A Dolls House - Henrik Ibsen - Episode 2 - Is It Or Is It Not A Feminist Play? - a podcast by Christy and Garry Shriver

A Dolls House - Henrik Ibsen - Episode 2 - Is It Or Is It Not A Feminist Play?

 

Hi, I’m Christy Shriver and we’re here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us. 

 

I’m Garry Shriver and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast.  This is episode two in our three part series over Ibsen’s explosive play A Doll’s House.  Last week, we looked briefly at the life of Ibsen, his early origins in Norway, the beginning of his career all the way to this play- the one that launched him into stratosphere of Theater greats- It still amazes me that his plays are only outperformed by those of William Shakespeare.  Crazy!!!  We also looked at the very very beginning of this play- we entered the doll house by meeting Nora as she came back from a shopping trip.  We talked about her unique role in this play- she is the entire focus of the play- Nora IS the doll- but we also began to expand the metaphor a little bit because we are also introducing the idea that Nora is not the only person playing a part- maybe she isn’t the only doll in the house. 

 

No, I don’t think she is- although she’s the most interesting and the focus, no doubt.   This play is fascinating because there are so many subtle details that leave subtext about so many psychological and sociological ideas- this is, to a greater or lesser degree- a play about someone we all know- if not about ourselves.  To what degree do we all play parts and to what degree do we want to?  Do we use people?  Are we used being?   Are we in a relationship where both parties are using each other? What are the moral implications of this?  Does an arrangement like this bring happiness? What are the inevitable consequences- and are these consequences  different for men and women because of the different roles we absolutely can’t escape either sociologically or biologically on planet earth?  And it is that last question that we will start discussing today.  Because, if you google this play at all, the unanswered question that has plagued this play- to the chagrin of Ibsen himself for over 100 years is this- IS or is this NOT a feminist play?  Is Ibsen advocating for women’s rights?   

 

HA!! It’s really amazing that so many books that have staying power over the centuries end up landing on gender politics?  From Antigone to Wuthering Heights to The Scarlet Letter and the Great Gatsby- gender politics is absolutely inescapable at one level or another. 

 

Well, it absolutely IS- and speaking of gender politics in the 20s, Hermann Weigand a notable literary critic of that time period once said about having watched the doll’s house that “he was, like all men, momentarily shaken by the play.  He said this, “Having had the misfortune to be born of the male sex, we slink away in shame, vowing to mend our ways.” 

 

Ha!  That’s funny.  I get the feeling since I’ve also had that very same misfortune that I’m supposed to feel that way after watching a lot of things.   

 

Indeed, and, that of course IS the goal of most things women write (I’m kidding- I’m not trying to insult anybody, just having a bit of fun), but having said that, Henrik Ibsen absolutely ran from this “feminist” label.  So much so that in May 1898, he gave a speech at a banquet held in his honour by the Norwegian Women’s rights league and this is what he said at the speech. 

 

“I am not a member of the Women’s Rights League.  Whatever I have written has been without any conscious thought of making propaganda.  I have been more the poet and less the social philosopher than people generally seem included to believe.  I thank you for the toast, but must disclaim the honor of having consciously worked for the Women’s Right’s Movement. I am not even quite clear as to just what this Women’s Rights Movement really is.  To me, it has seemed a problem of mankind in general. And if you read my books carefully you will understand this. True enough, it is desirable to solve the woman problem, along with all the others; but that has not been the world purpose. My task has been the description of humanity.  To be sure, whenever such a description is felt to be reasonably true, the reader will read his own feelings and sentiments into the work of the poet.  These are then attributed to the poet; but incorrectly so.  Every reader remolds the work beautifully and neatly, each according to his own personality.  Not only those who write but also those who read are poets. They are collaborators. They are often more poetical than the poet himself. With these reservations, let me thank you for the toast you have given me. I do indeed recognize that women have an important task to perform in the particular directions; this club is working along. I will express my thanks by proposing a toast to the League for Women’s Rights, wishing it progress and success. The task always before my mind has been to advance our country and to give our people a higher standard. To achieve this, two factors are important. It is for the mothers, by strenuous and sustained labor, to awaken a conscious feeling of culture and discipline. This feeling must be awakened before it will be possible to lift the people to a higher plane. It is the women who shall solve the human problem. As mothers, they shall solve it. And, only is that capacity can they solve it? Here lies a great task for women. My thanks! And, success to the League for Women’s Rights [6].  

Well, Christy, what should we say about that.   That seems pretty clear. He is obviously distancing himself from Women’s Rights- are we not to take him at his word? 

I know, and it seems a bit ironic coming from me because I am always insisting that we take people at their word- but in this case, I’m sorry- I have to say- bull malarky- Henrik Ibsen- you are full of it- like it or not- you, darling are a feminist- I don’t care what you say!!!  This man was absolutely a feminist- and why would you even accept an honor from a women’s rights organization if you weren’t?  What a crazy thing to say while accepting an award- now having said that-  I do take him at his word- in the literally since.  Meaning if you listen to his words and what they actually mean, what he says here is actually literally true.  I do think he doesn’t want to be writing propaganda for the women’s rights movement.  Propaganda in and of itself is the opposite of art.  It’s not even honest, by most definitions.  Ibsen wasn’t trying to do that.  Also, there is no doubt that   he is interested in humanity.  But none of those things are mutually exclusive.  He’s also interested in how sexual politics defines our humanity.  

Well, as I said before- nothing is more interesting on planet earth than humans and there is no doubt how men and women relate is a “problem” to use his language that we cant really solve..   

 Well, there’s no doubt.  But Ibsen because of his interesting friend group in the theater, had a different perspective on gender politics  than most men living traditional Scandanavian lives at the turn of the century.  The women in Ibsen’s world were extremely strong women.  They were building careers in the theater; involved in creative endeavors, highly educated.  We know this from reading his biography, but we also know that by reading his work.  Ibsen creates stories where the women outshine their male counterparts over and over and over again.   He was almost drawn to stories where women were grappling with patriarchial societies and the imbalances of power within them.   

The women who filled Ibsen’s world really are a fascinating subgroup.   

Well, that’s a whole tangent, and don’t think I’m not tempted to go down it, not all of those stories, though, reflect super-well on Ibsen.  As far as his relationship with his wife, Suzanna goes, their son weighed in on that relationship later on his life and basically credited his mother for Ibsen’s entire career.  Apparently there were many times when he wanted to give up- he didn’t have the stamina for it in the early days- and it seems to me that even his personality was much weaker than hers.  Sigurd said this, “The world can thank my mother that it has one bad painter the fewer and got a great writer instead.”   

 

Suzannah was for sure a strong influence obviously, but beyond his wife, Aasta Hansteen, was a very famous and outspoken advocate for women’s rights in Norway at that time, and I know she was a good friend of Ibsen.  I may want to circle back to some of the history of women’s rights next week after we get to the conclusion of the play because it is certainly something to think about in the context of the play’s ending.  But  there is no downplaying the realities that being a single or divorced woman in Scandanavia or really anywhere in the Western World was not the easiest path to take in life at that time. 

 

No doubt, And I think how this affected women’s psychology really fascinated Ibsen on an personal level as well as a professional level.  On a different occasion when talking about laws, Ibsen can be quoted as saying this, A woman cannot be herself in contemporary society; it is an exclusively male society with laws drafted by men, and with counsels and judges who judge feminine conduct from the male point of view” , and then my favorite Ibsen political quote was when they asked him about property rights for married women.  He said that men should not even be consulted in drafting this law because and I quote, “to consult men in such a matter is like asking wolves if they desire better protection of the sheep” [7].  

 

Okay, so back to the question of whether ibsen was a feminist, I think there is enough indicting evidence to suggest that Ibsen was involved at least in sympathy with the imbalance of power in a patriarchial society.  However, I would like to point out that women are not without power in every generation. 

 

And I think that’s a very nice way to say that, he did see the disadvantages of a society where distribution of power was so unevenly distributed between the sexes, but having said that, I think Ibsen , at least in this plays, does not see women as necessarily powerless even in this unequal society- and it is this dynamic that he highlights.  I’m not even sure, Ibsen would suggest that if society was unequally balanced and the balance of power favored women, women would be less tyrrancial then men- but that’s a different question altogether- a play yet to be written, I think.   

 

Where I want us to land, as we open our discussion of the play today, is to take a position on this issue before we even read the play.  I want to come down on the side that sees this play as a feminist play.  

 

I agree.   I absolutely don’t think we can escape that. 

 

Having said that, writing a play where the theme is men are bad is not interesting.  It’s been done over and over and over again.  In fact, I’ve ready high school creative magazines filled with poems that pound that theme to death.  No play will stick around in popularity for over 100 years if that’s all it has.  There has to be more. 

 

This play is focusing on women-but in particular- one woman- and it’s looking at several things as we look at this one women- one of them is how this imbalance of power between sexes affects a marriage and a homelife in general. But there are other things as well. 

 

 A Doll’s House is a such a personal play in some sense.  As Thorton Wilder tells us in Our Town, most people choose to go through life with another person.  So, this is about how some people live that life- a way that’s slightly cynical maybe.  This play pulls back the curtain on this couple and their love affair.  Two people who think they are in love.  But we are left to question this reality- what is the basis of this love?  What is the basis of this marriage?  Their lives are great.  They have had lots of fun.  They’ve traveled.  They have children.  He has a good job.  She spends her days shopping.  But Ibsen is asking- okay- so now- what is the basis of the relationship between these two people- what is it really?  Could it be something besides a devoted commitment to walk through life together?  Could it be something like societal expectations, competitive relationships with people outside the home, personal narcissism or simply the objectification of another person?    

 

Ibsen exposes a marital reality that way too many people see in their own lives and relationships and wish they didn’t.  He asks questions that many people ask years into a marriage after they’ve tried one way of living and are now questioning the wisdom of those choices?      

 

So, Christy, are we ready to open up this text and walk through the rest of Act 1-2? 

 

I think so, last week, we read a little bit of this dialogue between Torvald and Nora.  It’s so awful. He’s so condescending.  He calls her by animal names and not even cool animal names like Flying Phoenix or Cunning Fox- he goes with little squirrel.  

 

For the record, Christy hates Torvald’s names, if you can’t tell.  And just so you know, I have not been able to resist the temptation to call Christy my little skylark and my little squirrel for the last two days- and every time I do it, if I’m within strking distance I pat her on the top of her head.  I may as well tell you, I’ve been enjoying it, but I’m not sure that she appreciates it in the spirit that is intended. 

 

The pat on the head is particularly awful.   It highlights my height impairment.  Since this is a podcast, you don’t know this about me, but I’m a full 11 inches shorter than Garry- so patting me on the head is particularly awful. 

 

It’s awesome.  And it’s not just the animal terms- although I find those hilarious.  Using the dimunuitive by adding the word “little” all the time and then the possessive adjective “my” multiples the level of condescension.  I can feel it as I say it and as I pat you on the head, my little squirrel. 

 

Good Lord.  

 

 Ibsen leaves absolutely zero room for doubt that Torvald views Nora as his possession- his prized and most expensive possession, and even one that he loves dearly- but clearly a possession.   That is premise number one in Ibsen’s argument. 

 

Having set that up, though, he switches gears and immediately proceeds to paint Nora very unglamorously.  She condescends to Mrs. Linde almost as much as Torvald does to her, albeit it’s way more passive aggressive.    Some people really think Mrs. Linde is supposed to represent some sort of a feminine ideal, but I don’t know about that.  In fact, I know I don’t think she is.  She is most certainly at this point in her life an independent working woman.  She is more authentic and self-aware than Nora.  She’s been exposed to life and has not had the insulation money buys.  She’s suffered and had to figure things out for herself.  She wasn’t raised with money and as a woman in a patriarchal society, has incredible challenges in getting some.  When she arrives to talk to Nora we find out these two haven’t seen each other for years.  Nora has made good because she landed a good. Husband.  Kristine married well too, but her sugar daddy died and left her broke.  Nora knows this about Kristine, so she does what so many girls do when confronted with an old girlfriend who’s fallen on bad times- she hijacks the conversation and brags on herself- making sure in the most sympathetic of ways, that the other person knows, she’s done quite well for herself.   

 

Oh my, girls would never do that to each other. 

 

Ha!  And I can hear the irony in your voice as you say that.  Garry, btw, has worked in a girls school for the last five years, so he’s seen this play out more than once.  That’s the entire game we play. 

 

I’m a smart enough man not to comment here, but let’s read the passage.   

 

Read page 1814  

 

I know a man who’s wife did something similar to what Nora is doing here, and let me say, this woman at the time was in her 50s.  She had invited a friend to stay with her because her friend’s husband had left her and she was entitled to no alimony.  The woman had no real career but had lived a pretty nice lifestyle now she had nothing- and was falling from a comfortable life to a dubious one.  Well, the woman I know invited her to stay in Memphis in order to “console” her, but two days before she came, she bought all new outfits complete with brand new jewelry- for each day of her friend’s visit. She also bought fancy food they usually didn’t eat and prepared elegant desserts.  She pulled out fancy china and for the duration of the visit used them pretending that was the normal course of daily life.  I remember the event because it seemed particularly cruel to subtextually brag on how great your life was in comparison- but it was done so nicely.  

 

Oh yes, female aggression can be so subtle- and we all feel it even if it’s nice- we just know we’re uncomfortable.  It’s very different than how men treat each other or even treat women.  And I guess that’s what we see here because Kristine fights back- also subtextually, of course, She mocks Nora for being so naïve and having lived a sheltered life.  She turns all that bragging about being pampered, and changes it to an accusation of being sheltered and basically stupid.   And so, not to be out done and to prove to Kristine that she’s as sophisticated as Kristine, Nora brags about her little financial tryst and we learn about this debt she has incurrred- and it’s a  big debt- Nora has recklessly taken  enormous debt to fund an entire trip to Italy for a solid year and she did this with absolutely NO ability or plan as to how she would ever repay it. In some ways it seems it didn’t even occur to her at the time she did it, that that was a thing that would eventually have to be done.  That’s the side of Nora that is unattractive and makes me not feel bad for her being called a little squirrel. 

 

Well, that’s true, but in another very real way, you have to feel a little sympathy for Nora.  The text never questions her motives.  She did it for love.  She did it to save her husband, and although nobody knows about it, she has pride for having saved her husband’s life.  He is her provider and the provider of her children, and he was unable to provide, so she managed it- and she did it all without wounding his pride- something she KNEW would kill him.  There is nobility in that.  She’s been carrying around a huge secret burden for a decade- working secretly and all of this knowing it was the only way at her disposal to save her husband’s life.  Ten years is a long time, and if you take her at her word which we have to do- and compare her to Kristine- she has something to be proud of, she saved Torvald’s life.  She did what she had to do to keep from becoming Kristine- or even worse because she has three children to provide for.  Kristine does not. 

 

Of course, I can concede that.  You know, I was going to mention, Ibsen got the plot for this story from a real person.  Ibsen had a protégé by the name of Laura Petersen Kieler.  She was a Norwegian journalist and he was extremely fond of her. 

 

Another one of his strong female friends? 

 

Exactly, anyway, she was married to a man who was extremely paranoid about debt.  Laura, as his wife, did what Nora did, and secretly borrowed money to finance an Italian vacation for him to recover from tuberculosis.  She worked frantically to repay the loan, exhausted herself, turned in hackwork, but still couldn’t pay back the debt so she forged a check.  Her husband found out, used her crime as grounds to divorce her, claimed she was a unfit mother and had her committed to an insane asylum.   

 

That’s terrible. 

 

Well, it is and it really upset Ibsen.  He told Suzannah about it as well as several friends.  One friend wrote him back and said this about the entire thing, “She has committed a forgery, and is proud of it; for she has done it out of love for her husband, to save his life.  But this husband of hers takes his standpoint, conventionally honorable, on the side of the law, and sees the situation with male eyes.” 

 

And so we see the inspiration for this play- the legal part anyway.  Torvald is not like that guy in the sense that that particular man in real life was obviously mean.  I don’t see meanness in Torvald, but Ibsen is making a much larger point that would have been lost had Torvald been obviously cruel and abusive.  This play is not about cruelties and abuses.  It’s about using people, even if it appears to be consensual.  It’s about the lack of intellectual and emotional intimacy in a marriage. 

 

And that brings me back to Nora because, she IS the deal And although the bigger point of this play is the marital relationship- as a way of understanding this complex thing which is the marital relationship between a man and a woman from the vantage point of a woman, Ibsen surrounds Nora with other relationships.  The Nora of Act 1 projects perfection.  She has a wonderful husband who adores her, three beautiful children and a nanny to take care of them.  The only thing that is keeping her from total perfection is money- enter Dr. Rank.   

 

Oh yes, the rich old man dying of congenital syphilis without any dependents who comes over every day, oh and by the way- who is in love with Nora.   

 

Nora’s relationship with Dr. Rank is another one of those things that we’ve all seen play out in real life and makes us uncomfortable.  Here it doesn’t make Nora look very good either.  Nora is keenly aware that her physical appearance is sexually alluring to Dr. Rank.  They have never acknowledged this with words, but the sexually charged subtext of their relationship allows her to be seductive and he to be seduced without anything physical ever really happening.  It’s an obvious and open game.  In Act 2, she hits him lightly over the ear with her stocking that she’s been dangling before him with the pretext of displaying part of the costume she will wear at the dance.   

 

It is an open game so much so that  Mrs. Linde, when she finds out about Nora’s debt, erroneously assumes that Dr. Rank was Nora’s lender.  It’s the obvious assumption.  And all that playful secret keeping between Nora and Dr. Rank in front of Mrs. Linde just enhances this idea of fake intimacy between the two, she even cusses in front of Dr. Rank- something she doesn’t haven’t permission to do with her husband.  Dr. Rank encourages her to say the D word just as she’s hiding more macaroons from Torvald.  Torvald prohibits cussing and macaroons in his little skylark.    

 

Ugh- There is so much awful there.   Ibsen cleverly imbeds the idea that there is a possibility Rank will leave his fortune to Nora.  I know we’re jumping ahead but in Act 2 when they chat in the darkening living room, and she reveals her flesh-colored stockings, Dr. Rank expresses a desire to leave for Nora, to use his words, “some poor show of gratitude” as a guarantee he will be remembered fondly… 

 

Yes, and since were jumping to Act 2 and that discussion between Nora and Dr. Rank, Nora demonstrates nobility when she shuts down the game between them.  She let the opportunity slip by to get the money from Dr. Rank- although I do think she considers it.  In fact, she considers it all the way until he says out loud what they both had known to be true about his feelings for her.  He would have given her whatever she wanted for just a little sexual cajolery.  Nora rejects him and tells the maid to turn up the light.  She is not going to add what would feel like prostitution to her list of indiscretions.  In other words, she’s creating her own sense of moral boundaries and rejects the easy way out. 

 

So, let’s drop back a little back to Act 1 and introduce the man who is bringing all these ambiguous moral choices to the surface- Krogstad.  This is the man who has been fired by Torvald, who has lent Nora money, who has blackmailed Nora to convince her husband to give him his job and AND who, as we have found out, was the man in love with Kristine back in the day and who she dumped for the rich guy who she married and who is now dead.   

 

Krogstad, according to Dr. Rank is “rotten to the core”, and Rank doesn’t even know about his blackmailing of Nora or any of that other stuff.  The general understanding of Krogstad is that he is a man with criminal record for having committed forgery.  Torvald wants him gone from the bank because he doesn’t feel Krogstad has publically paid for his indiscretion PLUS and this is the worst part as far as Torvald is concerned- Krogstad was a childhood friend and this association is embarrassing.  

 

Let’s read the part where Torvald tells Nora about his feelings towards Krogstad.  

 

Read 1831-1832 

 

Torvald’s speech is remarkably strongly worded and unwavering.  It’s not even the way he usually talks to Nora. None of the playful childlike condescension.  She’s always known that if her husband found out what she’s done, the relationship would be problematic at least at first, but this speech seems particularly stern.  She even voiced a hope that maybe one day when it’s all over and she’s old and unattractive, knowing the story might be something he could appreciate after the fact. 

 

Yeah- that dream is dead.  I also think it’s terrible that he makes this connection to historical “sin”- as if this is something that is passed down through families.   I’m really unsure what to make of it, but Ibsen imbeds the generational thing one way or another into every character in the story.  Nora’s dad apparently was a negligent father.  Dr. Rank’s father left his the gift of syphilis, Kristine’s father was such a negligent father that she married a man she didn’t love FOR money forsaking one she did and who loved her back.  And here, Krogstad is accused of being an unfit parent although we find out over the course of the play that the reason he wants to regain his respectability is so that he redeem himself as an honorable man for his sons- to become a good father.  It certainly adds a little of a spiritual dimension into a play that is set at one of Christianity’s two holy days or high holidays – This play actually demonstrates two views Christmas, if you want to take it even further.  Christmas has a secular dimension in every household.  That’s why many people celebrate Christmas who are not Christians.  It’s an end of the year celebration- parties, gifts, and it is in this sense that the tree is at the center of the Helmer house- but that is not the redemptive story of Christmas that we will see play out later in Kristine (another word which has its origins in Christ and Krogstad).   Torvald and even Rank’s worldview leave no room for Christmas redemption, as Rank reminds us that nothing is ever free and Torvald reminds us that our personal flaws are things that we can pass down generationally to our children- our mistakes can ever be reclaimed- generational curses.  

 

Nora’s comments at the end of this Christmas sermon show us that she’s conflicted, maybe for the first time in her life, in accepting Torvald’s worldview at face value.  She doesn’t feel like a mother corrupting her children, but maybe she is- maybe she is toxic like the man he’s described.  Maybe her “sin” can ever be redeemed, no matter how many years she sits of doing copying work and paying back her debt.  She’s not sure about that, but she is sure that Torvald must NEVER know the truth about her because HE believes it is.  Another very interesting thing that happens, and we see this in people who are in relationships with people who live in relationships that are unequal- - Nora, seemingly for the first time in her life, questions whether the man she has always seen as infallible, may not have truth.  She is emerging from a fog, if you want to understand it like that.  When we have unequal relationships like this, be it for any reason, when one party begins to question this inequality, things often burn to the ground.   

 

And there is no doubt Nora is questioning the status quo, the game she has played, even enjoyed.  There is a lot of hide and seek in this game and in this play.  The children are physically playing hide and seek, but they are supposed to be playing they’re children- it’s a childish thing to do.  But it’s not a fun game as an adult.  Nora and Torvald play hide and seek.  Even Kristine has to hide in the room away from Torvald.  Nora is questioning the game. The first Act of this play is about society.  The Helmers project domestic happiness to everyone they know.  The central metaphor is the Christmas tree.  It’s decorated with innocent material secrets, wrapped gifts.  Nora wants to wrap money on it.  It is the expression of the good life: the good job, the good house, the good children, the beautiful wife- everything Torvald wants to project to the world.  Krogstad threatens all of this, and in Act 2 we see this shift.  Notice that the Christmas tree in Act 2 is stripped, bedraggled and with its candles burnt out. The values of Act 2 shift from material, physical and social to invisible and psychological ones.  Nora confides in Christine the nature of her relationship with Rank and the strange fantasies that go with that- that game is exposed.  The dialogue between Nora and Krogstad in Act 2 shifts to a discussion from the social nature of Nora’s crime to a much darker one- the psychological ones.   Krogstad leaves a letter in Torvald’s box.  That secret will be exposed too.  Nora and Krogstad talk about her consideration of suicide as a way out.  Krogstad is the one person in the world, ironically that understands her.  The major metaphor for the scene also shifts.  In Act 2, we are no longer going to talk about Christmas trees, we are moving to the tarantela- the dance of the spider.  And learning about the tarantela is where I thought we would end today with Act 2, but time has got the better of us, so let’s pick up with the tarantela next episode.  Next episode we will start with the end of Act 2 and talk about what’s so interesting about the tarantela, which by the way is the music from the intake and outtake in case you wanted to know what it sounds like and haven’t actually seen a performance eof the play.  After that we’ll follow through to the end of the play and its famous ending.  If you haven’t read this play in a while, read it, watch it, or listen to a version on an audio version.  It never gets old. 

 

There’s a lot to look forward to.  I hope you’ll pick back up next episode.  Thanks for listening and as always we invite you to connect with us any way you like: Instagram, facebook, linked in, twitter, our website howtolovelitpodcast.com.  Also, and most importantly, please help us grow by talking about us and texting an episode to a friend. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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