Torvald Helmer of Henrik Isbens A Dolls House :: A Dolls House Essays

Torvald Helmer of Henrik Isben's A Doll's House In Henrik Isben's A Doll's House, he makes the observation that women in contemporary society posses no independent self unrestricted from the male's image of them; Isben accomplishes this through the character relationship between Torvald Helmer and his wife Nora. Henrik Isben sought to show the psychological complexity of realism underneath the surface of a typical urban bourgeoisie or professional class family. Thus in doing so, brings out the central conflict between the idealistic Torvald and this underlying theme demonstrated through Nora. Ultimately, it is because of Torvald's completely inflexible and self-righteous attitudes towards life and his moralistic values, that Nora is driven from her role of submisiveness in his game of male dominance to seek her own identity. Hel. (walking about the room). What a horrible awakening! All these eight years-she who was my joy and pride-a hypocrite, a liar-worse, worse-a criminal! The unutterable ugliness of it all! For shame! For shame! ...(62) It is only when she has found this sense of a self that she had been denying and sacrificing all these years, that she can truly begin to love others. Hel. Before all else you are a wife and a mother. Nora. I don't believe that any longer. I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being just as you are-or, at all events, that I must try and become one. (68) This game which she had been playing with her father before, and now with the close-minded Torvald, she finally realizes, is the "Dolls House" she's been living in for all her life, never finding out who she truly is. Nora. But our home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll wife, just as at home I was Papa's doll child; and here the children have been my dolls. I thought it was great fun when you played with me,