This is a summary of all the critical readings and key quotes I used when studying and revising Ibsen and Rossetti for my A Level English Lit Paper 1. It's thorough and detailed, covering Nora, Torvald, genetic determinism, From the Antique, Shut Out, Round Tower at Jhansi, A Birthday, Maude Clare,...
Ibsen and Rossetti Critical Readings and Key Quotes
A Doll’s House critical readings:
While there may be some ambivalence in Nora’s ending, the play was quickly read as an
endorsement of Nora’s ‘desperate plunge into the unknown’ (Stephen Whicher)
The ‘Social Democraten’ paper said, ‘oh yes there are thousands of such doll-homes’,
suggesting the Helmers were typical of 19th century m/c Norwegian families.
Hedwig Neimann-Raabe, who wanted to play the lead, refused to play the final scene as
she "would never leave [my] children". Ibsen rewrote the ending, having Torvald force
Nora to the nursery door where she cries but this was quickly abandoned.
Nora is driven by a moral imperative, Torvald is driven by a social imperative.
Nora and Christine as dramatic foils?
The play was a ‘rebellion against the stifling … petty morality of provincial bourgeoisie
life in 19th century Norway’ – Ledger
At the end of the play N ‘denounces the unreality of her marriage’ and the final door slam
aurally symbolises the ‘detonating quality’ of N leaving. (G.W.Knight)
‘Was and is shocking’ (Byatt)
ADH ‘exploded like a bomb into contemporary life’ and ‘pronounced a death sentence on
accepted social ethics’ (Koht)
‘The ideal wife is one who does everything that her ideal husband likes and nothing else’
(George Bernard Shaw)
Ideals such as Hegels led to ‘ideals of love, fidelity, self-sacrifice and so on, that
constricted and deformed many human lives and selves’ (Moi)
‘there are reminders that there are fates and hardships much worse than anything in the
Helmer household, which is no more than a doll’s house’ (Byatt)
"The economical independence of woman is the first condition of free marriage." (Caird)
‘Ibsen holds that the true function of the stage is not so much to amuse as to instruct’
(The Times 1889)
Nora:
‘hasn’t a wife the right to save her husbands life?’ ‘I did it for love didn’t I?’ – Nora is
acting on a moral imperative. The juxtaposition of the human and legal response to her
actions suggests the immorality of contemporary norms. Her ‘feminine temperament’
prevent her from understanding (GW Knight)
‘First and foremost you are a wife and mother’ ‘I am first and foremost a human being’
‘I have been living here with a complete stranger’
Sally Ledger – N got a ‘glimpse of an alternative self-identity’ ‘it was great fun, though,
sitting there working and earning money It was almost like being a man.’
Sally Ledger – N lead a ‘doll like existence as Torvalds pretty little wife’, he deploys a
diminutive vocative ‘little squirrel’ ‘little skylark’ ‘spendthrift’ ‘squanderbird’, many front
covers of the play had the image of a bird in a cage to symbolise Nora’s entrapment.
N seen as ‘a monster and unnatural woman’ (Elaine Long)
‘I have the most extraordinary longing to say: ‘bloody hell!’’ – suggests the extent of her
repression
She contradicts the ‘Darwinian imperative...that a woman should not leave her children’
(Byatt)
She’s ‘silly...confined in a house full of pointless things’ (Byatt)
Byatt has ‘less and less sympathy’ for Nora every time she sees the play.
‘Every scene tightens the noose around Nora’s neck’ (Byatt)
Her macaroons ‘could be comic but is part of a tissue of lies and evasions that make up
her life’ (Byatt)
‘it saved my husband’s life. I couldn’t put it off’ - N justifying to K
‘her feminine ethic forbids her to ask him for the loan’ after Rank said he loves her
(Byatt)
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