“A Doll's House” by Henrik Ibsen

A doll's house” was written by Henrik Ibsen and produced by famous actors during the time of the 1800's; in fact, it was the year of 1879 to be precise. It was around this time that many different social, cultural and historical moments were changing through time, leaving the result to change not only one country but had an effect on most of the world. In the play, A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, elements such as characters, illness and money during the duration of the play are directly tied to Ibsen's life. To understand the links to A Doll's House from Ibsen's life, one must first understand the path that Ibsen's life followed. Henrik Ibsen was born in Skien, Norway in 1828.

His father was a prosperous merchant, and Ibsen's family lived comfortably. In the mid 1830's, Ibsen's father went bankrupt, and the family was forced to live an extremely easy lifestyle in the country (Ibsen, 950), many sources claim that Ibsen was extremely introverted as a young person, and rarely sought attention. One account of Ibsen's life gave the reason of Ibsen's introverted state by claiming that "a rumor, to which young Ibsen was privy, began to be circulated that Henrik was the illegitimate son of another man" Though it has never been proven or disproved, Ibsen has produced plays that include illegitimate offspring, showing readers that Ibsen is a writer who writes plays with personal accounts and ties to the plot line (Ibsen, 98).

In A Doll's House, probably the most evident tie to Ibsen's life is the characters in the play. In the play, the main character is Nora; a wife who is suppressed and left disrespected by her husband, even though she saved his life. This element of the play actually relates closely to that of Laura Kieler. Kieler was a journalist and friend of Ibsen. Ibsen was almost a mentor to her, and to him, she was his "skylark" (Ibsen 39). Ibsen pulled the plot of A Doll's house directly from Kieler's life, as she, like Nora, saved her husband's life by borrowing money using forgery. Kieler's husband later found out about it, and was so outraged that he took her children from her and had her thrown in a mental institution. After this happened, Ibsen became disturbed of not just Kieler's situation, but the marital situation in general, and wrote the play A Doll's House. (Ibsen, 98).

Although it is controversial, Ibsen had stated that although he felt strongly about the social injustices facing women at the time, he was not a feminist in any way (Flaxman 9) According to Ibsen, he did not feel as if he were trying to change things, but he had started a social uproar across Europe. According to a literary analysis "although Ibsen later scoffed at the idea that he was a feminist, he has woven into his plan the ideas that changed the atmosphere of this time" (Ibsen, 9). Ibsen was upset by ...