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1[[quoteright:255:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dolls_house_ibsen.png]]
2
3->''"No; just cheerful. And you've always been so kind to me. But our home has never been anything other than a play-house. I've been your doll-wife here, just as at home I was Daddy's doll-child. And the children, they have in turn been my dolls. I thought it was amusing when you came and played with me, just as they thought it was amusing when I came and played with them. That's been our marriage, Torvald."''
4-->-- '''Nora Helmer''', ''A Doll's House'', Act Three
5
6''A Doll's House'' (Norwegian: ''Et Dukkehjem'') is an 1879 play in three acts by Creator/HenrikIbsen.
7
8The main character is a middle-class wife and mother, Nora Helmer, who spends most of her time acting like a child for the amusement of her husband, Torvald. The play revolves around her realization that she has spent her whole life being defined by her identity as a daughter, wife, and mother, and that her father and husband have treated her like a doll rather than a person.
9
10The play is a scathing critique of nineteenth-century marriage, and it is very feminist in outlook for its time. Ibsen tended to see his work as primarily about the need of all people to be able to choose their own roles and paths in life, and he wrote several other plays that espoused these beliefs through the stories of male protagonists. However, simply by taking for granted that women were as entitled to this right as men, ''A Doll's House'' struck its original audience as shockingly radical.
11
12A Doll's House was also written as a subversion of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well-made_play well-made play]], a genre of plot-heavy melodramas with essentially interchangeable characters. Ibsen used the same plot points: a secret unbeknownst to Nora's husband, only known by her good friend; a fate hinging on a letter; and a villain set out to ruin everything. Ibsen manages to flip all of this around, confusing his 19th-century audience.
13----
14!! ''A Doll's House'' provides examples of the following tropes:
15* AnAesop: The play condemns the contemporary (1870s) state of affairs between men and women. Nora realizes throughout the play that the norms of the time rob women of personhood and outright says so to her condescending husband.
16-->'''Torvald''': There's no one who gives up honor for love.\
17'''Nora''': Millions of women have done just that.
18* AntiVillain: Krogstad's desire to protect his children ends up causing a lot of trouble for Nora. He's not a bad guy at all, but he's still an antagonist.
19* BrokenBird: Nora's long time friend Kristine Linde.
20* CasualKink: Torvald seems to enjoy the thought of Nora, his wife, retaining her peasant girl role from the masquerade and being his secret lover. Quite racy for an upstanding bank manager at the time.
21* CharacterDevelopment: ''The'' reason a lot of the play's drama occurs. Nora is at first a bright-faced, happy wife who only does small acts of rebellion to support Torvald and herself. Eventually, she opens her eyes and realizes the poor state of her marriage with Torvald. By the end of the play, Nora is more well-spoken and thoughtful than before.
22* ChildhoodFriends:
23** Nora and Linde.
24** Torvald and Dr. Rank.
25** Torvald and Krogstad, leading to the FirstNameBasis problem below (and contrasting sharply with Nora's slightly clueless but genuinely well-intentioned warmth towards ''her'' childhood friend, Christine).
26* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Nora acts like a silly, frivolous airhead to her husband Torvald, but she's actually a very shrewd, intelligent, frugal woman who can juggle her duties as a mother and housewife with little typist jobs on the side (something that required skill and schooling at the time), and stretch every penny for all it's worth to secretly pay back a loan she used to save her husband's life while pretending to use said money to buy frivolous dresses for herself; dresses that she herself made and pass off as professionally tailored clothing. In fact, Torvald's inability to recognize the Badass under the Moron exterior (which she had assumed her husband knew was an act) is part of what disillusions Nora about her husband.
27* DanceOfDespair: Nora's tarantella becomes more and more frantic. At one point, she is clearly desperate because she knows she may be busted by Krogstad any minute and she dances out of despair.
28* DeadpanSnarker: Dr. Rank has an extremely dry sense of humor. When Nora says "One must live," Rank responds by quipping, "Yes, it's generally thought to be rather necessary." He even snarks about his own death.
29* DrivenToSuicide:
30** Nora alludes to this original intent if the scandal of her forgery went out, hoping to draw away public disgrace from her husband, whom she believed would stand up for her. The extremity of this plan illustrates how she romanticized her marital devotion to Torvald.
31** Krogstad acknowledges he thought of suicide during his disgrace but didn't have the "courage" to go through with it.
32* EarnYourHappyEnding: For Krogstad and Linde. They risk financial ruin and social humiliation through most of the story, but they avert both and can rekindle their relationship because they choose to do the right thing.
33* FirstNameBasis: Torvald names the trope when discussing Krogstad's behavior while working at the bank. Krogstad seems to think familiarity will ensure a promotion, but it actually leads to him being fired.
34** While Nora, because of social conventions, never addresses the male characters other than her husband except as "Doctor" (for Rank) and "Mister" (for Krogstad), a major hint there is more going on between them than is obvious at first is Mrs Linde always calls Krogstad either simply by last name without "Mister" (in the Norwegian to him, and others in English) or "Nils" (in most translations) when they're alone, and when speaking to her, Krogstad simply calls her "Kristine." It's also a shock to her (and a clue to nineteenth-century audiences what's coming) when Dr. Rank calls Nora by her name instead of "Mrs. Helmer" when [[spoiler: confessing his love to her. When she is disturbed by his confession, he switches back to "Mrs Helmer."]] The social rules of the time meant men did not use women's given names or vice versa unless they were on close terms.
35* {{Foil}}: Several of them. The inclusion of foil characters in A Doll's House serves not only to advance the story but to magnify Nora and Torvald's relationship and differences.
36** Dr. Rank is one to Torvald. Rank is a modest, unfortunate figure who shows a degree of respect towards Nora, whereas Torvald is a big presence with the perfect life and vague respect to Nora.
37** Mrs. Linde is melancholic and more down-to-earth with her views on the world; Nora, on the other hand, is lively (to the point of being a bit childish) and idealistic.
38** Linde and Krogstad's relationship is similar to Nora and Torvald's. The latter is a long-lasting marriage built on lies, the other one of childhood friends who know and love each other for who they are and finally find themselves together.
39* {{Foreshadowing}}:
40** Nora speaks to her trusted Nurse (who was Nora's childhood maternal figure) that "If anything were to happen, would you..."
41** Nora brings a packet of macaroons into the house, and she later reveals that Torvald forbade them lest they ruin her teeth. This subtle act of defiance hints that Nora is disillusioned with her marriage to Torvald.
42* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: The play manages to talk about Dr. Rank's death by syphilis by calling it "tuberculosis of the spine" and saying that he got it from eating too many rich foods...an excess of "pleasure" that's clearly implying he had a lot of sex in his youth. In the 1800s, this was probably the only way Ibsen could talk about [=STDs=] without setting off the censors.
43* GoodLawyersGoodClients: The Helmers have had so many financial problems because Torvald, according to Nora, will only take the cases he feels are morally right.
44* ItsAllAboutMe: Torvald is a ''grave'' offender at the end of the play. This, more than anything, convinces Nora that he is not half the man she thought he was.
45* {{Irony}}: Torvald spends most of the play condescendingly chuckling about what a silly little child Nora is without his patriarchal and paternalistic guidance. In the original ending of the play, when Nora gains enough confidence and self-resolve and resolves to leave him, Torvald himself becomes nervous and fumbling and half-begs her to stay, as he has no idea how he'll get along without her.
46* {{Jerkass}}: Torvald falls into this when he finds out about Nora's loan. He brutally chastises her, even to the point of labeling her as an unfit mother, without even so much as a thank you for getting the money to pay his medical bills. When [[spoiler: the debt is forgiven by Krogstad, Torvald immediately snaps back to his usual self, as though nothing had even happened, and neglects to acknowledge how badly he's damaged Nora's feelings, her perception of him, and their marriage]].
47** Before that, we see foreshadowing, from his admitting his biggest problem with Krogstad is his tendency to speak to Torvald as an equal (they were friends in school), to calling Mrs. Linde an insufferable bore behind her back, to his casual dismissal of the announcement Dr. Rank has [[spoiler: locked himself away to die, in part to spare Torvald's feelings]] that it's all for the best, really. Basically everyone we see who's some way in his power, he's disdainful of or outright cruel. Realizing he can turn it on her is Nora's final disillusionment.
48* LeavingYouToFindMyself: The play's conclusion, which might be the TropeCodifier. Nora's decision was quite controversial at the time, as it entailed not only leaving Torvald but abandoning her children - the actress playing Nora in the German production of the play forced Ibsen to write a new ending (which he detested) where Nora isn't shown leaving, "because '''''I''''' would never leave ''my'' children!" Said actress did change her mind, however, and went back to the original ending.
49* LoanShark: Krogstad, although his methods are rather unorthodox. Also deconstructed. Not only was paying up the last part of the debt more troublesome for Nora than the debt as a whole, but Krogstad turned out to be a complex person with his own motivations instead of a mere money-grubbing asshole.
50* LoveCannotOvercome: In the original ending of the play, Nora realizes that though she loves her husband and children, she cannot stay with them.
51* LoveRedeems: Zigzagged. Krogstad forgoes the blackmail for Linde's sake and is willing to bury the whole debt thing as well so Torvald never finds out, but she tells him not to do the latter (and send in a retraction) to show Nora the truth of her marriage. When Torvald finds out, he ''doesn't'' 'redeem' himself, and everything comes crashing down as a result.
52* LovingAShadow: Nora eventually realizes her and Torvald's marriage is this, on both sides.
53* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Deconstructed. Nora deliberately plays up her whimsicalness for Torvald's amusement, but it turns out that as a result of her behavior, she and Torvald have never sat down and had a serious conversation about ''anything'', and thus, their views on each other were severely distorted. Neither takes the discovery well.
54* MorallyBankruptBanker: Ultimately played straight with Torvald and subverted with Krogstad. It's complicated.
55* ObfuscatingStupidity: After the truth comes out about how Torvald doesn't really love Nora for Nora, she removes her proverbial mask and tells Torvald why she must leave him. After spending the entire play masquerading as an airheaded ditz whenever her husband's around, she suddenly shows him how serious and well-spoken she truly is.
56* ObliviousGuiltSlinging: When Torvald mentions that they must have no debts and later expounds upon how very unforgivable it was for Krogstad to engage in forgery.
57* PrecisionFStrike: Nora's first sign that she wants more out of life is her confiding in her friends that occasionally she just wants to randomly shout "Well, I'm damned," quite a shocking line at the time.
58* PromotionToParent: This happened to Anne the nursemaid when Nora's mother died. It also reoccurs again when Nora leaves her children to Anne's care.
59* {{Reconstruction}}: The reunion scene between Linde and Krogstand clarifies that their relationship ''is'' based on understanding. Thus, traditional marriage can work when husband and wife respect each other.
60* RuleOfSymbolism: The play has been examined numerous times from many angles with symbols found everywhere, but one of the most subtle comes from the metadrama that the title invokes: not only is Nora treated by Torvald like a doll, but the nature of theatre as literally looking into the stage rooms where the characters interact like dolls in a dollhouse reinforces Nora's predicament, reminds the audience they are watching a play, and implies how all of RealLife involves similarly being on display to family and society; Nora's LeavingYouToFindMyself moment then becomes a challenge writ large to the audience to do the same in their own lives.
61* StealthInsult: Krogstad gets one of these in after badmouthing Torvald in front of Nora.
62-->'''Nora:''' Mr. Krogstad, a little respect for my husband, please.\
63'''Krogstad:''' Certainly - all the respect he deserves.
64* SweetTooth: Nora from the start. She constantly hides some snacks and eats them when Torvald is not looking. Eventually, he calls her out on it. Nora later reveals that Torvald forbade her from bringing snacks into the house, and the fact she brought them anyway is a hint that she's disillusioned with her marriage.
65* TrophyWife: It's possible to view Nora as this. One interpretation would be that Torvald doesn't really care about Nora at all and just wants a doll, in her words, to look good, entertain his friends, and fit the expectations of a model wife, but another would be that he genuinely loves Nora but is simply incapable of understanding her due to his conservative views.
66* UnrequitedLove: [[spoiler: Dr. Ranke]].
67* UngratefulBastard: When Torvald learns about the loan Nora (illegally) took out to pay his medical expenses, [[spoiler:he turns on her, brutally chastises her, and practically disowns her because he fears how public knowledge of this might ruin ''his'' reputation]]. Nora's realization of his true character causes her disillusionment and desire to leave him.
68* VictorianNovelDisease: Dr. Ranke has "tuberculosis of the spine", which sounds like the above but was an actual disease, being a euphemism for syphilis. It is not, however, the result of Rank's father's dissolute life and Ibsen probably intended this as a LampshadeHanging of Torvald's unforgiving nature. It's referred to in this way because Ibsen couldn't openly refer to [=STDs=] during this time.
69* VillainousLineage: Zigzagged. At the climax of the play, Torvald (incorrectly) infers that Nora broke the law not out of a desire to help him but because she inherited her crooked father's moral weakness; she replies by suggesting that the worst hereditary problems in their society are passed on through flawed social ideals, not blood. Meanwhile, poor Dr. Rank dies of a literal disease implied to be the legacy of his father's immorality.
70* WrongGenreSavvy:
71** Nora spends most of the play thinking her situation will unfold like the plot of a typical Victorian domestic drama; the fact that Torvald doesn't follow the "script" as she hoped he would is what finally makes her turn on him.
72** The play itself also plays with audience expectations, using the five traditional archetypes of Norwegian theatre of the time, and then subverting them. This leads to the audience being WrongGenreSavvy about how the play will unfold.

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