IMPORTANCE OF THE TITLE ‘A DOLL’S HOUSE’

Henric Ibsen is the writer of a marvelous play ‘A Doll’s House’. He was a great prominent and eminent literary figure of Modern age. He has written about social problems and especially about the problems faced by the women. Therefore, he is sometimes misunderstood as a feminist writer.

‘A Doll’s House” means that all the people who live in Torvald Helmer’s residence are being treated like dolls even we cannot spare Torvald himself. Torvald plays with his family members as if they were dolls. He interacts with his family members and ignores them according to his mood and choice just as a child does when she plays with her dolls. He treats with his wife as a doll. In short, he has created an atmosphere in his house that resembles a doll’s house generally.

Torvald maintains an office at home. He uses his office to hide himself away from his family when he does not want to interact with them. He comes out of his office only when he desires, aspires and wishes to play with his family members. Helmer asks Nora (his wife) to practice Tarantella (a dance which is performed to cure through contortions caused by the bite of a Tarantella spider in summer) while he keeps himself shut in his office and pays no heed to her attractive dancing movements. Rather, he bluntly speaks;

"I shall hear nothing; you can make as much noise as you please."

Torvald keeps a blunt behaviour towards his pretty looking wife. He criticizes her for being so spendthrift when she brings a doll for her daughter. Nora says very politely and happily;

"And ah so cheap! Look, here is a new suit for Ivar, and a sword; and a horse and a trumpet for Bob; and a doll and dolly’s bedstead for Emmy –."

Later, when she practices and dances the Tarantella for which she has won a Capri dress like that of a doll, she appears like a wretched decorative plaything. Both of her these acts (dancing and dressing) are for Torvald who wants her remain dependent upon him.

In act III, Nora tells Torvald that both, he and her father, have treated her like a doll-child, with having no opinion of her own, and that they have played with her as if she were a doll. Nora’s father used to call her his ‘Doll child’. She was a sort of some doll or a toy to play with. Nora feels that her marriage has been a similar kind of relationship. Torvald’s home has been a doll’s house for her.

Nora exclaims with sorrow that both the men have committed a great sin against her by discouraging her from growing mature. Torvald’s use of pet names for her (Nora) suggests that he sees her as a child. Nora stands Torvald responsible for her present stunted state. Nora speaks out;

"That’s just it; you have never understood me. I have been greatly wronged Torvald – first by papa and then by you."

Helmer: "What! By us two – by us two, who have loved you better than anyone else in the world?"

Nora: (Shook her head). "You have never loved me. You have never thought it pleasant to be in love with me."

Helmer: "Nora, what do I hear you saying?"

Nora: "It is perfectly true, Torvald! When I was at home with papa, he told me his decisions only, and so I had the same opinions; and if I drifted from him, I concealed the fact, because he would have never liked it. He called me his doll-child, and he played with me as I used to play with my dolls. And when I came to live with you –."

Hemer: "what sort of an expression is that to use about our marriage?"

Nora: (Undisturbed). "I mean that I was simply transferred from papa’s hands into yours. You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same taste as you – or else I pretended so, I am not really not quite sure which – sometimes the one and sometimes the other. When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I had been living here like a poor woman – just from hand to mouth. You and papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life."

According to some critics, Torvald is another doll in ‘The Doll’s House’. As Torvald uses Nora for his amusement as a decorative and beautiful object, so does Nora with Torvald as a provider of money and security.

To sum up the discussion, we may say that all the characters of the play ‘The Doll’s House’ are dolls in the hands of each other. The whole story moves around the title making it interesting and arresting. No doubt, Henrik Ibsen was a perpetual fountain of good sense.