From: H0ld3n Subject: Town Reader
Message Body: Trenton Foster Downey 3B AP Literature November 30, 2015
In this modern society, life is often dictated by wealth and power, and those without wealth or power are left to the dust and told to stay there. Henrik Ibsen writes about this ‘norm’ in society and advocates change against it. A Doll House is about both class and cash struggles. Multiple characters in the story go against the established conformities of society by deciding to rebel against it. This rebellion helps change and improve the lives of the characters. In the play, A Doll House, Henrik Ibsen uses inter-class conflicts and individual rebellion to critique the corruption of both money and the powerful elite. Nora, symbolizing the lower class, is in a constant struggle with her husband Torvald, who symbolizes the upper class, this embodies the constant struggle that the lower class faces in society. In the play. Nora receives a small sum of money which she can manage to “no end” without more money (Ibsen, 1668). Yet Torvald refuses to give her the money she desperately needs, remarking that she often costs him a “frightful amount of money” (Ibsen, 1669). This is a clear demonstration of how wealthy upper class often refuses to give up their money, even while they may have plenty to spare. Even while the lower class is struggling to make ends meet, due to their lack of financial ability, the ones with money to spare do nothing to help ease the burden of those lower than them. Not only does Torvald oppress Nora’s wealth, but also her status. Through constant use of pet names such as “sweet tooth”, “spendthrift”, and “prodigal”, Torvald is showing his ‘ownership’ of Nora, much like how the upper class shows their ownership of the lower class (Ibsen, 1668-1669). Torvald owns Nora much like a slave master possesses their slave. Henry E. Jacobs, in his paper on marxism in A Doll House, points out that Nora is in multiple kinds of enslavement. Not only is Nora in “financial enslavement” (Jacobs, 1991), because she has little control over her income and funds, but other kinds of enslavement as well, which “characterize her relationship with Torvald” (Jacobs, 1991). While Nora is still a slave to the higher class, she cannot progress in life. She cannot get her own job or receive a higher education, which are both necessary in order to achieve financial independence, or even choose what she eats, as seen when Torvald questions whether or not she had eaten macaroons. This inability to fully control her own life is a great parallel to the lives of others who are in financial independence to those of higher class. Ibsen is trying to show the importance of social mobility, and the folly of the upper class in trying to reduce it. Until the end of the play, the driving factor in the characters’ lives is their financial state. Nora dreams only of attaining more money, thinking it will be the answer to her problems: “Wouldn’t it be lovely to have stacks of money and not a care in the world?” (Ibsen, 1671). She is tying her financial stability to the amount of happiness and worry in her life, but the play highlights her struggles with attaining this money, and the worry and stress that are caused by the lack of it. After Nora borrows money to save her husband’s life, she is threatened by the higher class character Krogstad who has the “means to make” Nora give him what he wants (Ibsen, 1681). This is another example of how the money and power of the upper class can corrupt them into making immoral decisions. Krogstad is motivated by greed, using blackmail to try and secure a better income and a better social status and not caring who he harms. The poor lower class girl has the option of either complying to his demands or facing potential relational, and therefore financial, ruin. In A Doll House, the corruption of money is not only critiqued by financial means, but also through the use of rebellion. Mrs. Linde shows how the lower class can rebel against society and challenge their place in the world. Ibsen affirms that: “The spectacles of experience; through them you will see clearly a second time.”(Ibsen). Mrs. Linde perfectly embodies this quote. She first married for financial reasons, despite loving Krogstad, and felt trapped in her relationship and ended up without any money. After that experience, she later realizes that she doesn’t care as much for money, but rather love. Mrs. Linde states she will “risk everything together with you”(Ibsen, 1703) when society would have her seek out a richer man with a higher social status, not one who claims to be a “half-drowned man”(Ibsen, 1702) with a troubled dark past. Society would claim it is folly to not just pursue money, but she decides against that. Through her past experiences and her own individual rebellion, Mrs. Linde decided to go against the established society, even if it meant potential financial instability. Another character who rebels against the higher class and established behaviors of society is Nora. To preface her rebellion, Nora starts sneaking macaroons against Torvald’s wishes. Even at the start of the play, she can be seen “putting the macaroon in her pocket”(Ibsen,1667) which is just the first of many rebellions. She is rebelling against the upper class’s control over her pleasure and satisfaction. These macaroons are symbols of freedom, which are promptly hidden once Torvald shows up. However, the shocking rebellion is when Nora decides to take her life into her hands and leave her financial stability in search of a higher education. Nora decides that “[She has] to educate myself. You can’t help me with that.”, and decides to pursue her education on her own(Ibsen, 1712). Society would tell her to stay oppressed by the upper class in order to keep a sense of financial security, yet that would still leave her in financial slavery. The rebellion acts as a symbol of what Ibsen thinks the lower class needs to do in order to escape the shackles of the elite. Throughout the play, different characters make their own small rebellions to try and escape their poor situations. Ibsen demonstrates the impact of these seemingly small rebellions and the resulting conflicts in order to demonstrate the oppressive nature of the powerful upper class, and shows the corruptive power money can have in order to highlight the folly of society’s greed-based norms.
Works Cited
Ibsen, Henrik. “A Doll House” The complete major prose plays of Henrik Ibsen. Fjelde, Rolf (1965) Rpt in. Literature Ed. 6 New York 1666-1714. Print.
Withham, Barry and John Lutterbie. “A Marxist approach to A Doll House.” New York 1985. Rpt. in Literature. An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar, Roberts, and Henry, Jacobs. New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2007. 1989-1991. Print.