Metaphorical Views
Welcome to Nora’s page on interpretations of some key metaphors in the play. Here different explanations for the doll house and the hide-and-seek game can be found.
The Doll House and Conflicting Duties: Society’s unattainable Christmas miracle
The central idea of Ibsen’s work revolves around the doll house metaphor. Although at first Nora goes along with her role as a childlike housewife, she realizes Torvald’s true beliefs and eventually finds the courage to become an individual. Her character development, from immature and dependent to self-actualized and self-sufficient, not only reveals the idealized “doll” role of women but also the social constraints and limitations of the time.
In the first stages of the play, Nora exemplifies the quintessential, childlike role of the ideal housewife. Her subservience to first her father’s dominance and then Torvald’s authority show her physical growth but emotional immaturity and dependence. For example, while Nora puts up the Christmas decorations, the audience realizes that “her childishness creates her charm, her danger, and her destiny” (Salome). She not only accepts her nicknames of squirrel and skylark, but she also plays along with Helmer, replying “and the pretty little sky-lark would sing all day long…” (Ibsen 41). This shows that, although she may have the potential for manipulative power through her role as a doll, at first she mindlessly goes along with her role and subjects herself to Torvald’s authority. Just as Nora grew up “as the soul daughter of a widower who in his carefree ways spoiled her instead of bringing her up seriously, Nora grew older only in age,” her conduct now shows that that superficial “transformation from her carefree days as a girl to marriage meant no more to her than a change from small doll’s house to a larger one; the main difference was that instead of her customary lifeless wax dolls, she would eventually receive three precious living dolls” (Salome). Her treatment by her father and Torvald directly mirror her treatment of her children as dolls rather than individuals, a fact that will substantially weigh into her final sacrifice.
As the plot unfolds and Torvald becomes aware of Nora’s forgery, Nora becomes aware of something much more profound. As Nora changes out of her Tarantella costume and comes back saying “Yes, Torvald, I’ve changed,” she has also metaphorically changed from wax to flesh (Ibsen 79). Realizing her lifelong role of appeasement, subservience, and dependence, “she directs a bitter indictment against her father and against [Torvald] because they have treated her like a thing, a toy, a doll; but through them she also arraigns society which keeps women in a state of immaturity” (Beyer).
Her revelation leads her to question the accepted social truths and think for herself about her situation. With Torvald’s previous outburst, Nora has finally realized the truth about her relationships and thus knows that “in no way does he share Nora’s need for self-fulfillment, equality and mutual growth…The wish for growth is a child’s pleasure that trustingly demands self-transcendence” (Salome). Having entered the stage of reflection and realization, Nora thus begins to consider her duties and test her independence.
The Nora doll finally comes to life as she leaves the dollhouse to fulfill her duty towards herself, committing her greatest sacrifice in leaving her children for their own sake. While her decision to leave destroys her sheltered and superficially perfect place in the doll house, “’the modern tragedy’ does not end in ruin, as Ibsen originally had intended, but in a new start” (Beyer 117). One interpretation is that Nora’s fulfillment of her duty to herself by leaving Torvald allows for her emergence as “strong and independent as never before, and [she] takes the consequences of her newly gained understanding; she is in the process of becoming ‘herself’; at the same time she points to a freer and more honest humanity in a healthier society” (117). Her decision to leave her children stems from the accepted idea that the faults of the parents seep into the children’s’ dispositions, as seen by Torvald’s attribution of Nora’s faults to her father’s nature and Krogstand’s fear of indirectly corrupting his children through his immoral business practices. Thus, Nora left her children with Anne Marie for their own sake, so they could grow up without being subject to the corrupting power of her fraudulent action.
Rather than as a direct result of Nora’s attempts at independence, the tragic downfall of the doll house can be attributed to the social constraints, perhaps fulfilling Ibsen’s intended purpose. With the positive connotations of Nora’s fulfillment, the tragic state of the doll house that was left behind seems to be more the fault of the social situation. The “miracle of miracles” is not possible for Nora and Torvald because it must come from their external circumstances, from a change in the thought current of society itself (Ibsen 86). Similarly, Torvald can thus be seen as a victim of the same social constraints. As the last scene unfolds, the audience contemplates Torvald “in his virtues, as in his limitations and inner poverty, he too is an expression—and a victim—of the male-dominated society: oppression recoils on the one who is placed in the role of oppressor” (Beyer 118). Their children, obviously through no fault of their own, are left motherless, showing yet another example of how the social conditions have been the villain.
The doll metaphor is more than just a comparison for Nora’s social role. Its collapse and its effects on the characters illuminate the social backdrop of the situation that ultimately propelled the victimization of Nora, Torvald, and their children. Nora’s transcendence into independence and self-realization, despite the subsequent fall of the superficially flawless dollhouse, is admirable rather than culpable. However, her future, as seen by Mrs. Linde’s initial situation, holds the social scorn that accompanies an independent woman in the middle-class society.
The Hide-and-Seek Game and Money: Nora’s expression of secrecy and financial status
Another thematically significant metaphor in A Doll’s House is the hide-and-seek game in which Nora and her children participate in the first Act. Aside from showing Nora’s initial childlike position in accordance with the doll metaphor, the game has been interpreted to represent Nora’s secret of forgery. According to David Drake, “granted a detailed exegesis of this game initially appears unnecessary, for it quite obviously represents both Nora’s occasional childishness and, more significantly, the pecuniary secret she has concealed form her husband Torvald for the better part of their marriage, as well as her fear of its disclosure” (Drake). In this way, the hide-and-seek game is multidimensional in its presence to remind the audience that something unsavory is hidden and will eventually be seeded out.
The revelation of Nora’s secret drives the subsequent events, but it also highlights the importance of money in the play in relation to the question of dependencies. While social tension and marital inequality are the direct motivators for Nora’s transcendence, the money factor always lurks in the background, one of many instigators. According to Bernard Dukore, “In their society, financial independence for them means dependence for others” (Dukore 123). While at first the Helmers had to economize, Nora's frivolous actions in Act I reveal Torvald’s recent promotions at the bank. Regardless, it was the initial financial stress that drove Torvald to take on so many jobs that he became ill, creating a sequence of events that, because of Nora’s decision to act independently to obtain the money, led to “dependence upon the wishes of a blackmailer” (123). Torvald, with his position at the bank, then becomes in control of Krogstand’s job but still unknowingly dependent on Krogstand because of Nora’s forgery. Thus it is paradoxical that “while Nora had depended for her money on Helmer’s wages from his jobs, the cure for his ill health that was a consequence of those jobs depended on her independent acquisition of money” (123). Consequently, money becomes directly and circuitously related to not only survival but also the plight for independence.
However, the issue of money and independence become different for different characters. Unlike Mrs. Linde’s decision to depend on a man’s money by connecting with Krogstand, Nora chooses to so the opposite by breaking free from the dollhouse. For Nora, emotional independence becomes more important than financial security, and thus she was “plagued for years by a dependence upon money” until she found that “independence demands an initial dissociation from considerations of money” (Dukore 127). Ultimately for Nora, inward fulfillment results from financial as well as emotional independence.