Nora or a doll's house

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Nora or A Puppet's House is a play by Henrik Ibsen . The work, published in 1879, is called Et dukkehjem in the Norwegian original (literally translated: a doll's house ). The title describes the rigidity and isolation from which the protagonist Nora breaks out at the end. Both her father and her husband Torvald treat her, in accordance with contemporary social conventions, as a possession that is precious to them, but to which they do not allow a life of its own.

The play had its world premiere on December 21, 1879 in Copenhagen at the Kongelige Teater . The German premiere took place in Hamburg in 1880 . For these performances, the ending had to be changed in consideration of the contemporary view of the institution of marriage . It was planned that Nora would eventually leave Helmer and the children. In these performances, however, Nora stayed because of the children. The first performance with Ibsen’s conclusion took place in Munich in 1880 .

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Nora and Torvald Helmer have been married to each other for eight years and have three children. You live middle-class in a large apartment. It's Christmas . Because Torvald is promoted to bank director on New Year's Day , Nora is happy to finally no longer have to save. Her husband admonishes her to be sensible: he won't receive his first salary in the new position for three months. If something happens to him beforehand, she should never be left with debts . Torvald treats Nora like a doll he can play with, he calls her “squirrel” and “single lark” and takes her just as little seriously as her father used to do.

On one of those Christmas days, Nora's former girlfriend Christine Linde comes to visit. They haven't seen each other for ten years and tell each other what has happened in the meantime. Christine had also married a wealthy man eight years earlier, mainly because she needed money to support her mother and younger brothers. When he died three years earlier, however, he left her nothing, so she had to go back to work. Meanwhile, the mother has died and the brothers have grown up. Since she has lost her job, she asks Nora to ask Torvald if he could employ her in his bank.

Then Nora reports on her last ten years. Her husband Torvald got a high-ranking post after the marriage, and in the exercise of which he was so exhausted that the doctors feared for his life and urgently advised a recreational trip to the south . Immediately after the birth of their first child, the family went to Italy for a year . Torvald still believes that Nora's father paid for the expensive trip. Christine is the first person Nora tells the truth: She took out a loan from attorney Krogstad . Her father was supposed to sign the promissory note as surety . But he was on his deathbed, and Nora didn't want him to worry about her husband's health. So she forged her father's signature.

In fact, Krogstad realizes the truth on those Christmas days: Although Nora's father had been dead for three days, he had given his signature. Krogstad is sure that Nora must have faked them. Despite everything, the woman is not aware of any guilt , because she wanted the best for her husband and her father; but the lawyer explains to her "The law does n't ask much about the motives" and tries to blackmail Nora: she should dissuade her husband from firing him. He works as an office clerk in the same bank that Torvald will soon head. However, Torvald does not respond to Nora's request, because Krogstad is also said to have forged a signature. "He did not deny the act and served a sentence for it," says Torvald. As a replacement for Krogstad, who he does not like, he wants to hire Christine Linde.

But Krogstad writes a letter to Torvald, in which he informs him about Nora's forgery of documents . After he put the letter in Torvald's mailbox himself, the situation comes to a head: Now it is only a matter of time before the letter is read.

Krogstad had advertised Christine Linde years ago. But she had to break with him because his earnings would not have been enough to support her mother and her two brothers, which he knows nothing about. Now she confesses her love for him and causes him to ask Torvald for his letter back unopened. Christine dissuades him, however: She is convinced that Nora and Torvald cannot stick to secrecy and that there must be a discussion.

Torvald reads the letter and reacts with dismay and excessive insults: “Oh, what a terrible awakening! All through these eight years - she who was my joy and my pride - a hypocrite, a liar - yes, worse, worse - a criminal! [...] All the reckless principles of your father - be silent! Your father's reckless principles - you inherited them all. No religion, no morality, no sense of duty - […] You have destroyed all my happiness. You ruined my whole future. [...] And so miserably I have to sink and perish because of a careless woman! "

However, Torvald wants to avoid a scandal at all costs and therefore neither separation nor divorce. Nora should stay in the house and pretend to the outside world that nothing has happened. He can cope with Krogstad's blackmail attempts.

Another letter is handed in from Krogstad containing the promissory note with the forged signature. Torvald throws the promissory note into the fire, forgives Nora and says that everything can go on as before.

But Nora is deeply disappointed, because she has now clearly recognized that Torvald was and is always only about honor and status. She realizes that he never took her seriously as a partner. “Our home was nothing more than a playroom. At home, at Papa's, I was treated like a small doll, here like a big one. And the children, in turn, were my dolls. I was quite happy when you played with me, just as the children were happy when I played with them. That was our marriage, Torvald. "

As a result, she leaves her husband and children, while at the same time questioning social morals and the given role expectations : "I have to find out who is right, society or me."

characters

Nora Helmer

The protagonist of the piece undergoes a major change. From an originally capricious, childlike and always happy person, she changes into an increasingly thoughtful woman with a desire for more self-determination . She already felt constrained by her father and has been experiencing the same for several years from her husband Torvald Helmer . She should be his "lark", "little Nora", always in a happy mood and dancing around him. She is particularly proud of having saved her Torvald's life when he was terminally ill. In financially tight times, he was saved only by a spa stay in the south, which she financed with a loan . However, for this she had to forge the signature of her dying father, which was to put her under great pressure later.

In the end, Nora is completely convinced that she and Torvald are not a match and that they are not having a real marriage. So, despite Torvald's pleading, she packs her things and leaves her husband and children.

Torvald Helmer

Torvald Helmer is Nora's husband. He is a lawyer and is supposed to get a job as a bank director of a joint stock bank after the New Year, which will give the family a higher income in the future , which in turn improves his social position. He is very fixated on the law and hardly seems to take other people's feelings into account when making decisions. Torvald is a man who is very conscientious about his life and is economical with money. The fact that he has achieved his professional goal (promotion to bank director) shows how ambitious he is. Torvald still does not have a good image of women, as he describes his wife Nora as a single lark (a fun-loving bird who kills his lust). With his money and his feigned charm he tries to buy his wife's love.

He treats her like a child in that he asks her whether she has nibbled again and does not give her any money, as he cannot control what she will buy for it. In this way, she asserts her own will, which was against the role model of a woman at the time. He takes possession of his wife Nora as his "doll" (see alternative title A Doll's House ). However, when he had to protectively face her, namely when Krogstad blackmailed her with a forged signature, he only thought of his reputation.

Christine Linde

She is a childhood friend of Nora, who entered into a marriage of convenience in her financial need. However, her husband soon died leaving her with nothing. She abandoned her real love, Krogstad, because he could not offer her any financial security. During the piece, however, the two find each other again. She tries to make the letter from Krogstad less bad by talking to him so that he can deliver a second letter containing the note and a letter.

Nils Krogstad

Krogstad is the one from whom Nora secretly borrowed the money for the trip with Helmer. He is also a lawyer and also works in the joint stock bank, but is due to be fired because of his past (he too forged signatures). He tries to prevent this by blackmailing Nora , the wife of the director Helmer , with the signature she clearly forged. After getting back together with his childhood sweetheart, Nora's girlfriend Christine Linde, he too undergoes a change. He sends the certificate back to Nora and thus also withdraws his blackmail attempts.

Doctor Rank

The doctor is a childhood friend of Helmer / Torvald , who is a guest of Helmer and Nora almost every day . As it turns out in the piece, he does this not least because he is in love with Nora . The terminally ill, who ultimately dies in deliberate loneliness, does not, however, play a decisive role. It should be noted, however, that he is the only one Nora can talk to.

Nora's children

Nora's children Ivar (born shortly before the trip to Italy), Bob and Emmy can only be seen in the first act, but are often mentioned later. When Nora sees her own future threatened, the first thing she always thinks of is her. When she leaves her husband, however, she also deliberately leaves her children without seeing them or saying goodbye to them beforehand. Just as Torvald treated Nora as a doll, Nora treated the children as dolls and is unable to raise them to be people and not to be dolls, since she was never allowed to enjoy such an education herself.

Annemarie

Anne-Marie is the Helmer family's nanny. This makes her almost like a second mother to Nora's children. She was also ready to leave her own child to be Nora's nanny. She has known Nora from childhood.

Helene

Helene is the housemaid at Helmers and only has a supporting role. Anne-Marie, the nanny, is described much more, although they both play similar roles. They both help the Helmer family.

City messenger

The town messenger only appears briefly at the beginning of the play when he helps Nora, who comes with him from shopping for Christmas presents and the Christmas tree. It does not play any further role, only through Nora's words “There is a crown . No - keep the rest "makes it clear that the family belongs to the upper middle class, since at that time the average daily wage of such a servant was 2.22 kroner, so Nora gives him a very high tip.

Adaptations

Stage and literature

Film adaptations

year Movie title Country of production Director Actress of Nora annotation
1923 Nora Germany Berthold quarter Olga Chekhova Silent movie
1944 Nora Germany Harald Braun Luise Ullrich
1965 Nora or a doll's house Germany Imo Moszkowicz Maria Schell TV movie
1973 Nora Helmer Germany Rainer Werner Fassbinder Margit Carstensen TV movie
1973 A doll's house United Kingdom Patrick Garland Claire Bloom TV movie
1973 Nora United Kingdom Joseph Losey Jane Fonda
1980 L'ultimo spettacolo di Nora Helmer Italy Carlo Quartucci Valeria Ciangottini TV movie
2003 Nora Germany Thomas Ostermeier Anne Tismer TV movie
2008 Mabou Mines Dollhouse United States Lee Breuer TV film, adaptation of modern theater production
2011 Nora or a doll's house Germany Herbert Fritsch Manja Kuhl TV film, adaptation based on a production by the Oberhausen Theater

literature

  • Henrik Ibsen: Nora or a doll's house . Authorized translation by Marie von Borch and Emma Klingenfeld, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-596-90047-3 (= Fischer-Taschenbuch , volume 90047 Fischer Klassik ).
  • Henrik Ibsen : Nora - A Doll's House / Et dukkehjem . Bilingual edition: German / Norwegian. Ondefo-Verlag 2006, ISBN 978-3-939703-03-7
  • Rüdiger Bernhardt: Henrik Ibsen: Nora (A dolls house). King's Explanations and Materials (Volume 177). Bange Verlag, Hollfeld 2005, ISBN 978-3-8044-1768-7
  • Aldo Keel: cracks in the doll's house - Nora . In: Ibsen's Dramas . Reclam, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-15-017530-5 , pp. 69-87 (= Reclam Interpretations , RUB 17530).
  • Zinnie Harris: A Doll's House. Faber and Faber, 2009, ISBN 978-0-571-24954-1 .

Web links