how to write a book review of a doll's house

Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” Analysis Essay (Book Review)

Elements of fiction, dramatic techniques, layers of understanding.

Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House was published in 1879, and it provoked intense reactions of the public because of its controversial theme based on the idea of gender inequality in the context of the nineteenth century. Ibsen’s approach to discussing social issues and presenting them in the form of plays written as prose became one of the key features of modern drama. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the prominent elements of fiction used in A Doll’s House as the most vivid example of Ibsen’s approach, analyze the applied dramatic techniques, and describe different layers of understanding related to the play.

The key elements of fiction are usually related to the author’s development of a plot, characters, a point of view, a setting, a theme, and a style. In A Doll’s House , Ibsen develops a plot that has a climax near the end of the play based on such techniques as foreshadowing and conflicts. The dramatic tension in the plot is created by foreshadowing observed in dialogues to help the audience predict the future development of actions. The overall plot is built on Nora’s secret, and Torvald’s possible reactions to this concealed information can be predicted. In Act I, he says, “Keep your little Christmas secrets to yourself, my darling. They will all be revealed tonight when the Christmas Tree is lit, no doubt” (Ibsen 22). The plot is also based on conflicts between Nora and Torvald and Nora and Krogstad, which are external, and they develop in all three acts of the play. Nora’s internal conflict regarding her decision to reveal her secret to Torvald can also be observed throughout the whole play.

It is also important to pay attention to the characterization used by Ibsen to present Nora as a dynamic character in contrast to Torvald as a static character. In Act I, Nora is represented as a woman who is cheerful and living in her fantasy world of a happy marriage (Ibsen 12). In this reality, Nora commits a crime to help her husband, but she is viewed as a doll, as a “little squirrel,” and a “little singing-bird,” but not as a woman with her own opinion (Ibsen 14-26). Still, in Act III, Nora’s character is demonstrated as changing in contrast to uncompromising Torvald, and she becomes more decisive.

The author also paid much attention to developing the theme of the play concerning symbols and motifs. Nora’s transformation is represented by the symbol of a doll and the motif of a masquerade in Act II. Changing clothes for the masquerade is used to accentuate Nora’s suppressed identity and the necessity of concealing not only her secret but also her desires. Therefore, while seeing masquerade clothes, Nora wants to “rip them in a million pieces!” not to pretend anymore (Ibsen 84). However, Nora still assumes another identity during the masquerade, and her dance represents her fear, panic, dissatisfaction, and frustration (Ibsen 86). Other important symbols that are used to develop the theme of a woman’s position in a family and society are a dollhouse and a Christmas tree.

In this play, such dramatic techniques as entrances and exits play an important role because they help develop the plot. The entrances of Christine Linde and Krogstad in Act I accentuate Nora’s attitudes to these people and her inner fears and emotions. What is more important is that the exit of Nora in Act III emphasizes her parting with her past. In this context, much attention is paid to using sounds in addition to music and lighting. When Nora decides to leave Torvald, she slams the door putting an end to her marriage (Ibsen 114). In Act II, music is used to support tarantella and accentuate all emotions Nora has and needs to cope with. In addition, Ibsen also uses the soliloquy in Act I of the play to demonstrate all these feelings that cause Nora’s unrest, which will later lead to her performance of tarantella and decision to leave her home.

All the discussed elements can also be analyzed concerning different layers of understanding used by Ibsen for developing his play. At the narrative layer, Ibsen provides the message about a submissive role of a woman in a family in the context of the first feminist ideas spread in Europe. The aesthetic layer in Ibsen’s play is represented by discussing the topic that was not previously described in plays in Norway. Therefore, the play had an enormous effect on the public. At the mechanical layer, A Doll’s House takes a form of a play written in prose that supports the innovativeness of the presented idea by the use of symbols, imagery, and language. From this perspective, at the dynamic layer, Ibsen develops the tension in his play accentuating external and internal conflicts of the characters and provokes the audience’s emotions while proposing the end that was unexpected in the context of the nineteenth century. At the connections layer, Ibsen links the play to his previous works and other authors’ works accentuating its traditional structure that has an unusual development and ending.

Ibsen’s A Doll’s House has become a vivid example of modern drama. The play has drawn the public’s attention to the problem of a woman’s role in society. The unique effect on the audience became a result of using certain elements of fiction and applying efficient dramatic techniques. As a result, this play can be analyzed concerning five layers of understanding that contribute to its interpretation.

Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House . CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015.

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IvyPanda. (2021, May 29). Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll’s House" Analysis. https://ivypanda.com/essays/henrik-ibsens-a-dolls-house-analysis/

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll’s House" Analysis." May 29, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/henrik-ibsens-a-dolls-house-analysis/.

A Summary and Analysis of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

A Doll’s House is one of the most important plays in all modern drama. Written by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen in 1879, the play is well-known for its shocking ending, which attracted both criticism and admiration from audiences when it premiered.

Before we offer an analysis of A Doll’s House , it might be worth recapping the ‘story’ of the play, which had its roots in real-life events involving a friend of Ibsen’s.

A Doll’s House : summary

The play opens on Christmas Eve. Nora Helmer has returned home from doing the Christmas shopping. Her husband, a bank manager named Torvald, asks her how much she has spent. Nora confides to her friend Mrs Linde that, shortly after she and Torvald married, he fell ill and she secretly borrowed some money to pay for his treatment. Mrs Linde is looking for work from Nora’s husband.

She is still paying that money back (by setting aside a little from her housekeeping money on a regular basis) to the man she borrowed it from, Krogstad – a man who, it just so happens, works for Nora’s husband … who is about to sack Krogstad for forging another person’s signature.

But Krogstad knows Nora’s secret, that she forged her father’s signature, and he tells her in no uncertain terms that, if she lets her husband sack him, Krogstad will make sure her husband knows her secret.

But Torvald refuses to grant Nora’s request when she beseeches him to go easy on Krogstad and give him another chance. It looks as though all is over for Nora and her husband will soon know what she did.

The next day – Christmas Day – Nora is waiting for the letter from Krogstad to arrive, and for her secret to be revealed. She entreats her husband to be lenient towards Krogstad, but again, Torvald refuses, sending the maid off with the letter for Krogstad which informs him that he has been dismissed from Torvald’s employment.

Doctor Rank, who is dying of an incurable disease, arrives as Nora is getting ready for a fancy-dress party. Nora asks him if he will help her, and he vows to do so, but before she can say any more, Krogstad appears with his letter for Torvald. Now he’s been sacked, he is clearly going to go through with his threat and tell his former employer the truth about what Helmer’s wife did.

When Mrs Linde – who was romantically involved with Krogstad – arrives, she tries to appeal to Krogstad’s better nature, but he refuses to withdraw the letter. Then Torvald arrives, and Nora dances for him to delay her husband from reading Krogstad’s letter.

The next act takes place the following day: Boxing Day. The Helmers are at their fancy-dress party. Meanwhile, we learn that Mrs Linde broke it off with Krogstad because he had no money, and she needed cash to pay for her mother’s medical treatment. Torvald has offered Mrs Linde Krogstad’s old job, but she says that she really wants him – money or no money – and the two of them are reconciled.

When Nora returns with Torvald from the party, Mrs Linde, who had prevented Krogstad from having a change of heart and retrieving his letter, tells Nora that she should tell her husband everything. Nora refuses, and Torvald reads the letter from Krogstad anyway.

Nora is distraught, and sure enough, Torvald blames her – until another letter from Krogstad arrives, cancelling Nora’s debt to him, whereupon Torvald forgives her completely.

But Nora has realised something about her marriage to Torvald, and, changing out of her fancy-dress outfit, she announces that she is leaving him. She takes his ring and gives him hers, before going to the door and leaving her husband – slamming the door behind her.

A Doll’s House : analysis

A Doll’s House is one of the most important plays in all of modern theatre. It arguably represents the beginning of modern theatre itself. First performed in 1879, it was a watershed moment in naturalist drama, especially thanks to its dramatic final scene. In what has become probably the most famous statement made about the play, James Huneker observed: ‘That slammed door reverberated across the roof of the world.’

Why? It’s not hard to see why, in fact. And the answer lies in the conventional domestic scenarios that were often the subject of European plays of the period when Ibsen was writing. Indeed, these scenarios are well-known to anyone who’s read Ibsen’s play, because A Doll’s House is itself a classic example of this kind of conventional play.

Yes: the shocking power of Ibsen’s play lies not in the main part of the play itself but in its very final scene, which undoes and subverts everything that has gone before.

This conventional play, the plot of which A Doll’s House follows with consummate skill on Ibsen’s part, is a French tradition known as the ‘ well-made play ’.

Well-made plays have a tight plot, and usually begin with a secret kept from one or more characters in the play (regarding A Doll’s House : check), a back-story which is gradually revealed during the course of the play (check), and a dramatic resolution, which might either involve reconciliation when the secret is revealed, or, in the case of tragedies, the death of one or more of the characters.

Ibsen flirts with both kinds of endings, the comic and the tragic, at the end of A Doll’s House : when Nora knows her secret’s out, she contemplates taking her own life. But when Torvald forgives her following the arrival of Krogstad’s second letter, it looks as though a tragic ending has been averted and we have a comic one in its place.

Just as the plot of the play largely follows these conventions, so Ibsen is careful to portray both Torvald Helmer and his wife Nora as a conventional middle-class married couple. Nora’s behaviour at the end of the play signals an awakening within her, but this is all the more momentous, and surprising, because she is hardly what we would now call a radical feminist.

Similarly, her husband is not nasty to her: he doesn’t mistreat her, or beat her, or put her down, even if he patronises her as his ‘doll’ or ‘bird’ and encourages her to behave like a silly little creature for him. But Nora encourages him to carry on doing so.

They are both caught up in bourgeois ideology: financial security is paramount (as symbolised by Torvald’s job at the bank); the wife is there to give birth to her husband’s children and to dote on him a little, dancing for him and indulging in his occasional whims.

A Doll’s House takes such a powerful torch to all this because it lights a small match underneath it, not because it douses everything in petrol and sets off a firebomb.

And it’s worth noting that, whilst Ibsen was a champion of women’s rights and saw them as their husbands’ intellectual equal, A Doll’s House does not tell us whether we should support or condemn Nora’s decision to walk out on her husband. She has, after all, left her three blameless children without a mother, at least until she returns – if she ever does return. Is she selfish?

Of course, that is something that the play doesn’t answer for us. Ibsen himself later said that he was not ‘tendentious’ in anything he wrote: like a good dramatist, he explores themes which perhaps audiences and readers hadn’t been encouraged to explore before, but he refuses to bang what we would now call the ‘feminist’ drum and turn his play into a piece of political protest.

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2 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House”

This powerful play foretold the 1960’s monumental epic of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, A similar awakening for middle class women, of their unnamed discontent within a marriage. Both paved the the way to the Feminist Movement of the 1970’s where with increased consciousness of economic inequities, women rebelled, just as Nora had done. Homage is owing to both Ibsen in his era and Friedan in hers. Today there are increasing numbers of women serving as Presidents of their nations and in the USA a female Vice-President recently elected to that prestigious office.

I remember reading the play while being a college student. It seemed so sad but at the same time so close to real life. Maybe our lives are quite sad after all.

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Book Review – A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

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Initial Thoughts About A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

To place things in context, this was the 19th century and women didn’t enjoy the rights they do now. Their husbands were king and they couldn’t borrow money without their husbands’ consent.

What is A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen About?

The main character in the play is Nora Helmer and her husband Torvald Helmer is critically ill. The doctor tells her that Torvald will not survive unless he is taken to a more temperate climate to heal. The husband doesn’t believe in going into debt.

At the same time that her husband is critically ill, her father is essentially on his death bed. Nora doesn’t want to bother him with her plight, so she forges her father’s signature. At the time, all she was thinking about was the welfare of those she loves. She tells Torvald that she got the money to go on the trip from her dad, and he believes her. Why wouldn’t he believe her, after all she is his doll wife.

Fast forward, their financial situation will be improved substantially very shortly because Torvald has been appointed manager of a bank. Nora’s childhood friend Christina Linden comes to visit her. They spend quite some time talking, but Nora often monopolizes the conversation, and she comes across indulgent and vain. Christina is penniless, her husband died and left her to fend for herself. She is also accustomed to taking care of others – mother and younger brothers. Her mother has died, and her brothers can now take care of themselves.

Christina has to find employment, and she doesn’t have many choices because she is a woman, but she is allowed to work because she is widowed. She learns of Nora’s new circumstances, so she wants her to ask Torvald for a bank job on her behalf.

The play is very well written with many intricate twists and turns. It so happens that Nils works at the same bank as Torvald, and he decides that he is going to dismiss him. In a desperate act, Nils decides to blackmail Nora. He tells her to make sure that her husband doesn’t dismiss him else he will tell Torvald about the forgery. Nora isn’t able to convince Torvald and he learns about the loan and the forgery.

He loses “it”, disparages her, and tells her she has her father’s bad qualities and not fit to raise their three children. He tells her that to avoid a scandal, she can continue to live in the family home. Shortly after, he opens a second letter from Nils, who has now had a change of heart and returns Nora’s IOU, and decides not to take action. He has found the love of a good woman, Christina, who brings out the best in him.

Torvald changes his tune, and once again Nora is his doll wife. Unfortunately it’s too late and the play ends with her leaving him and the three children. Despite that, one of those twists in the story leaves him feeling hopeful.

A Doll's House 1973 Anthony Hopkins, Based on the Ibsen Play

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjfO9qkQZpo

Final Thoughts on A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

• Are your personal and professional relationships built on a strong foundation? Can they weather the test of time?
• How far would you go to protect the ones you love?
• Do you put the people close to you on a pedestal and worship them like an idol?

Center Players Presents: A Doll's House – Full Play

Books by Henrik Ibsen

• A Doll's House – review (guardian.co.uk)
• Today's Birthday: Henrik Ibsen (euzicasa.wordpress.com)

Book links are affiliate links.

About the Author  Avil Beckford

Hello there! I am Avil Beckford, the founder of The Invisible Mentor. I am also a published author, writer, expert interviewer host of The One Problem Podcast and MoreReads Success Blueprint, a movement to help participants learn in-demand skills for future jobs. Sign-up for MoreReads: Blueprint to Change the World today! In the meantime, Please support me by buying my e-books Visit My Shop , and thank you for connecting with me on LinkedIn , Facebook , Twitter and Pinterest !

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• Book Review

BOOK REVIEW: A Doll’s House

Book Title: A Doll’s House

(2018 to 2022 compulsory set book play for F3s and F4s Kenyan Secondary School students).

Author:   Henrik Ibsen

Reviewer: Dr. George Ngwacho Areba

Introduction

A Doll’s House (Norwegian: Et dukkehjem; also translated as A Doll House) is a three-act play in prose by Henrik Ibsen.

It premiered at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having been published earlier that month. The play is significant for its critical attitude toward 19th century marriage norms. It aroused great controversy at the time, as it concludes with the protagonist, Nora, leaving her husband and children because she wants to discover herself.

Ibsen was inspired by the belief that “a woman cannot be herself in modern society,” since it is “an exclusively male society, with laws made by men and with prosecutors and judges who assess feminine conduct from a masculine viewpoint. Many literary critics argue that the play’s theme is not women’s rights, but rather “the need of every individual to find out the kind of person he or she really is and to strive to become that person. In 2006, the centennial of Ibsen’s death, A Doll’s House held the distinction of being the world’s most performed play for that year. 

The title of the play is most commonly translated as A Doll’s House, though some scholars use A Doll House. Scholars argue that the only significance in the alternative translation is the difference in the way the toy is named in Britain and the United States.

Literary critics argue that the alternative “simply sounds more idiomatic to Americans.” Ibsen’s play should be referred to as “A Doll House” simply because the possessive version “A Doll’s House” incorrectly implies that Nora has ownership and authority in her own house, which she does not. “A Doll House” rightly symbolizes Nora’s feelings of being treated like a doll by Torvald in her own house.

Thematic concerns

Gender inequalities/Male Chauvinism

This play focuses on the ways that women are viewed in their various roles, especially in marriage and motherhood. Torvald, in particular, has a very clear but constricted definition of women’s roles. He believes that it is the sacred duty of a woman to be a good wife and mother. Moreover, he tells Nora that women are responsible for the morality of their children. In essence, he sees women as childlike, helpless creatures detached from reality on the one hand, but on the other hand as influential moral forces responsible for the purity of the world through their influence in the home.

Ideas of masculinity are present in more subtle ways.

Nora’s description of Torvald suggests that she is partially aware of the inconsistent pressures on male roles as much as the inconsistent pressures on female roles in their society. Torvald’s own conception of manliness is based on the value of total independence. He dislikes the idea of financial or moral dependence on anyone. His strong desire for independence may put him out of touch with the reality of human interdependence. Nora has more agency and decision-making skills than she is given credit for. Nora seems to wish to enjoy the privileges and power enjoyed by males in her society. She seems to understand the confinement she faces simply by virtue of her sex. 

Materialism

Torvald in particular focuses on money and material goods rather than people. His sense of manhood depends on his financial independence. He was an unsuccessful barrister because he refused to take “unsavory cases.” As a result, he switched jobs to the bank, where he primarily deals with money. For him, money and materialism may be a way to avoid the complications of personal contact.

Religion 

The play takes place around Christmas. The first act occurs on Christmas Eve, the second on Christmas Day, and the third on Boxing Day. Although there is a great deal of talk about morality throughout the play, Christmas is never presented as a religious holiday. Moreover, religion is directly questioned later by Nora in the third act. In fact, religion is discussed primarily as a material experience. Once again, what normally are important values for people and their relationships—children, personal contact, and, here, religion—are subordinate to materialism and selfish motives.

Dr. Rank has inherited his tuberculosis from his father, who lived a morally questionable life, and in much the same way Nora worries that her morally reprehensible actions (fraudulently signing her father’s name) will infect her children. Corruption, the play suggests, is hereditary. As he does in other plays, such as The Wild Duck, Ibsen explores the tension between real life and moral ideals. 

The Life-Lie

Are you really alive, if, like Nora, you are living in a delusional world? This question resounds throughout Ibsen’s canon, particularly in The Wild Duck, and the question is important in judging how to respond to the play. Is the end of the play, for instance, the glorious triumph of individualism, the moment at which Nora really becomes herself, or is it a foolish, idealistic decision which is the beginning of the end of Nora’s happiness? 

 Lead character briefs 

The play’s protagonist and the wife of Torvald Helmer, Nora has never lived alone, going immediately from the care of her father to that of her husband. Inexperienced in the ways of the world as a result of this sheltering, Nora is impulsive and materialistic. But the play questions the extent to which these attributes are mere masks that Nora uses to negotiate the patriarchal oppression she faces every day. The audience learns in the first act that Nora is independent enough to negotiate the loan to make Krogstad’s holiday possible, and over the course of the play, Nora emerges as a fully independent woman who rejects both the false union of her marriage and the burden of motherhood.

Nora’s husband of eight years and Nora’s antagonistic character, Torvald Helmer, at the beginning of the play, has been promoted to manager of a bank. Torvald has built his middle-class living through his own work and not from family money. Focused on business, Torvald spends a great deal of his time at home in his study, avoiding general visitors and interacting very little with his children. In fact, he sees himself primarily as responsible for the financial welfare of his family and as a guardian for his wife. Torvald is particularly concerned with morality. 

Friend of the family and Torvald’s physician, Dr. Rank embodies and subverts the theatrical role of the male moral force that had been traditional in the plays of the time. Rather than providing moral guidance and example for the rest of the characters, Dr. Rank is a corrupting force, both physically and morally. Sick from consumption of the spine as a result of his father’s sexual exploits, the Doctor confesses his desire for Nora in the second act and goes off to die in the third act, leaving a visiting card with a black cross to signify that–for him–the end has come.

An old schoolmate of Nora’s, Mrs. Christine Linde comes back into Nora’s life after losing her husband and mother. She worked hard to support her helpless mother and two younger brothers since the death of her husband. Now, with her mother dead and her brothers being adults, she is a free agent. Pressed for money, Mrs. Linde successfully asks Nora to help her secure a job at Torvald’s bank. Ultimately, Mrs. Linde decides that she will only be happy if she goes off with Krogstad. Her older, weary viewpoint provides a foil to Nora’s youthful impetuousness. She perhaps also symbolizes hollowness in the matriarchal role. Her relationship with Krogstad also provides a point of comparison with that of Nora and Torvald.

Nils Krogstad is a man from whom Nora borrows money to pay for trip to Italy, an acquaintance of Torvald’s and an employee at the bank which Torvald has just taken over. Krogstad was involved in a work scandal many years previously; as a result, his name has been desecrated and his career stunted. When his job at the bank is jeopardized by Torvald’s refusal to work with a man he sees as hopelessly corrupt, Krogstad blackmails Nora to ensure that he does not lose his job. 

Ivar, Bob, and Emmy

Ther are Nora’s young children. Raised primarily by Anne, the Nurse (and Nora’s old nurse), the children spend little time with their mother or father. The time they do spend with Nora consists of Nora playing with them as if she were just another playmate. 

Other minor characters include Anne: The family nurse, Helen: A housemaid to Helmers and A Porter: who brings in the Christmas Tree.

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Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Drama Criticism › Analysis of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House

Analysis of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 27, 2020 • ( 0 )

Whether one reads A Doll’s House as a technical revolution in modern theater, the modern tragedy, the first feminist play since the Greeks, a Hegelian allegory of the spirit’s historical evolution, or a Kierkegaardian leap from aesthetic into ethical life, the deep structure of the play as a modern myth of self-transformation ensures it perennial importance as a work that honors the vitality of the human spirit in women and men.

—Errol Durbach, A Doll’s House : Ibsen’s Myth of Transformation

More than one literary historian has identified the precise moment when modern drama began: December 4, 1879, with the publication of Ibsen ’s Etdukkehjem ( A Doll’s House ), or, more dramatically at the explosive climax of the first performance in Copenhagen on December 21, 1879, with the slamming of the door as Nora Helmer shockingly leaves her comfortable home, respectable marriage, husband, and children for an uncertain future of self-discovery. Nora’s shattering exit ushered in a new dramatic era, legitimizing the exploration of key social problems as a serious concern for the modern theater, while sounding the opening blast in the modern sexual revolution. As Henrik Ibsen ’s biographer Michael Meyer has observed, “No play had ever before contributed so momentously to the social debate, or been so widely and furiously discussed among people who were not normally interested in theatrical or even artistic matter.” A contemporary reviewer of the play also declared: “When Nora slammed the door shut on her marriage, walls shook in a thousand homes.”

Ibsen set in motion a transformation of drama as distinctive in the history of the theater as the one that occurred in fifth-century b.c. Athens or Elizabethan London. Like the great Athenian dramatists and William Shakespeare, Ibsen fundamentally redefined drama and set a standard that later playwrights have had to absorb or challenge. The stage that he inherited had largely ceased to function as a serious medium for the deepest consideration of human themes and values. After Ibsen drama was restored as an important truth-telling vehicle for a comprehensive criticism of life. A Doll’s House anatomized on stage for the first time the social, psychological, emotional, and moral truths beneath the placid surface of a conventional, respectable marriage while creating a new, psychologically complex modern heroine, who still manages to shock and unsettle audiences more than a century later. A Doll’s House is, therefore, one of the ground-breaking modern literary texts that established in fundamental ways the responsibility and cost of women’s liberation and gender equality. According to critic Evert Sprinchorn, Nora is “the richest, most complex” female dramatic character since Shakespeare’s heroines, and as feminist critic Kate Millett has argued in Sexual Politics, Ibsen was the first dramatist since the Greeks to challenge the myth of male dominance. “In Aeschylus’ dramatization of the myth,” Millett asserts, “one is permitted to see patriarchy confront matriarchy, confound it through the knowledge of paternity, and come off triumphant. Until Ibsen’s Nora slammed the door announcing the sexual revolution, this triumph went nearly uncontested.”

The momentum that propelled Ibsen’s daring artistic and social revolt was sustained principally by his outsider status, as an exile both at home and abroad. His last deathbed word was “ Tvertimod !” (On the contrary!), a fitting epitaph and description of his artistic and intellectual mindset. Born in Skien, Norway, a logging town southwest of Oslo, Ibsen endured a lonely and impoverished childhood, particularly after the bankruptcy of his businessman father when Ibsen was eight. At 15, he was sent to Grimstad as an apothecary’s apprentice, where he lived for six years in an attic room on meager pay, sustained by reading romantic poetry, sagas, and folk ballads. He later recalled feeling “on a war footing with the little community where I felt I was being suppressed by my situation and by circumstances in general.” His first play, Cataline , was a historical drama featuring a revolutionary hero who reflects Ibsen’s own alienation. “ Cataline was written,” the playwright later recalled, “in a little provincial town, where it was impossible for me to give expression to all that fermented in me except by mad, riotous pranks, which brought down upon me the ill will of all the respectable citizens who could not enter into that world which I was wrestling with alone.”

Largely self-educated, Ibsen failed the university entrance examination to pursue medical training and instead pursued a career in the theater. In 1851 he began a 13-year stage apprenticeship in Bergen and Oslo, doing everything from sweeping the stage to directing, stage managing, and writing mostly verse dramas based on Norwegian legends and historical subjects. The experience gave him a solid knowledge of the stage conventions of the day, particularly of the so-called well-made play of the popular French playwright Augustin Eugène Scribe and his many imitators, with its emphasis on a complicated, artificial plot based on secrets, suspense, and surprises. Ibsen would transform the conventions of the well-made play into the modern problem play, exploring controversial social and human questions that had never before been dramatized. Although his stage experience in Norway was marked chiefly by failure, Ibsen’s apprenticeship was a crucial testing ground for perfecting his craft and providing him with the skills to mount the assault on theatrical conventions and moral complacency in his mature work.

In 1864 Ibsen began a self-imposed exile from Norway that would last 27 years. He traveled first to Italy, where he was joined by his wife, Susannah, whom he had married in 1858, and his son. The family divided its time between Italy and Germany. The experience was liberating for Ibsen; he felt that he had “escaped from darkness into light,” releasing the productive energy with which he composed the succession of plays that brought him worldwide fame. His first important works, Brand (1866) and Peer Gynt (1867), were poetic dramas, very much in the romantic mode of the individual’s conflict with experience and the gap between heroic assertion and accomplishment, between sobering reality and blind idealism. Pillars of Society (1877) shows him experimenting with ways of introducing these central themes into a play reflecting modern life, the first in a series of realistic dramas that redefined the conventions and subjects of the modern theater.

The first inklings of his next play, A Doll’s House , are glimpsed in Ibsen’s journal under the heading “Notes for a Modern Tragedy”:

There are two kinds of moral laws, two kinds of conscience, one for men and one, quite different, for women. They don’t understand each other; but in practical life, woman is judged by masculine law, as though she weren’t a woman but a man.

The wife in the play ends by having no idea what is right and what is wrong; natural feelings on the one hand and belief in authority on the other lead her to utter distraction. . . .

Moral conflict. Weighed down and confused by her trust in authority, she loses faith in her own morality, and in her fitness to bring up her children. Bitterness. A mother in modern society, like certain insects, retires and dies once she has done her duty by propagating the race. Love of life, of home, of husband and children and family. Now and then, as women do, she shrugs off her thoughts. Suddenly anguish and fear return. Everything must be borne alone. The catastrophe approaches, mercilessly, inevitably. Despair, conflict, and defeat.

To tell his modern tragedy based on gender relations, Ibsen takes his audience on an unprecedented, intimate tour of a contemporary, respectable marriage. Set during the Christmas holidays, A Doll’s House begins with Nora Helmer completing the finishing touches on the family’s celebrations. Her husband, Torvald, has recently been named a bank manager, promising an end to the family’s former straitened financial circumstances, and Nora is determined to celebrate the holiday with her husband and three children in style. Despite Torvald’s disapproval of her indulgences, he relents, giving her the money she desires, softened by Nora’s childish play-acting, which gratifies his sense of what is expected of his “lark” and “squirrel.” Beneath the surface of this apparently charming domestic scene is a potentially damning and destructive secret. Seven years before Nora had saved the life of her critically ill husband by secretly borrowing the money needed for a rest cure in Italy. Knowing that Torvald would be too proud to borrow money himself, Nora forged her dying father’s name on the loan she received from Krogstad, a banking associate of Torvald.

The crisis comes when Nora’s old schoolfriend Christina Linde arrives in need of a job. At Nora’s urging Torvald aids her friend by giving her Krogstad’s position at the bank. Learning that he is to be dismissed, Krogstad threatens to expose Nora’s forgery unless she is able to persuade Torvald to reinstate him. Nora fails to convince Torvald to relent, and after receiving his dismissal notice, Krogstad sends Torvald a letter disclosing the details of the forgery. The incriminating letter remains in the Helmers’ mailbox like a ticking time-bomb as Nora tries to distract Torvald from reading it and Christina attempts to convince Krogstad to withdraw his accusation. Torvald eventu-ally reads the letter following the couple’s return from a Christmas ball and explodes in recriminations against his wife, calling her a liar and a criminal, unfit to be his wife and his children’s mother. “Now you’ve wrecked all my happiness—ruined my whole future,” Torvald insists. “Oh, it’s awful to think of. I’m in a cheap little grafter’s hands; he can do anything he wants with me, ask me for anything, play with me like a puppet—and I can’t breathe a word. I’ll be swept down miserably into the depths on account of a featherbrained woman.” Torvald’s reaction reveals that his formerly expressed high moral rectitude is hypocritical and self-serving. He shows himself worried more about appearances than true morality, caring about his reputation rather than his wife. However, when Krogstad’s second letter arrives in which he announces his intention of pursuing the matter no further, Torvald joyfully informs Nora that he is “saved” and that Nora should forget all that he has said, assuming that the normal relation between himself and his “frightened little songbird” can be resumed. Nora, however, shocks Torvald with her reaction.

Nora, profoundly disillusioned by Torvald’s response to Krogstad’s letter, a response bereft of the sympathy and heroic self-sacrifice she had hoped for, orders Torvald to sit down for a serious talk, the first in their married life, in which she reviews their relationship. “I’ve been your doll-wife here, just as at home I was Papa’s doll-child,” Nora explains. “And in turn the children have been my dolls. I thought it was fun when you played with me, just as they thought it fun when I played with them. That’s been our marriage, Torvald.” Nora has acted out the 19th-century ideal of the submissive, unthinking, dutiful daughter and wife, and it has taken Torvald’s reaction to shatter the illusion and to force an illumination. Nora explains:

When the big fright was over—and it wasn’t from any threat against me, only for what might damage you—when all the danger was past, for you it was just as if nothing had happened. I was exactly the same, your little lark, your doll, that you’d have to handle with double care now that I’d turned out so brittle and frail. Torvald—in that instant it dawned on me that I’ve been living here with a stranger.

Nora tells Torvald that she no longer loves him because he is not the man she thought he was, that he was incapable of heroic action on her behalf. When Torvald insists that “no man would sacrifice his honor for love,” Nora replies: “Millions of women have done just that.”

Nora finally resists the claims Torvald mounts in response that she must honor her duties as a wife and mother, stating,

I don’t believe in that anymore. I believe that, before all else, I’m a human being, no less than you—or anyway, I ought to try to become one. I know the majority thinks you’re right, Torvald, and plenty of books agree with you, too. But I can’t go on believing what the majority says, or what’s written in books. I have to think over these things myself and try to understand them.

The finality of Nora’s decision to forgo her assigned role as wife and mother for the authenticity of selfhood is marked by the sound of the door slamming and her exit into the wider world, leaving Torvald to survey the wreckage of their marriage.

Ibsen leaves his audience and readers to consider sobering truths: that married women are the decorative playthings and servants of their husbands who require their submissiveness, that a man’s authority in the home should not go unchallenged, and that the prime duty of anyone is to arrive at an authentic human identity, not to accept the role determined by social conventions. That Nora would be willing to sacrifice everything, even her children, to become her own person proved to be, and remains, the controversial shock of A Doll’s House , provoking continuing debate over Nora’s motivations and justifications. The first edition of 8,000 copies of the play quickly sold out, and the play was so heatedly debated in Scandinavia in 1879 that, as critic Frances Lord observes, “many a social invitation in Stockholm during that winter bore the words, ‘You are requested not to mention Ibsen’s Doll’s House!” Ibsen was obliged to supply an alternative ending for the first German production when the famous leading lady Hedwig Niemann-Raabe refused to perform the role of Nora, stating that “I would never leave my children !” Ibsen provided what he would call a “barbaric outrage,” an ending in which Nora’s departure is halted at the doorway of her children’s bedroom. The play served as a catalyst for an ongoing debate over feminism and women’s rights. In 1898 Ibsen was honored by the Norwegian Society for Women’s Rights and toasted as the “creator of Nora.” Always the contrarian, Ibsen rejected the notion that A Doll’s House champions the cause of women’s rights:

I have been more of a poet and less of a social philosopher than people generally tend to suppose. I thank you for your toast, but must disclaim the honor of having consciously worked for women’s rights. I am not even quite sure what women’s rights really are. To me it has been a question of human rights. And if you read my books carefully you will realize that. Of course it is incidentally desirable to solve the problem of women; but that has not been my whole object. My task has been the portrayal of human beings.

Despite Ibsen’s disclaimer that A Doll’s House should be appreciated as more than a piece of gender propaganda, that it deals with universal truths of human identity, it is nevertheless the case that Ibsen’s drama is one of the milestones of the sexual revolution, sounding themes and advancing the cause of women’s autonomy and liberation that echoes Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and anticipates subsequent works such as Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique.

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Themes and Symbols

A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen is rich in themes and symbols that dissect the fabric of 19th-century societal norms and explore the quest for identity and independence. Here’s an in-depth look at the major themes and symbols present in the play:

The Sacrificial Role of Women — Ibsen examines the expected sacrificial role of women in society and their personal lives. Nora’s journey is a critique of the societal expectation that women should always put their husband’s, children’s, and home’s needs before their own, even if it leads to personal sacrifice or deceit.

The Illusion of the Happy Home — The Helmers’ home initially appears to be a happy, ideal domestic space. However, it quickly becomes clear that this happiness is built on lies, financial debt, and societal pressures. The home symbolizes the façade that many maintain to appear respectable in society’s eyes.

Individual vs. Society — Nora’s struggle represents the conflict between individual desires and societal expectations. Her decision to leave her family and find herself is a radical act of defiance against the societal norms that dictate a woman’s role and identity.

The Doll’s House — The title itself is a powerful symbol representing the Helmer household, where Nora is treated like a doll, playing roles as the dutiful wife and mother, without personal freedom or identity. The dollhouse symbolizes the artificiality and facade of their lives.

The Tarantella Dance — Nora’s frantic performance of the Tarantella symbolizes her desperation and the turmoil brewing beneath her surface. It’s a metaphor for her struggle against the constraints placed upon her by society and her marriage.

The Christmas Tree — The Christmas tree initially appears as a symbol of joy and festivity. However, as the play progresses, it becomes a reflection of Nora’s state of being—adorned and beautiful on the outside while being chopped down and discarded after serving its purpose, much like Nora feels used and trapped in her marriage.

The Letterbox — The letterbox serves as a symbol of Nora’s impending doom and the vehicle through which her secrets are threatened to be revealed. It represents the power of written word and the inescapable nature of truth.

Through these themes and symbols, Ibsen crafts a narrative that questions the fundamental societal structures of his time, encouraging a reflection on individual identity, societal expectations, and the pursuit of personal freedom. A Doll’s House remains a poignant exploration of these concepts, making it a timeless piece of literature.

Writing Style and Tone

Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House is renowned not just for its groundbreaking themes but also for its innovative writing style and tone , which have contributed significantly to its status as a masterpiece of modern drama . Let’s dive into these aspects:

Writing Style

• Realism: Ibsen is a pioneer of the realistic drama genre , and A Doll’s House exemplifies this through its depiction of ordinary lives and societal issues without the embellishment typical of earlier dramas. The dialogue and actions of the characters are believable and reflect everyday life, making the play accessible and relatable.
• Symbolism: Despite its realistic base, the play employs symbols effectively (e.g., the doll’s house, the tarantella dance, the Christmas tree) to deepen the narrative and highlight the themes of freedom, identity, and societal expectations.
• Economy of Expression: Ibsen’s dialogue is concise yet powerful. He avoids superfluous detail, allowing significant themes and character developments to emerge through conversation and action . This brevity enhances the drama and tension, making each scene impactful.
• Progressively Intense: The tone of the play shifts from light-hearted and jovial in the beginning to intense and confrontational. This progression mirrors Nora’s journey from ignorance to self-awareness and the unraveling of the Helmer household’s facade.
• Critical: Ibsen adopts a critical tone towards societal norms, especially the roles and expectations of women in marriage. Through his characters, he critiques the societal view of women as subordinate beings meant to play roles defined by men.
• Empathetic: Despite its critical stance, the tone of A Doll’s House is also deeply empathetic. Ibsen portrays his characters, especially Nora, with a depth that allows the audience to understand and sympathize with their struggles and choices.
• Claustrophobic: The entire play is set within the Helmer’s home, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere that mirrors Nora’s trapped feeling in her marriage and societal roles. This setting intensifies the emotional impact of the play and highlights the theme of domestic entrapment.
• Tension-filled: The atmosphere is laden with tension, stemming from Nora’s secret, her relationship with Krogstad, and the impending revelation of her deceit. This tension keeps the audience engaged, driving the narrative towards its dramatic conclusion.

Ibsen’s masterful combination of realistic dialogue , symbolism, and a carefully crafted tone and atmosphere contributes to the enduring power and relevance of A Doll’s House . These elements work together to engage the audience, provoke thought, and evoke empathy, making it a seminal work in the canon of modern drama .

Literary Devices used in A Doll’s House

Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House employs various literary devices to enrich the narrative , enhance its themes, and deepen the audience’s engagement with the text. Here are the top 10 literary devices used:

1. Symbolism — Ibsen uses symbols such as the doll’s house, the tarantella dance, and the Christmas tree to represent deeper themes within the play. Each symbol contributes to our understanding of the characters’ internal struggles and societal pressures.

2. Irony — The play is rich in irony, especially situational irony, where the outcome of events contradicts the characters’ expectations. Nora’s belief that Torvald will protect her when her secret is revealed, only for him to be outraged, is a prime example.

3. Foreshadowing — Ibsen subtly hints at future plot developments, such as the eventual breakdown of Nora and Torvald’s marriage, through their interactions and the symbolism throughout the play.

4. Metaphor — The title itself is a metaphor, with Nora’s home representing a doll’s house, and Nora herself treated as a doll within it, highlighting the superficiality and constriction of her existence.

5. Dramatic Irony — The audience is aware of Nora’s secret long before other key characters are, creating tension and anticipation as we watch the characters unknowingly head towards a dramatic revelation.

6. Realism — While not a literary device in the traditional sense, Ibsen’s commitment to realism in his dialogue , character development, and depiction of societal issues serves to ground the play in a relatable and tangible reality.

7. Parallelism — The play draws parallels between characters such as Nora and Mrs. Linde, who both seek independence and fulfillment, albeit through different means, highlighting the thematic concerns of freedom and self-determination.

8. Conflict — Both internal and external conflicts drive the narrative forward. Nora’s internal struggle with her identity and moral dilemmas contrasts with her external conflicts with Torvald and Krogstad.

9. Climax — The confrontation between Nora and Torvald serves as the climax of the play, where the culmination of Nora’s journey and the play’s themes are brought to the forefront.

10. Epiphany — Nora’s realization that she must leave her family and seek independence is a pivotal moment of epiphany. It marks a significant turning point in her character development and the narrative’s direction.

These literary devices are integral to the depth and enduring relevance of A Doll’s House , allowing Ibsen to explore complex themes and emotions in a nuanced and impactful way.

Literary Devices Examples

In A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, a variety of literary devices are used to enhance the narrative , develop characters, and underscore the play’s themes. Below, you’ll find examples and explanations for each of the top 10 literary devices identified, presented in table format for clarity.

Foreshadowing

Dramatic irony, parallelism.

These examples illustrate how Ibsen skillfully utilizes literary devices to deepen the thematic content of A Doll’s House , enriching the audience’s understanding and engagement with the play.

A Doll’s House – FAQs

What is the main message of A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen? The main message of A Doll’s House revolves around the need for individual freedom and the critique of societal norms that restrict personal growth and identity, especially for women. The play challenges the traditional roles of marriage and questions the authenticity of familial and social relations that are built on deceit or societal pressures.

Why did Nora leave her family at the end of A Doll’s House? Nora leaves her family to embark on a journey of self-discovery and independence. Throughout the play, she realizes that her marriage and her role within the family have been built on illusions and societal expectations, rather than genuine understanding and equality. Her departure symbolizes a break from societal constraints and an assertion of her autonomy.

How does A Doll’s House portray gender roles? A Doll’s House portrays gender roles in a critical light, highlighting the subservient and decorative role expected of women in society and within the marriage. Nora’s character challenges these norms by ultimately rejecting her prescribed role as a wife and mother in search of her identity and independence.

What are the symbols used in A Doll’s House, and what do they represent? Several symbols are used throughout the play, including the doll’s house (representing Nora’s constrained and superficial domestic life), the tarantella dance (symbolizing Nora’s desperation and desire to escape), and the Christmas tree (reflecting Nora’s diminishing self-worth and decorative role in her household).

What literary devices does Henrik Ibsen use in A Doll’s House? Henrik Ibsen employs various literary devices in A Doll’s House , such as symbolism, irony, foreshadowing, metaphor, dramatic irony, realism, parallelism, conflict , climax , and epiphany. These devices enrich the narrative , enhance the thematic depth, and heighten the emotional impact of the play.

Is A Doll’s House a feminist play? While A Doll’s House can be interpreted as a feminist play due to its critique of the societal limitations placed on women and Nora’s quest for independence, Ibsen himself stated that he did not intend to write a feminist work. Rather, the play addresses the importance of individual freedom and integrity, themes that transcend gender.

How does the setting of A Doll’s House contribute to its themes? The setting of A Doll’s House —entirely within the Helmer’s home—contributes significantly to its themes by highlighting the domestic sphere as a site of personal conflict and societal critique. The claustrophobic setting underscores the constraints placed on the characters, especially Nora, and amplifies the play’s exploration of freedom, identity, and the facade of domestic bliss.

This quiz covers key aspects of A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, including themes, character motivations, and literary devices, designed to test comprehension and critical thinking about the play.

Identify the literary devices used in the following paragraph from A Doll’s House and explain their significance.

“In the living room, adorned with decorations that shimmer in the candlelight, Nora dances the tarantella with frantic energy, her movements echoing the turmoil within. The Christmas tree, now bare and forgotten in the corner, stands as a silent witness to the unraveling of a facade. Torvald watches, oblivious to the undercurrents, his applause fueling Nora’s desperate performance.”

Identify the literary devices:

• Symbolism — The “Christmas tree, now bare and forgotten in the corner,” symbolizes Nora’s diminishing presence and value in her own home, reflecting her transformation from a prized ornament to something discarded and overlooked.
• Metaphor — Nora’s dance, described as “frantic energy, her movements echoing the turmoil within,” serves as a metaphor for her internal struggle. The dance represents Nora’s attempt to navigate her constrained existence and the emotional chaos stemming from her secret and her role within her marriage.
• Imagery — “Adorned with decorations that shimmer in the candlelight,” creates a vivid image of the living room, highlighting the contrast between the external beauty and the internal turmoil experienced by Nora. This imagery sets the scene for the climactic revelation of Nora’s inner conflict .
• Irony — Torvald’s “oblivious” applause, while Nora performs a dance that symbolizes her desperation, showcases the irony of his situation. He is unaware of the true significance of Nora’s performance and her impending decision, highlighting the gap in understanding and empathy between them.

This exercise demonstrates how Ibsen uses literary devices to enrich the narrative , deepen the thematic content, and enhance the emotional impact of the scenes in A Doll’s House .

Articles and Book Reviews

A Doll’s House / Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House is a significant literary work that emphasizes the crucial role of economic independence for women. The play revolves around the struggles of Nora, the protagonist, and her friend Mrs. Linde, both of whom face difficult choices due to their societal positions. Mrs. Linde, for instance, is forced to marry for financial reasons, while Nora forges her father’s signature to secure his money to help her husband through depression. In contrast, Anne-Marie, the nanny of Nora’s children, is the only female character who is content and financially independent. She is also the first working woman readers/audience encounter in the play.

When Mr. Helmer approves Mrs. Linde’s employment at the bank, she gains economic independence, which allows her to marry the man she loves, Mr. Krogstad, whom she was unable to marry before due to financial constraints. The play highlights that women who lack financial independence are like dolls, with no control over their lives. However, when they gain financial freedom, they become empowered and are able to shape their own destinies.

The economic independence of women is not only vital for their personal growth and empowerment but is also critical for the development of a country. Research conducted by The Heritage Foundation shows that in free economies, women’s income is almost ten times higher than in repressed economies.[1] This suggests that as women create wealth, they contribute significantly to the prosperity of their countries. Therefore, the economic empowerment of women is not only a matter of justice and equality, but it is also an essential step towards the overall progress of a nation.

[1] Ana I. Eiras, Women and Development: Empowerment Through Economic Freedom , http://www.heritage.org/research/lecture/women-and-development-empowerment-through-economic-freedom , April 24, 2016.

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A Doll's House

Henrik ibsen, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Nora Helmer , a young woman, enters her house carrying packages. It is Christmas Eve, and a porter delivers a Christmas tree . Nora’s husband, Torvald , emerges from his study and greets her. She shows off the Christmas gifts she has bought for their children, and although Torvald chastises her for spending too much, he is also very affectionate towards her, calling her his “little skylark” and “little squirrel.” The two of them celebrate the fact that Torvald has recently been promoted to Bank Manager, meaning they can have a more comfortable life. Mrs. Linde and Dr. Rank arrive. Dr. Rank and Torvald exit to talk in his study. Mrs. Linde, who hasn’t seen Nora for eight years, tells her that she had an unhappy marriage and is now a widow hoping to find a job. Nora promises her that she will ask Torvald to give her a job. Nora then reveals a secret she has been hiding: when she and Torvald were first married, she borrowed money in order to finance a trip to Italy that was necessary to save Torvald’s life, as he had grown ill. She has paid off the debt in installments, secretly taking jobs and saving money from her allowance from Torvald.

Nils Krogstad , an employee at the bank, arrives and talks to Torvald in Torvald’s study. Dr. Rank comes out to talk to Nora and says that Krogstad is morally corrupt. Torvald enters, and after a brief conversation with Mrs. Linde, says he can give her a job at the bank. Torvald, Mrs. Linde, and Dr. Rank exit, and Nora plays happily with her children . Krogstad enters, and Nora tells the children to go to their nursemaid and not tell anyone about Krogstad’s visit. It is revealed that Krogstad is the person who Nora borrowed money from. He explains that he is being fired by Torvald, and that Nora must stop this happening or else Krogstad will tell everyone her secret. He adds that he has evidence that Nora forged her father’s signature in an IOU. Krogstad exits, and Torvald returns. Nora tries to persuade him not to fire Krogstad, but is unable to.

Act Two begins the next day, on Christmas Day. Nora, alone on stage, worries about her fate. Mrs. Linde arrives to help Nora sew her costume for a fancy dress ball that is being held on Boxing Day. Nora is dressing as an Italian fisher girl and plans on dancing the tarantella . Mrs. Linde asks to know more about Nora’s secret, but Nora refuses to tell her anything for the moment. Torvald enters and Nora tries again to convince him not to fire Krogstad. However, the harder Nora tries, the angrier Torvald gets, and he eventually decides to send Krogstad’s notice immediately.

Dr. Rank arrives and is depressed, telling Nora he will die soon. She flirts with him and seems to be considering whether to ask him for money. He reveals that he is in love with her, and Nora gives up the idea of asking him for help. Dr. Rank leaves and Krogstad returns, asking if Nora had told Torvald her secret and telling her his ambition to eventually run the bank. He leaves a letter explaining the secret debt and forgery in Torvald’s letterbox and exits. Mrs. Linde returns and Nora explains the situation to her. Mrs. Linde tells Nora that she and Krogstad used to be in love, and asks that Nora distract Torvald while Mrs. Linde attempts to talk to Krogstad. Mrs. Linde leaves, and Nora begs Torvald to help her rehearse the tarantella. She dances in a crazed, uninhibited way, puzzling Torvald about what has gotten into her. Mrs. Linde returns, saying Krogstad was not in but that she left him a note. The Act ends with Nora declaring that she has thirty-one hours left to live.

Act Three opens on the next day. Krogstad comes to meet Mrs. Linde at the Helmers’ house while they are at the ball. It is revealed that the two of them once loved each other but that their relationship ended when Mrs. Linde chose to marry a richer man because that was the only way to support her family. Mrs. Linde suggests that, now that their respective spouses have both died, she and Krogstad marry so that she can take care of his children and they can live a happier life together. Krogstad is thrilled, and offers to ask for his letter to Torvald back, as he now regrets his earlier actions. Mrs. Linde, however, tells him to leave it, saying that the truth must come out.

Krogstad leaves, and Nora and Torvald return from the ball. Mrs. Linde urges Nora to tell her husband the truth, and then she leaves as well. Torvald tells Nora how much he desires her, but Nora stubbornly resists his advances. Dr. Rank arrives and talks happily about how much he enjoyed the party, especially the wine. He leaves and Torvald discovers two visiting cards that Dr. Rank put in his letterbox, indicating that he is about to die. Nora says goodnight to Torvald and sneaks out to the hall, preparing to escape and commit suicide. However Torvald stops her, having discovered the letter from Krogstad. He is furious with her, saying she has ruined his life and that, although they will keep living together to preserve appearances, they cannot be happy and he won’t let her raise their children.

The maid brings a note from Krogstad saying he no longer wishes to blackmail Nora; the IOU is enclosed. Torvald rejoices, saying he is saved and that he forgives Nora. However, Nora reveals that she was going to kill her herself because she thought that Torvald would step forward and defend her, ruining his life and career. She explains that she has realized that she can no longer live with Torvald, whom she considers to be a stranger to her, and wishes to leave in order to discover a sense of who she is. Torvald at first calls her stupid and insane, before changing his tone and promising to change so that she will stay. Nora, resolute, says she must leave. Torvald is left alone onstage in despair. The play ends with the sound of the slam of the front door as Nora exits.

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Ibsen’s ”A Doll’s House”, Book Review Example

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On Ibsen’s A Doll’s House speaks of the oppression of the Norwegian women who were bound and gagged by the non-generous men of those times. The play is perhaps one of the most famous written that is portrayed in elementary, secondary and universities. These were most impressionable for the women of society for these times formed many unconventional parts of history that lasted for years to come. There is no doubt this play was a refuge to the humanitarian views of women who struggled for freedom against dehumanizing social obligations repeatedly invoked where they felt they had to fight to further their cause for political and social freedom. This play depicts the true form of feminist oppression and takes no view of previous romanticism plays of that time.  There was much controversy in the play when Nora decided to abandon her children then decided to return because she later decided her children needed her more than she needed her freedom. “Ibsen believed that women were best suited to be mothers and wives, but at the same time, he had an eye for injustice, and Helmer’s demeaning treatment of Nora was a common problem.” (A Doll’s House-Introduction). Isben illuminated the issue of women’s right though did not attempt to try to solve the demanding issues.

The play showed new drama to the presence of women’s rights. Isben focused on modern problems of the world in this play when he brought out these issues of women’s rights. “The idea that Nora had to forge her husband’s signature to a loan to save her father’s life was indispicable but it showed she had no rights in the marriage.” (A Doll’s House). She tells her story to Mrs. Linde in attempt to show she is an adult by showing she is capable of repaying a loan as an adult would do. “Unlike the petty bourgeois feminists who see the oppression of women as the inherent biological trait of men, Marxism understands that the root of women’s oppression lies not in biology, but in social conditions. (Sewell 2001). He further feels this apathetic behaviour is inherited but I do not necessarily believe this because oppression is a learned behaviour that is generated through time of social oppression.

When Torvald learns of the criminal act Nora has committed he becomes enraged and accuses her of being unfit as a mother and wife. She realizes he is not the loving husband she thought he to be. “Nora then decides to leave her husband and takes her children with her.” (A Doll’s House-Plot Summary). The thoughts of self-sacrifice from her husband all go away for she knows he would not go to jail for her anymore.

Torvald begs her to stay saying “perhaps the miracle of all miracles could happen and they could be united and he could change.” (A Doll’s House). Nora does not buy into that jargon and slams the door and goes away with the children. Torvald is left in disarray and feels there is no hope. He then loses control over her, the control he has had over her for years. He does not know how to behave but he longs for her and wants her back. She makes a choice for her freedom for once in her long miserable life.

It is with this step Nora took that she has made a stance for her and all women of those times to eliminate the oppression that women have felt for years in the Norwegian society. “Torvald discerns that he no longer wants to blackmail the Helmer family and wants his own family back after losing what is most precious to him.” (A Doll’s House). Women must take their share in the long oppression they suffered because they sat back for many years and endured the oppression at the hands of men without avail. It appears the original ending of the play was quite controversial for the times hence Isben was advised by his German agent to rewrite the ending of the play to suit the fancies of the general audience. Isben wanted to end the play with a realistic ending that would move the citizens to encourage the rights of women. Isben thought the new ending to be a mockery of what the feministic movement stood for and a ‘barbaric outrage in the history of the women’s movement’. The first debut was made at Palmers Theater in 1889 on Broadway in New York City, New York and from then on the play has been a hit ever since. Critics state the play was very scandalous because the institution of marriage was very sacred and the play portrayed marriage to be a simple desecration of religious, moral and social values. The new ending though proves worthy of Nora’s responsibilities to her husband and her children when she returns home to them after her short freedom. She finds her freedom is not as important to her as her children and husband are.

Works Cited

Isben, H. (1994) A Doll’s House New York, NY: Nick Hern Books

A Doll’s House Retrieved December 2, 2009 from, http://www.enotes.com/dolls-house

Sewell (2001) The Origin of Women’s Oppression Retrieved December 2, 2009 from, http://www.marxist.com/origins-womens-oppression.htm

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Doll's House (Ibsen)

A Doll's House Henrik Ibsen, 1879 80 pp. (Varies by publisher) A Doll's House , a three-act play, premiered at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having been published earlier that month. The play is significant for its critical attitude toward 19th century marriage norms. It aroused great controversy at the time, as it concludes with the protagonist, Nora, leaving her husband and children because she wants to discover herself. Ibsen was inspired by the belief that "a woman cannot be herself in modern society," since it is "an exclusively male society, with laws made by men and with prosecutors and judges who assess feminine conduct from a masculine standpoint. In a speech given to the Norwegian Association for Women's Rights in 1898, Ibsen insisted that he "must disclaim the honor of having consciously worked for the women's rights movement," since he wrote "without any conscious thought of making propaganda," his task having been "the description of humanity." In 2006, the centennial of Ibsen's death, A Doll's House held the distinction of being the world's most performed play. UNESCO has inscribed Ibsen's autographed manuscripts of  A Doll's House on the Memory of the World Register in 2001, in recognition of their historical value. ( From CreateSpace edition—ISBN: 9781497489905 .)

Author Bio • Birth—Mary 20, 1828 • Where—Skien, Grenland, Norway • Death—May 23, 1905 • Where—Christiana (now Oslo), Norway • Education—left school at 15 Henrik Johan Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of realism" and is one of the founders of Modernism in theatre. His major works include Brand, Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm , and The Master Builder . He is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and A Doll's House became the world's most performed play by the early 20th century. Several of his plays were considered scandalous to many of his era, when European theatre was required to model strict morals of family life and propriety. Ibsen's work examined the realities that lay behind many façades, revealing much that was disquieting to many contemporaries. It utilized a critical eye and free inquiry into the conditions of life and issues of morality. The poetic and cinematic play Peer Gynt, however, has strong surreal elements. Ibsen is often ranked as one of the truly great playwrights in the European tradition. Richard Hornby describes him as "a profound poetic dramatist—the best since Shakespeare." He is widely regarded as the most important playwright since Shakespeare, and he influenced other playwrights and novelists, including George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Miller, James Joyce, Eugene O'Neill and Miroslav Krleza. Ibsen wrote his plays in Danish (the common written language of Denmark and Norway), and they were published by the Danish publisher Gyldendal. Although most of his plays are set in Norway—often in places reminiscent of Skien, the port town where he grew up—Ibsen lived for 27 years in Italy and Germany, and rarely visited Norway during his most productive years. Born into a merchant family connected to the patriciate of Skien, his dramas were shaped by his family background. He was the father of Prime Minister Sigurd Ibsen. ( From Wikipedia. See Wiki's longer version .)

Book Reviews A Doll's House still has the force of social truth and the force of art. Margo Jefferson - New York Times ( Nov. 24, 2003 ) Happiness [for Nora] lies elsewhere. So out the door she goes. Slam, bang, curtain down. It's one of drama's most stunning endings; even today it still shocks—even when you know it's coming. Read more... LitLovers LitPicks [E]very time I read the play I find myself judging Nora with less and less sympathy. The play is, as is frequently pointed out, flawlessly constructed—there is not a wasted word, and every scene tightens the noose around Nora's neck. There is a tragic inevitability to the way in which her "crime" is brought into the open. But with the same momentum she displays a silliness and insensitivity that are also part of her downfall. At the beginning she is lying to Torvald about the macaroons he has forbidden and she has concealed. This could be comic but is part of a tissue of lies and evasions that make up her life. Whether these lies are a function of social pressures or Nora's own nature is left to us to determine. A.S. Byatt - Guardian ( UK - May 1, 2009 ) Nora's departure is no claptrap "Farewell for ever," but a journey in search of self-respect and apprenticeship to life. Yet there is an underlying solemnity caused by a fact that that popular instinct has divined: to wit, that Nora's revolt is the end of a chapter of human history. The slam of the door behind her is more momentous than the cannon of Waterloo or Sedan, because when she comes back, it will not be to the old home; for when the patriarch no longer rules, and the "breadwinner" acknowledges his dependence, there is an end of the old order. George Bernard Shaw - Saturday Review ( May 5, 1897 ) [ A Doll's House is about] the need of every individual to find out the kind of person he or she really is and to strive to become that person. Michael Meyer - translator, biographer, dramatist ( 1921-2000 ) That slammed door reverberated across the roof of the world. James Huneker - American literary critic ( 1857-1921 )

Discussion Questions Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book: • How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips) • Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction • Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart) Also, consider these talking points to help start a discussion for A Doll's House : 1. Consider Act I only. How would you describe the nature of Torvald and Nora's relationship? If you knew nothing about the following two acts, would you consider theirs a good marriage? Why or why not? 2. Consider Torvald's pet names for Nora. What do they suggest about his perception of his wife? Having read the entire play, what is the ultimate irony behind those references? 3. Would you describe Torvald as the antagonist of the play? Is he a misogynist? Or is he a victim of his society's mores? 4. How do you first view Nora in Act I? How does your idea of her change throughout the play? 5. Consider A.S. Byatt's judgment of Nora ( under Book Reviews, above ), in which she sees Nora as displaying "a silliness and insensitivity." Do you agree or disagree with Byatt's observation? 6. What law has Nora broken? Is she justified in doing so? Was there another option open to her? Is Torvald worthy of her sacrifice ( see Question 3 )? Would you ever risk so much to save someone you love? 7. Consider the many references to sickness and fever in the play. What larger meanings might Ibsen have meant by them? 8. Talk about the symbolic use of the masquerade costumes, especially the dress that Kristina Linde helps Nora repair. What other symbols does Ibsen incorporate to highlight major concerns within the play? Consider the hidden macaroons, Nora's dancing the tarantella (given the folklore surrounding the dance), the light Nora calls for when Dr. Rank tells her he loves her. 9. Why does Kristina Linde convince Krogstad not to retrieve his letter of revelation? Even, or especially, in light of the final consequences, was she right or wrong? 10. Once he reads the letter, Torvald insists that "happiness doesn't matter; all that matters is...the appearance." What does that suggest about Torvald...about societal values? 11. Torvald tells Nora that "before all else [she] is a wife and mother." Nora believes that she is first and foremost a human being. Who is right? Must those two stances be separate? 12. Nora tells Torvald that she could stay in the marriage only if "the greatest miracle of all" could happen—the ability to live together in a "true marriage." What is her idea of a true marriage? Is that "miracle" possible for the couple after what has happened? 13. Is Nora's departure—and final door slam—the only option open to her, the only path by which she can achieve full humanity? Where will Nora go? What do you predict will happen to her? 14. Follow-up to Question 13 : Consider that Ibsen, under pressure (and to his later dismay), rewrote the ending. What do you think that ending entailed? How would you rewrite the ending? ( Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks. )

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The Lodi Rampage

Book review: a doll’s house.

AN ECCENTRIC HOUSEWIFE, A CONTROLLING HUSBAND, AND LOANED MONEY ARE THE TALE OF THIS NORWEGIAN PLAY. Henrik Isben’s 1879 three act play was considered one of the most controversial plays at the time and he was forced to write a second ending that he said was, “  barbaric outrage” due to the “feminist” ending it had. Isben’s story explores ideas of gender roles, deceit, damaged reputations, and marriage in 19th century Norway during Christmas Eve.

The play begins with the main protagonist Nora Helmer entering her home with packages for the holidays and indulging in macaroons that her husband, Torvald, a bank manager, prohibits her from eating. Through the story, Torvald and Nora’s playful relationship comes crashing down as readers are intertwined with the secrets that Nora was hiding, which include loaning money under a forged signature. A secret must keep it from reaching her husband. Along the way, readers are introduced to a blackmailing lawyer, a childhood best friend, a deceased father, and a dying doctor who all play a part in the downfall of Nora and Torvald Helmer. 

“A Doll’s House” is a short play, but it has an incredible impact and storytelling that readers will only wish it was extended. 

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A Doll's House review – Ibsen's classic shrewdly reimagined in colonial India

Lyric Hammersmith, London With a career-defining performance from Anjana Vasan, Tanika Gupta’s production is moving, multilayered and intelligent

T anika Gupta has transposed Ibsen’s seminal play to 1879 Calcutta and the result is multilayered, massively intelligent and moving. In Gupta ’s version, colonial politics are inescapably intertwined with an inflexible patriarchy and, although I have the odd caveat, Rachel O’Riordan’s production gets the Lyric’s new regime off to a rousing start.

Following Ibsen’s structure, Gupta turns Tom Helmer into a chief of tax collection who exoticises his wife, Niru, as his “little Indian princess”. This instantly highlights the isolation of Niru, a sari-wearing Christian convert regarded with equal suspicion by the colonial wives and her fellow Indians. It also allows Gupta to fascinatingly redefine the other characters. Niru’s closest friend, the terminally ill Dr Rank, becomes a fiercely pro-Indian expat who argues that it’s the English that need civilizing.

Ibsen’s blackmailing Krogstad, whose power resides in his knowledge that the heroine has forged her father’s signature, is also transformed into the more complex figure of the lowly clerk, Kaushik Das. When he declares that he will rise through the ranks so that “it’ll be me, an Indian, calling the shots,” you hear the stored up resentment of an oppressed people.

Everything in Ibsen has been shrewdly reimagined: Niru shows her command over Rank by getting him to tie dancing-bells round her ankles. Anjana Vasan gives a career-defining performance as Niru. She captures perfectly the gradations in Niru’s character as she moves from the assumed role of skittish, smiling child bride to the suicidal frenzy of a dance that has her beating the walls in despair to the poised, climactic declaration of independence. It’s a measure of Vasan’s success that she seems to age 20 years in the course of the performance. Elliot Cowan is equally assured as Tom and, if I have any criticism of Gupta’s text, it is that it makes his character seem an irredeemable creep as, at the end, he moves from racist abuse of Niru to patronising ingratiation. I miss the note of hope Ibsen offers of Tom’s possible moral reawakening. But there is superb support from Colin Tierney as an anti-colonial Rank, Assad Zaman as the understandably vengeful Das and Tripti Tripuraneni as a self-sacrificing Indian widow.

Deftly staged around Lily Arnold’s tiered courtyard, this is a fine production that makes us see a familiar classic through fresh eyes.

• Lyric Hammersmith

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The muse who inspired Ibsen to write ‘A Doll’s House’

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“In 1871, eight years before Henrik Ibsen wrote A Doll’s House , Ibsen met a Norwegian girl called Laura Petersen. Ibsen took quite a fancy to her and called her his ‘skylark.’

“Two years later, however, repayment of the loan was demanded. Laura did not have the money herself, dared not tell her husband and, worse, still, the friend who had stood security had himself fallen on hard times. Laura attempted to pay off the loan by forging a check. The forgery was discovered, the bank refused payment, and Laura was forced to tell her husband the whole story.

“In September 1878, only a couple of months after hearing about Laura’s committal to the asylum, Ibsen began work on A Doll’s House . In his notes he wrote the following: ‘A woman cannot be herself in modern society with laws made by men and with prosecutors and judges who assess female conduct from a male standpoint.’”

February 15, 2018.

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Caleb Carr, Author of Dark Histories, Dies at 68

His own dark history prompted him to write about and investigate the roots of violence, notably in his best-selling novel “The Alienist.”

By Penelope Green

Caleb Carr, a military historian and author whose experience of childhood abuse drove him to explore the roots of violence — most famously in his 1994 best seller, “The Alienist,” a period thriller about the hunt for a serial killer in 19th-century Manhattan — died on Thursday at his home in Cherry Plain, N.Y. He was 68.

The cause was cancer, his brother Ethan Carr said.

Mr. Carr was 39 when he published “The Alienist,” an atmospheric detective story about a child psychiatrist — or an alienist, as those who studied the mind were called in the 1890s — who investigates the murders of young male prostitutes by using forensic psychiatry, which was an unorthodox method at the time.

Mr. Carr had first pitched the book as nonfiction; it wasn’t, but it read that way because of the exhaustive research he did into the period. He rendered the dank horrors of Manhattan’s tenement life, its sadistic gangs and the seedy brothels that were peddling children, as well as the city’s lush hubs of power, like Delmonico’s restaurant. And he peopled his novel with historical figures like Theodore Roosevelt, who was New York’s reforming police commissioner before his years in the White House. Even Jacob Riis had a cameo.

Up to that point, Mr. Carr had been writing, with modest success, on military matters. He had contributed articles to The Quarterly Journal of Military History, and he had written, with James Chace, a book about national security and, on his own, a well-received biography of an American soldier of fortune who became a Chinese military hero in the mid-19th century.

Mr. Carr had also been a regular contributor to the letters page of The New York Times; he notably once chastised Henry Kissinger for what Mr. Carr characterized as his outdated theories of international diplomacy. He was 19 at the time.

“The Alienist” was an immediate hit and earned glowing reviews. Even before it was published, the movie rights were snapped up by the producer Scott Rudin for half a million dollars. (The paperback rights sold for more than a million.)

“You can practically hear the clip-clop of horses’ hooves echoing down old Broadway,” Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote in his review in The Times . “You can taste the good food at Delmonico’s. You can smell the fear in the air.”

Magazine writers were captivated by Mr. Carr’s downtown cool — he lived on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, had been in a local punk band, wore black high-top sneakers and had shoulder-length hair — and by his literary provenance. His father was Lucien Carr, a journalist who was muse to and best friends with Beat royalty: the writers Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. Beautiful and charismatic as a young man, “Lou was the glue,” Ginsberg once said, that held the group together.

The elder Mr. Carr was also an alcoholic, and Caleb grew up in bohemian chaos. The Carr household was the scene of drunken revelries, and much worse. Mr. Carr raged at his wife and three sons. But he directed his most terrifying outbursts at Caleb, his middle child, whom he singled out for physical abuse.

Caleb’s parents divorced when he was 8. But the beatings continued for years.

“There’s no question that I have a lifelong fascination with violence,” Caleb Carr told Stephen Dubner of New York magazine in 1994 , just before “The Alienist” was published, explaining not just the engine for the book but why he was drawn to military history. “Part of it was a desire to find violence that was, in the first place, directed toward some purposeful end, and second, governed by a definable ethical code. And I think it’s fairly obvious why I would want to do that.”

Lucien Carr had also been abused. Growing up in St. Louis, he was sexually molested by his Boy Scout master, a man named David Kammerer who followed him to the East Coast, where Lucien entered Columbia University and met Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs. One drunken night in 1944, Mr. Carr killed his longtime predator in Riverside Park, stabbing him with his Boy Scout knife and rolling him into the Hudson River. Kerouac helped him dispose of the knife. Lucien turned himself in the next day and served two years for manslaughter in a reformatory.

The killing was a cause célèbre, and became a kind of origin story for the history of the Beats . Kerouac and Burroughs rendered it in purple prose in a novel they archly titled “And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks,” which was rejected by publishers and then mired in legalities before finally being published in 2008, when all the principals were dead. (It was panned by Michiko Kakutani in The Times.) In 2013, it was the subject of a film, “Kill Your Darlings,” starring Daniel Radcliffe as Allen Ginsberg.

Caleb Carr and his family found “Kill Your Darlings” more than flawed, taking issue with the film’s thesis that Lucien was a conflicted gay man in a repressive society — and that Kammerer was the victim and their relationship was consensual.

“My father fit perfectly ‘the cycle of abuse,’” Mr. Carr told an interviewer at the time . “Of all the terrible things that Kammerer did, perhaps the worst was to teach him this, to teach him that the most fundamental way to form bonds was through abuse.”

He added: “When I confronted him many years later about his extreme violence toward me, after I had entered therapy, he at length asked (after denying that such violence had occurred for as long as he could, then conceding it), ‘Doesn’t that mean that there’s a special bond between us?’ And I remember that my blood had never run quite that cold.”

Caleb Carr was born on Aug. 2, 1955, in Manhattan. His father, after being released from the reformatory, worked as a reporter and editor for United Press International, where he met Francesca von Hartz, a reporter. They married in 1952 and had three sons, Simon, Caleb and Ethan. After they divorced a decade later, Ms. von Hartz married John Speicher, an editor and novelist with three daughters. The couple and their six children moved to a loft on East 14th Street, a dangerous area in the late 1960s and ’70s. It was another chaotic household overseen by alcoholics, and the children often referred to themselves as “the dark Brady Bunch.”

Caleb attended Friends Seminary, a Quaker school in the East Village, where his interest in military history made him an outlier and a misfit. His high school transcript described him as “socially undesirable.” After graduating, he attended Kenyon College in Ohio and then New York University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree and studied military and diplomatic history.

In 1997, Mr. Carr published “The Angel of Darkness,” a sequel to “The Alienist.” It featured many of the same characters, who reunite to investigate the case of a missing child. It, too, was a best seller, “as winning a historical thriller” as its predecessor, The Times’s Mr. Lehmann-Haupt wrote .

Mr. Carr was the author of 11 books, including “The Italian Secretary” (2005), a Sherlock Holmes mystery commissioned by the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle; “Surrender, New York” (2016), a well-reviewed contemporary crime procedural that nonetheless sold poorly; and “Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare Against Civilians” (2002), which he wrote in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Even in those pre-Twitter days, “Lessons of Terror” caused an internet ruckus. It was at once vociferously praised and bashed — and became a best seller, to boot — and Mr. Carr derided his critics on Amazon. Many challenged his contention that some “conventional” warfare — like General Sherman’s barbarism during the Civil War and Israel’s behavior toward the Palestinians — was equivalent to terrorism, a thesis that annoyed military historians , as well as The Times’s Ms. Kakutani .

What propelled Mr. Carr in all his work was the origins of violence, the mysteries of nature and nurture. In his own life, he was determined to end the cycle of his family’s dark legacy by not having children. That choice restricted his romantic life, and as he got older, he grew more solitary. When he bought 1,400 acres in Rensselaer County, N.Y., in 2000, and built himself a house near a ridge called Misery Mountain, he became even more so.

“I have a grim outlook on the world, and in particular on humanity,” he told Joyce Wadler of The Times in 2005 . “I spent years denying it, but I am very misanthropic. And I live alone on a mountain for a reason.”

His last book, published in April, was “My Beloved Monster: Masha, the Half-Wild Rescue Cat Who Rescued Me.” It’s both a memoir of his time there and a love story to the creature who was his most constant and sustaining companion during the last decades of his life.

“But how could you live for such a long time,” he said friends asked him, “alone on a mountain with just a cat?” He took umbrage at the phrase “just a cat.”

“It needs to be understood that, for Masha, I was always enough,” he wrote. “How I lived, what I chose to do, my very nature — all were good enough for her.”

Masha, like her human roommate, had suffered physical abuse at some point, and as Mr. Carr and his companion aged, their early horrors had devastating physical repercussions. Mr. Carr’s beatings had created scar tissue in his organs that led to other serious ailments. They were each diagnosed with cancer, but Masha died first.

In addition to his brother Ethan, Mr. Carr is survived by another brother, Simon; his stepsisters, Hilda, Jennifer and Christine Speicher; and his mother, now known as Francesca Cote. Lucien Carr died in 2005.

Despite the early hoopla, “The Alienist” never made it to the big screen. Producers wanted to turn it into a love story or otherwise alter Mr. Carr’s creation. But after decades of fits and starts, i t found a home on television , and in 2018 it was seen as a 10-episode mini-series on TNT. James Poniewozik of The Times called it “lush, moody, a bit stiff.” But it was mostly a success, reaching 50 million viewers and earning six Emmy Award nominations. (It won one, for special visual effects.)

“If I had known that nothing would have come out of this book other than the advance,” Mr. Carr said in 1994 as “The Alienist” was poised for publication, “I still would have written it exactly the same. But if you were to ask me to trade this book, this whole career and have my childhood be different, I probably would.”

An earlier version of this obituary misstated part of the name of the hamlet in New York State where Mr. Carr lived. It is Cherry Plain, not Cherry Plains.

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Penelope Green is a Times reporter on the Obituaries desk. More about Penelope Green