A Doll's House Revisited

A Doll's House Revisited* AUSTIN E. QUIGLEY Much has been written about Nora's slamming shut the door at the end of A Doll's House. It seems to summarize in a single action Nora's rejection of her husband, her children, her home, and her social position, along with the society that had taught her how to need such things. As Meyer puts it: "the terrible offstage slamming of that front door which brings down the curtain resounded through more apartments than Torvald Helmer's. No play had ever before contributed so momentously to the social debate, or been so widely and furiously discussed among people who were not normally interested in theatrical or even artistic matters."1 Lucas, in the same vein, remarks that "that door slammed by Nora shook Europe."2 And contemporary discussion of Nora's dramatic exit was so extensive and so heated that stories circulated about "certain Scandinavian families [who] even went so far as to add to their cards of invitation to evening parties the request: 'Please do not discuss the Doll's House. "'3 But discussion of the play continues now as it continued then, with that slammed door operating as the persistent catalyst for repeated debates between Nora's defenders and detractors. The play itself, however, seems in retrospect to have been more successful at achieving notoriety than at earning admiration, and its strengths and weaknesses have become, in their own ways, as controversial as Nora's. Like many of Ibsen's major plays, A Doll's House offers a puzzling mixture of the conventional and the original, and it has proved tempting to base critical judgement on either one or the other or upon the seeming incompatibility of * This article is adapted from a chapter in my forthcoming bookThe Modern Stage and Other Worlds, to be published by Methuen, London and New York, 1985. In the book I explore a variety of contexts for modem drama and seek to establish the principles that provide coherence to an otherwise diversified field. A Doll's House Revisited both. On the one hand, the play certainly relies, in large part, upon a conventional, well-made plot, and it makes extensive use of conventional character types. On the other, Shaw has praised the play for the originality ofits concluding scene, and Northam has made everyone aware ofIbsen's ambitious use of verbal and visual images. The potential difficulty of welding together these conventional and original elements has, in tum, been suggested by Gilman with his general comment that, in many of Ibsen's plays, "their plots keep crowding out their perceptions."4 But it is important not to overlook the fact that a potential problem with the structure ofthe play seems to recapitulate a major problem with the behaviour of Nora - both involve a strange juxtaposition of the conventional and the unconventional, both seem to rely heavily upon worlds they also apparently invite us to reject. In this light, it is less surprising to note that, in many discussions ofthe play, criticism tends initially to focus upon Nora and the significance of her actions, but then to be led inexorably by questions raised there to very basic questions about the kind of play this is. Such questions have proved remarkably difficult to answer, but until they are properly answered, the complex and controversial issues raised by Nora's behaviour seem likely to continue to generate more heat than light. A glance at the relevant structural issues is thus a necessary point of departure, and we might begin by noting Northam's puzzlement over whether the play is best regarded as a comedy, problem play, or tragedy.5 Shaw, however, rejects all such inherited classifications in favour of a new one: the discussion play, which revises the conventional well-made plot structure ofExposition , Complication, Crisis, and Resolution into ·one of Exposition, Complication, Crisis, and Discussion.6 .Williams, in tum, rebuts Shaw's argument by pointing out that the final conversation between Nora and Torvald is more of a confrontation than a negotiation, more of a declaration ofopposing principles than a discussion of reconcilable attitudes. This clash between representatives of entrenched positions confirms, he believes...