Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)



1828: Born in Skien to a merchant father


1836: Father declares bankruptcy, family leaves mansion


1846: Supports his illegitimate child (mother, servant girl of employer)


1850-64: Works for Mollergate Theater in Christiania (Oslo)


1867: Peer Gynt

1879: A Doll's House (ET DUKKEHJEM)


1881: Ghosts; Autobiography (unfinished)

1884/1885: Adaptations of Doll House performed in London as Breaking a Butterfly and then Nora


1887: Rosmersholm


1890: Hedda Gabler

1892: First faithful English production of Doll House perf. in London


1891: Returns to Norway


1900: Suffers a series of strokes that leave him unable to write


1906: Dies

Naturalist theater = OPPOSITE of Romantic theater

Romantic 

Naturalist
Heroic heroes from the nobility
Remote historical setting       
Acting = rhetorical, declarative, theatrical
Large playhouse
Caters to star system
Grand, emotional themes		 Flawed protagonists from the middle classes (mostly)
Setting = present day
Acting = method (Stanislavsky)
Small playhouse
Depends on small ensemble of actors
Domestic, personal themes

              


A Doll's House in Context


1792

Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women in England

1848

Revolutions in Europe

1859

Darwin's Origin of Species

1867

Louisa May Alcott's novel, Little Women

1869

Susan B. Anthony begins suffrage movement; John Stuart Mill's essay "The Subjection of Women" (UK) influences Norwegian feminist movement

1879

Ibsen's A Doll's House (ET DUKKEHJEM)

1888

First beauty contest in Spa, Belgium

1889

Gerhart Hauptmann produces first play, Before Sunrise, at German Free Theater in Berlin

1891

Independent Theater produces Ibsen's plays in London

1913

Shaw writes The Quintessence of Ibsenism

1920

Women permitted to vote in USA

The "Woman Question" ca. 1879:


- Are women human like men?

- Should women be given rights of citizenship
(right to hold property and money, right to vote,
ability to be educated in all fields)?

- Fear: if women are given their freedom,
they will give up their so-called sacred rights of mothers and wives?

Quotes from Ibsen: 


 1) "Whatever I have written has been without any conscious thought of making propaganda .... I am not even quite clear as to just what this women's rights movement really is."

Ibsen to the Norwegian League for Women's Rights in Christiania, 26 May 1898, in Ibsen: Letters and Speeches, ed. Evert Sprinchorn (New York, 1964), 337.

2) Speech to working men of Trondheim in 1885: “The transformation of social conditions which is now being undertaken in the rest of Europe is very largely concerned with the future status of the workers and of women. That is what I am hoping and waiting for, that is what I shall work for, all I can.”

3) In his notes to A Doll’s House: “A woman cannot be herself in contemporary society, it is an exclusively male society with laws drafted by men, and with counsel and judges who judge feminine conduct from the male point of view.”

4) Ibsen on modern tragedy: "There are two kinds of spiritual law, two kinds of conscience, one in man and anotehr, altogether different, in woman. They do not understand each other; but in  practical life the woman is judged by man's law, as though she were not a woman but a man. The wife in the play ends by having no idea of what is right or wrong; natural feeling on the one hand and belief in authority on the other have altogether bewildered her. A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view." From C. Innes, A Sourcebook on Naturalist Theatre. NY: Routledge, 2000, p. 70.

Ibsen's Connections:

- the Norwegian feminist Camilla Collett

- Mother-in-law, the Danish writer Magdalene Thoresen, was a "New Woman" (term used in 1890s)

- In 1879 tried to open post of secretary and secure voting rights in the Scandinavian Club in Rome to women







Discussion Questions: Doll House


I. FAMILY: How many different familial tragedies occur in Ibsen’s drama? What is ‘family tragedy’ according to Ibsen? What does the play say about fatherhood and motherhood?


II. SETTING: What problems happen in the outside world the audience cannot see but hears about? How does this reflect on the meaning of the drama’s title?


III. PERFORMANCE: How do you see Nora “performing” throughout the play? In other words, is she just pretending to be naïve in the first act, or does she actually evolve/change by the end? Does that change your (feminist) evaluation of the play?


IV. CLASS: What is the role of class (a.k.a. work and money relations) in the play? Is the cause of women at all related to the cause of workers in general?


"THE ALTERNATIVE 'GERMAN' ENDING

Under strong pressure, and very reluctantly, Ibsen wrote an alternative ending for the German theatre. Both Maurice in Hamburg and Laube in Vienna pressed for a 'conciliatory' ending, as also did Frau Hedwig Niemann-Raabe who was to play Nora on tour. In the end, ibsen himself provided the following additional dialogue:

NORA.  . . . Where we could make a real marriage out of our lives together. Goodbye. [Begins to go.]

HELMER. Go then! [Seizes her arm.] But first you shall see your children for the last time!

NORA. Let me go! I will not see them! I cannot!

HELMER. [draws her over to the door, left]. You shall see them. [Opens the door and says softly.] Look, there they are asleep, peaceful, and carefree. Tomorrow when they wake up and call for their mother, they will be--motherless.

NORA. [trembling]. Motherless . . . !

HELMER. As you once were.

NORA. Motherless! [Struggles with herself, lets her travelling bag fall, and says.] Oh, this is a sin against myself, but I cannot leave them. [Half sinks down the door.]

HELMER [joyfully, but softly]. Nora!

[The curtain falls.]" (287-88)

From The Oxford Ibsen. Trans. James Walter McFarlane. Vol. 4. New York and Toronto: Oxford UP, 1961.