A Doll’s House

A Doll’s House
By Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)
Plot
The story starts on Christmas eve. Nora makes preparation for Christmas. While she eats macaroons, Dr. Rank and Mrs. Linde enters. Rank goes to speak with Torvald while Linde speaks with Nora. Linde explains that her husband has died and that she needs to find a job. Nora agrees to ask her husband to give Linde a job at the bank. Nora tells her about borrowing money to pay for the trip to Italy for her and her husband. She explains that Torvald doesn’t know that she paid for it. Rank leaves the study and begins to speak with Nora and Linde. He complains about the moral corruption in society. Krogstad arrives and goes to the study to talk to Torvald about keeping his job. A few minutes later, he leaves and Rank comments that Krogstad is one of the most morally corrupt people in the world. Rank and Linde leaves and Krogstad reenters. He tells Nora to ask her husband to keep Krogstad, or else he will reveal Nora’s crime of forgery. Krogstad leaves and when Torvald reenters, Nora asks him not to fire Krogstad. Torvald says that he must fire him because of his dishonesty and because he gave Krogstad’s job to Linde. Torvald returns to his study. The Nurse, Anne-Marie, enters and gives Nora her ball gown. Anne-Marie explains that she had to leave her children to take the job taking care of Nora. Anne-Marie leaves. Linde returns and begins to help Nora with stitching up her dress. They talk for a while about Dr. Rank. Torvald enters and Linde leaves to the nursery. Nora asks Torvald again not to fire Krogstad and Torvald refuses. He gives Krogstad’s pink slip to the maid to be mailed to Krogstad. Torvald leaves to his study. Rank enters and tells Nora about his worsening illness. They talk and flirt for a while. Rank tells Nora that he loves her. Nora said that she never loved Rank and only had fun with him. Rank leaves to the study and Krogstad enters. He is angry about his dismissal and leaves a letter to Torvald explaining Nora’s entire crime in the letter box. Nora is frightened. Nora tells Linde about the matter and Linde assures her that she will talk to Krogstad and set things straight. Linde leaves after Krogstad and Rank and Torvald enter from the study. They help Nora practice the tarantella. After practice, Rank and Torvald exists. Linde enters and tells Nora that Krogstad left town, but she left a note for him. Nora tells her that she’s waiting for a miracle to happen. That night, during the dance, Linde talks to Krogstad in Helmer’s apartment. She explains to him that she left him for money, but that she still loves him. They get back together and Krogstad decides to forget about the whole matter of Nora’s borrowing money. However, Linde asks Krogstad not to ask for his letter back since she thinks Torvald needs to know of it. Both leave and Torvald and Nora enter from the dance. Torvald checks his letter box and finds some letters and two Business cards from Dr. Rank with black crosses on them. Nora explains that they mean that Rank is announcing his death. After the bad news, Torvald enters his study and Nora prepares to leave. However, before she can get out the door, she is stopped by Torvald who read Krogstad’s letter. He is angry and disavows his love for Nora. The maid comes with a letter. Torvald read the letter which is from Krogstad. It says that he forgives Nora of her crime and will not reveal it. Torvald burns the letter along with the IOU that came with it. He is happy and tells Nora that everything will return to normal. Nora changes and returns to talk with Helmer. She tells him that they don’t understand each other and she leaves him.

FULL REVIEW

I've always loved doll houses. I enjoyed playing with them as a very little girl, but even as I got a bit older I still loved them. So much so that my dad made one for me around the time I was ten.

I still remember the wonder of that house. Among other things, it had working electric lights that illuminated the tiny "crystal" (clear plastic) chandelier. My grandmother encouraged my love of all things miniature and bought some beautiful furniture for my new little house, including a bed with a lovely red checked coverlet.

My fascination with tiny dolls and their tiny homes and furniture extended to stories, and it still does. Almost any time I see a book involving doll houses, I'm usually intrigued enough to pick it up and give it a read.

I'm not sure how I missed The Dolls' House, a novel for children by Rumer Godden, first published in 1947. A newly illustrated edition with pictures by Tasha Tudor was published in 1962, the year my older sister was born. Somehow or other, this book just never made it to our shelves at home and I must not have seen it at the library. If I had, I'm sure I would have picked it up.

"Tottie Was Made of Wood and it Was Good Wood"

I would have loved this book when I was ten. And I enjoyed it now, almost thirty years later, when I did finally run across it on a library shelf. Since it's recently come back into print, reissued in honor of the author's centennial birthday, you're more likely to have an opportunity to enjoy it as well.

The Dolls' House is about a family of dolls owned by two little girls, Charlotte and Emily, in war-time England. Although I call them a "family" of dolls, in reality they were never intended to be a "set." But it is the way of a doll's life, as Godden tells us, to deal with the hand one is dealt. A doll has very little control over her own destiny. If the child who owns you puts you together with other dolls and makes you into a sort of family, then you need to deal with that as best you can. Fortunately, the four dolls we follow in this story really love each other.

By far the oldest doll in Charlotte and Emily's collection is Tottie. She is a small "farthing doll" once owned by the girls' great and great-great grandmothers. Although small, Tottie is very sturdy. She has lasted as long as she has because she is made of wood. ..."and it was good wood..." the author says, in what will turn out to be an important point and a recurring theme. For dolls are made of all kinds of different materials. What one is made of can sometimes affect how a doll thinks of herself and her abilities.

Tottie's wooden strength is contrasted with the fragility of Birdie, made of "cheap celluloid." Although Birdie's beginnings were very modest (she came attached to a Christmas cracker) the little girls and the other dolls can't help but like her. Her lightweight celluloid body, fluffy cotton yellow hair, and bead filled head give her a flighty and rattling appearance. As the reader discovers, that matches her sweet but rather scatterbrained personality. But there is more to Birdie than immediately meets the eye.

Poor Mr. Plantaganet, the "father doll" of the house, is very delicate. He has a china face and glass eyes, and in some ways he is even more fragile than Birdie. It's hard for him to overcome his past, in which he was abused and neglected by some children who let their dog chew on him, and drew a mustache on his dignified little face, and left him in a dark toy cupboard for months. He finds himself much happier in his new life once Charlotte and Emily adopt him, but his past makes him very insecure.

The other doll in the family, baby Apple, is simply charming and soft. He's made of plush and everyone loves him, even though he can be very mischievous.

Longing for a House

Godden's writing skill enabled her to invest each of the four main dolls in the story with tremendous personality. As readers, we are privileged to peek inside their lives and feelings in ways that the girls who own them can't. (After all, in true story fashion, the dolls really only "come to life" in the off moments when the girls aren't looking.) While the characters of Emily and Charlotte are fleshed out well enough (with the older Emily more bossy, and the younger Charlotte more sympathetic and imaginative) they remain appropriately shadowy and in the background, except where their actions impend upon the lives of the dolls. This is really the dolls' story through and through.

The plot is simple but well-shaped. What drives the beginning action is the dolls' yearning for a house of their own. When the story opens, they are all crammed into a shoebox. As I mentioned, the story takes place during or perhaps just after World War II, and not many families in England could afford nice doll houses. Tottie regales her family with tales of the beautiful old doll house once owned, a hundred years ago, by Charlotte and Emily's great-great-aunt. She remembers it with great fondness and in vivid detail, and her description of the house (complete with the other doll's longing and breathless questions) is one of the best sections of the book.

In wonderful storybook fashion, the old house is found and brought back to the nursery. It's as beautiful as Tottie remembers, though worn and not very clean, and some of the furniture is missing or broken. Aided by the dolls' ardent wishing (the only way dolls have of influencing their human owners) Charlotte and Emily set about to repair and clean it, and to find a way to earn money to fix the furniture. How those things are accomplished drives the middle part of the story.

The end is shaped by a surprising and sad turn of events. Once in their beautiful house, you think that dolls (and the readers of this book) are set up for a happy ending. But it's not to be. Among other things, the dolls must deal with the coming of Marchpane, another very old doll who once used to live in the house. She and Tottie were not exactly enemies, but they spare each other little fondness. And Marchpane, always haughty (she's china with real hair, dressed in real lace) has become even haughtier in the intervening years, caring little for children. All she wants to do is be exhibited, a fate most dolls consider worse than death.

Marchpane's coming and the tragic events that unfold afterwards make this an emotional story. Yes, I did say tragic. Parents and teachers should know there is a death in this story. There is a noble and sacrificial aspect to the death, but nevertheless, because of Godden's excellent characterization, the death of a doll feels as real as the death of any other character I've ever read. I was frankly surprised by the emotional impact the story had on me as an adult, and there is no way I would even attempt to read this poignant story aloud to my five year old daughter right now, whose tenacious love for her own dolls and her occasional insistence that they're "real" would likely mean that she would be deeply affected.

I do think this would make a good read-aloud for children (especially girls) ten and up. Likely an older child will be more emotionally prepared to handle the grief of the story, which ends on a lovely note, but never tidies up into a conventional happy ending. Older children will also "get" (even if not a fully conscious level) the parallels between the personalities and actions of the dolls and real people. Godden writes with a somewhat mystical and melancholy bent, but her basic character sketches are sound: we all know people who are "solid" through and through, others who are fragile or lightweight, and still others that care more themselves than they do for the usefulness and joy they might bring to others. All of those sketches and more can be found here, providing food for thought about recognizing "what we're made of" in the deepest core of our hearts, and how the choices we make (regardless of our backgrounds or seeming strengths and weaknesses) can matter a great deal in the end.
Main Characters
Torvald Helmer - He is a lawyer who has been promoted to manager in the bank.
Nora - She is Torvald’s wife who is treated like a child by Torvald’s but leaves in the end because of it.
Krogstad - He is the man Nora borrowed money from to pay for the trip to Italy.
Dr. Rank - He is an admirer of Nora who has spinal TB and announces his death at the end of the play.


Minor Characters
Christine Linde - She is an old friend of Nora who comes to Nora and asks her to ask her husband for a job.
The children - Nora plays with her children and treats them like dolls.
Setting
Helmer’s Apartment - The entire play takes place at the apartment
Torvald’s study - a door leads from the stage into an imaginary room which is Torvald’s study where some off-stage action takes place.
Ballroom - This is where Nora danced the Tarantella.
Symbols
black hat and black cross - symbolizes death
Fisher girl costume - symbolizes Nora’s pretending to enjoy her life.
Italy - symbolizes the good false image of Nora’s life.
Norway - symbolizes reality.
Doll House - symbolizes the tendency of the characters to play roles.
Toys - symbolizes the act of pushing the roles onto Nora’s children.
Macaroons - symbolizes Nora’s deceit to her husband.
Tarantella - symbolizes Nora’s agitation at her struggle with Krogstad and with her husband.
Christmas tree - symbolizes the mood of the play.
Stockings - symbolizes Nora’s attitude trying to please men and her flirting with Rank.
Letter box and letter - symbolizes a trap for Nora and the cause of her demise.
embroidery - symbolizes the stereotypes pressed on woman.
ring - symbolizes the marriage, and the end of it.
skylark - symbolizes the way that Torvald treats Nora like a child.
Style
Ibsen writes typical of the ways that the characters might talk in relation to their position and their relationship with each other. For example, the way that Torvald speaks with Nora shows that he condescends to her and that Nora enjoys it. Krogstad speaks sternly but softens up when Linde tell him she still loves him.
Dominant Philosophy
A person can’t be happy when falling into the mold of someone else. To be happy, one must be oneself and know oneself. Since all of Nora’s life, she followed right behind her father and her husband, she did not know herself and had to leave to learn.
Quotes
“HELMER: My little songbird mustn’t droop her wings. What’s this? Is little squirrel sulking?” Torvald asks this to Nora after she returned from shopping at the start of the play.
“NORA: I’ve the most extraordinary longing to say: ‘Bloody hell!’” Nora says this to Rank and Linde expressing her desire to rebel against her husband.
“RANK: Oh, a lawyer fellow called Krogstad - you wouldn’t know him. He’s crippled all right; morally twisted. But even he started of by announcing, as thought it were a matter of enormous importance, that he had to live.” Rank tells this to Nora and Linde expressing his philosophy about morally corrupt people corrupting society using Krogstad as an example.
“NORA: Never see him again. Never. Never. Never. Never see the children again. Them too. Never. never. Oh - the icy black water! Oh - that bottomless - that -! Oh, if only it were all over! Now he’s got it - he’s reading it. Oh, no, no! Not yet! Goodbye, Torvald! Goodbye, my darlings.” Nora says this to herself when Torvald had left to his study to read the mail. She prepares to leave and possibly commit suicide.