It is a vicious cycle. Poor Nora. In the beginning of A Doll’s House I was sure that Nora was a weak, shallow, and coquettish (not my word–I wish it was–but Mr. Coon used it before me, so I am accrediting him) young woman. By the end of the play though Nora become strong, or stronger as she goes through a sort of rebirth with a corresponding life path. Helmer insultingly says that she is acting like “child,” but I thought this was actually a fitting complement because that is an improvement.
It is odd to realize that Nora acting like a child is actually a positive change for her. She used to act like a sky lark, a squirrel, and other “pets.” So she when she starts to transform into a stronger person she goes from a pet to a child. By the end of the play she seems to have grown from a child to a young adult who is ready to search for who she really is.
This change came about because she realized that her whole existence before her rebirth was very meaningless. She lived her life the way a parrot does: she was entertaining but just did and said things that seemed human-like but they were really just primitive behaviors to make her father and husband happy respectively. She started as a parrot in her “fathers hands” and then stayed a parrot when she was passed into her husband’s hands.
The vicious cycle is that Nora is not to blame for her weak personality; because she was never allowed become a strong person. To become a strong person, according to this play, one must experience difficult situations, deal with them, and solve them. Nora was coddled her whole life so she was never able to become a strong person. And then when she tries to solve problems, she fails because she is so inexperienced because she was coddled her whole life. I blame the father and the husband.
I think Nora at the very end of the play is a strong young adult because she escaped the cycle that kept her in the role of a subservient pet and then began moving out of her comfort zone (that wasn’t that comfortable anyway) to go on a walkabout to find herself (I realize she is not an aboriginal boy but I think this right of passage situation fits well).
It takes a strong person to realize your whole life has been almost meaningless, and then at that point of realization, start completely again leaving behind everything you know. (432)
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9 comments:
While I agree with you in that Nora may be a fundamentally strong individual, I do not agree with your statement about how it is her father and her husbands fault that she is the way she is. We do not know enough about her childhood or her previous years with Torvald in this case to make that conclusion. They may have given her opportunities to find herself, and she, possibly having spurned them, forced her father and Torvald to give up and continue to treat her like a little skylark. Interesting post, but I am not sure I have seen enough evidence to reach your conclusion.
Wow this is the best blog I have ever read, great work Robert
I enjoy the first-person-narrative style in which you write your blog. It certainly helps me to feel like I am having a conversation with you instead of reading some boring, old-fashioned essay.
Focusing on the way that the reader (yourself) changes his perspective of Nora was an intuitive approach.
Lovely.
ETF
While I agree with your assertion that Nora certainly changes in terms of the strength of her character, I think that your couching of this contention as her "advancement" to the stage of the child inevitably sells Nora short. At the end of the play, I was impressed by Nora's character, something that typically doesn't occur for me with regards to female literary characters.
I'm glad that you also recognized Nora's inexperience as being a result of how her father and husband have treated her throughout her life.
In response to the first comment, I strongly disagree with you, Michael, that the text doesn't support Robert's claims of Nora's sheltered and limited life as being the cause of her initial self. Nora, herself, states that Torvald is the reason why she has never made anything out of her life. In order for your assertion that her husband and father gave her opportunities that she spurned to be true, we must assume that Nora is unreliable when it comes to the information she provides about her past; I don't see sufficient textual evidence to warrant that assumption. Furthermore, the last several pages of the play are filled with Nora talking about her stifling past.
Back to Robert, overall, well done.
I was very glad to read your blog and catch a glimpse of the inner thoughts of one of the great Adrians. The majority of this ecstatic feeling came from the fact that you write of Nora's maturation as a transformation and something she acquires as the play goes on. One thing that many of our peers seemed to believe in class discussions is that Nora had always been the same person underneath, she had just been hiding it and putting herself on as a different type of person knowingly. I don't believe this to be true and agree with you in that Nora grows from an immature, ignorant pet to a young woman through the play. Very good work, sir.
Rob, I found it very interesting how you related Nora's life to a vicious cycle since the more she acts like a pet or a toy, the more she is treated like one. An interesting idea I had not before pondered. Also, you wrote a very well balanced blog between serious literary analysis and comical tangents.
Rob, I enjoyed reading your blog greatly, mostly because of the enthusiasm you seem to bring to your blog posts that makes me want to read your blog as opposed to someone else's. You make good points about the vicious cycle that Nora seems to be stuck in, much like the whirlpool Kharybdis in Homer's Odyssey. Overall, a very good job.
Rob, I enjoyed your blog greatly this week. Your points about Nora evolving as it were are most interesting and I was enthralled by your ideas. The fact that you stated about Nora moving from a "pet" to a child is interesting and I had not thought of that before. It is interesting because I had always thought that Helmer was insulting her but you made it seem as though he were pointing out the fact that she had grown emotionally.
Robert,
Thank you for finding out the word count of my post. I appreciate it. As always, your post was very well written. I like how you discuss how Nora is caught up in a vicious cycle. Great job!
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