do we and they know this?  You ought to have something to say on this point. Otherwise you end up begging the question, by just declaring that her change is ennobling. (Begging the question is taking for granted what requires to be demonstrated. To put it another way: it’s asking to be given [hence "begging"] what ought to be earned.)

One possibility might be to draw out the implications (for Nora’s change) of what’s exposed about Torvald in his reactions to the two letters, namely, that he is not the sort of person who could qualify as an authority on whose rational and moral judgments a dependent could soundly rely.  This is an important justifying factor in Nora’s decision that she needs to develop her own resources of intellect and character in order to be able to rely on her own rational and moral judgments.  Here are a number of different ways in which you might do this.  Keep in mind that, although the play deploys all of these, in a an examination setting of the sort that the prep sheet put you on notice to expect, one of these would suffice.  The idea is that you should have something specific to say about some particular way in which Torvald reveals himself to be irrational, selfish, unfair, or cowardly. 

As to Nora’s changes (the first question you have to address), the main one to focus on is her change from someone who is fearful and dependent on her husband, hoping that he will act heroically and take poor little erring her off the hook by taking the responsibility for her forgery upon himself, to a person who sees that she is indeed unworthy of raising her children — though not for the reasons that Torvald upbraided her with — and who sets out to consolidate the traits of personal autonomy that would be necessary for self-respect.  In discussing this, it is indispensible to discuss the role in her change of the successive scenes in which Torvald first applies a double standard in running down her moral character as a genetic defect inherited from her irresponsible father and then immediately proposes to forget everything as soon as he realizes that he is off the hook with Krogstad. 

An enhancement would be to discuss the earlier change from a self-confident savior of her husband to a miserable manipulative weakling, hoping to be saved by a miraculous act of grace on the part of her man. 

• If you discuss the very first "change" the play confronts us with — from a spoiled little spendthrift to a responsible intervenor on behalf of her husband’s health, and a person who struggles hard, and with pride, to pay off the debt by careful management of the household finances — you want to make clear that this is a matter of what we discover about how she has actually been, not a case of a change in her nature.  That is, it’s a matter of our getting a new perspective on a [so far] static character, not a respect in which she counts as a dynamic character. 

• You also want to make sure that, in introducing this earlier change into your discussion, you don't end up getting distracted into losing your way in dealing with the change that, given the topic, has to be the focus of your most intense energies -- the genuine change that Nora undergoes in the course of Act III.

  Suggestions, comments and questions are welcome.  Please send them to lyman@ksu.edu .

      Contents copyright © 2000 by Lyman A. Baker. 

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      This page last updated 17 April 2000

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