LEC052023 : Hanna. P. A "A Doll's House" as a Realistic Play
Hanna. P. A
Dr. Joseph Koyippally
LEC052023
03 Feb 2021
A
Doll’s House as a Realistic Play
One
of the most revolutionary plays in the history of drama, Henrik Ibsen’s A
Doll’s House is the explicit portrayal of the established social roles.
Written in 1879, the play is regarded as the best model for realistic drama
which the author uses as a weapon for societal change. Firmly rooted in
realistic techniques, A Doll’s House reflects the 19th
century middle class life and morality.
Realistic
drama is a type of drama which originated in the last half of the 19th
century and attempts to show everyday life through the content and presentation.
The purpose of realistic drama is to replace the artificial romance by adding
accurate representations of ordinary people in probable situations. The 19th
century romanticism is closely associated to Henrik Ibsen, the father of
realism, who challenged the existing romantic traditions. He discarded outmoded
dramatic techniques such as soliloquies, asides, and monologues which is one of
the prominent features of Ibsen’s plays as in A Doll’s House.
The
best noted example of realistic drama, A Doll’s House depicts the 19th
century Norwegian society – a highly patriarchal society with laws written by
men to dominate the feminine conduct and roles. In the play, Ibsen presents the
major male character, Torvald Helmer as the main provider of the family and one
who exercises excessive control over his wife which is evident in his dialogues.
For example, Helmer says Nora, “Of course you couldn’t poor little girl. You
had the best of intentions to please us all, and that’s the main thing.” (Act
I). Here Helmer is the one who controls
Nora and forces her to live according his wishes by leaving her as a “doll”
moving with the rhythm of his keys.
Ibsen
provides the readers with the vivid portrait of middle class life and morality. The deliberate
establishment of “ideal womanhood” can be seen in Mrs Linde’s dialogue to
Krogstad, “I want to be a mother to someone and your children need a mother.”(Act
III). The end of the play marks the necessity of drastic social change through
the act of Nora who grows as a human being who seeks individual freedom. Ibsen
persuades the audience to celebrate her gradual wisdom and self realisation thus
uses realism as a useful weapon to propose the so-called societal norms.
A
Doll’s House shocked its first audience with its
radical insights into the social roles of husband and wife. The features of
realism is visible even in the minute details of the play including background,
plot, characterization, etc. The play proposes the inevitability of self assertion, with its realistic depiction of
social life, which was an herculean task for the society of the time. Thus the
play touches the peak of success as the best among realistic plays with its peculiar
realistic features.
Works Cited
Abrams, M. H and Geoffrey Galt Harpham. A
Glossary of Literary Terms. 11th ed., Cengage Learning,2019.
Habib, M.A.R. A History of
Literary Criticism : From Plato to the Present. Blackwell, 2005.
Ibsen, Henrik. A
Doll’s House. Dover Publications, 2000.
Waresk,
Anna, “Realism in A Doll’s House”. Prezi, 30 Apr. 2013, prezi.com/bkbpd-vyftn5/realism-in-a-dolls
house. Accessed 03 Feb 2021.
Comments
Post a Comment