One of the things we should all do as writers is study other people's works to try to discern how they achieved particular effects, or how they use language. It's known as 'close reading'.

I recently had the opportunity to apply close reading to a play: A Doll's House by Ibsen. This was in the form of the essay requirement of a course in advanced literary criticism. I found the course challenging, and all the more satisfying for it. 

Anyway, I thought you might find the essay interesting. It presumes a knowledge of the play. The illustration features a diagram I drew for myself depicting some of the ways in which the past influences the present in the play. Finally, in order to instill in you a measure of confidence in the usefulness of the essay, I should tell you that it did attract a very high mark!

Here it is. Enjoy.

In A Doll’s House the past always bears upon the present’. Consider Ibsen’s portrayal of character in the light of this statement.

Introduction

A Doll’s House is often thought of as a play about female emancipation, perhaps not only because of the work’s empowerment of women but also because of Ibsen’s other writings (Balaky and Sulaiman, 2016). However, at least two other forces are writ large in the drama: biological determinism and psychological motivation. Thus, much of the play’s expressed views and action can be explained either through accidents of birth, over which the protagonists had no control, or through the decisions of certain characters because of past actions, either by themselves or others. In both cases, the past clearly has a bearing on the present, as we hope to demonstrate. We will attempt this by examining the actions of four characters: Nora, Torvald, Krogstad and Dr Rank.

It was (nearly) all Darwin’s fault

Darwin’s theories on evolution were published in the 19th century, and Ibsen was both familiar with and struck by them. The Origin of Species appeared in 1859, while The Descent of Man followed in 1871. Ibsen’s A Doll’s House was published in 1879.

Darwin’s central proposition is that species evolve over time in order to ensure what came to be known by Herbert Spencer as “the survival of the fittest”. It is a completely natural process, over which individual creatures have no control. As Duncan (2020) states: “Evolution rests on inheritance, as generations of traits are passed on and creatures evolve.”

It is therefore but a short step from this theory of evolution to that of biological determinism. According to Allen (2018), biological determinism is “the idea that most human characteristics, physical and mental, are determined at conception by hereditary factors passed from parent to offspring.”

Biological determinism might be said to be a secular version of the Biblical injunction concerning the sins of the father: “the iniquities of the fathers are visited upon the sons and daughters — unto the third and fourth generation.” (Exodus 20:5). Indeed, this is precisely the lens through which Ismail and Nur (2019) analyse A Doll’s House.

Unlike in a story, the characters have to express their thoughts, feelings and motivations themselves: they do not have the luxury of a narrator to speak on their behalf. Consequently, in A Doll’s House, there are several examples of where characters implicitly draw upon biological determinism to explain perceived character flaws and present maladies.

Thus in Act One, Torvald says to Nora:

“You're a funny little creature. Just like your father use to be. Always on the look-out for some way to get money, but as soon as you have any it just runs through your fingers and you never know where it's gone. Well, I suppose I must take you as you are. It's in your blood. Yes, yes, yes, these things are hereditary, Nora.”

This sentiment is echoed, menacingly, in Act Three, when Nora’s deception in obtaining money has come to light:

“… all of your father’s recklessness and instability he has handed on to you! No religion, no morals, no sense of duty! Oh, how I have been punished for closing my eyes to his faults!”

However, there is another interpretation of Nora’s behaviour, for which we draw on Adlerian psychology. According to Hoffman (2020), some of the key tenets of this school are as follows:

• “Early interaction with family members, peers and adults help to determine the role of inferiority and superiority in life.

• Adler believed that birth order had a significant and predictable impact on a child’s personality, and their feeling of inferiority.

• All human behavior (sic) is goal orientated and motivated by striving for superiority. Individuals differ in their goals and how they try to achieve them.”

Thus, returning to Act One, we encounter what one might regard as dramatic irony, which is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as: “the incongruity created when the (tragic) significance of a character's speech or actions is revealed to the audience but unknown to the character concerned.” This occurs when Torvald (“jokingly” – and correctly) deduces that Nora has eaten some macaroons despite her protestations to the contrary. Although this is a relatively trivial deceit, it does mean that we are perhaps not surprised when Nora declares that she has, in effect, been living a lie:

“When I lived with papa, he used to tell me what he thought about everything, so that I never had any opinions but his. And if I did have any of my own, I kept them quiet…”

“I performed tricks for you, and you gave me food and drink…. I used to think it was fun when you came in and played with me, just as [the children] think it’s fun when I go in and play with them. That’s all our marriage has been, Torvald.” (Act Three)

Although Torvald attributes Nora’s actions to heredity, it is at least equally likely that Torvald himself, and Nora’s father before him, were the responsible parties. Torvald treats Nora like a pet– a “songbird” – while her father treated her like a doll. In other words, neither of them recognised her as an intelligent person in her own right. Indeed, Torvald appears to see her as little more than an extension of himself:

“There is something indescribably wonderful and satisfying for a husband in knowing that he has forgiven his wife – forgiven her unreservedly, from the bottom of his heart. It means that she has become his property in a double sense; he has, as it were, brought her into the world anew; she is now not only his wife but also his child.” (Act Three)

Torvald

Turning our attention to Torvald, he appears to be motivated by reputation and honour. He tells Nora that:

“Your father was not a man of unassailable reputation. But I am.” (Act Two)

As for honour, or respect, he complains that he and Krogstad are”

“… on Christian name terms. And the tactless idiot makes no attempt to conceal it when other people are present.” (Act Two)

It is doubtless this lifelong commitment to reputation and honour that explains Torvald’s violent reaction when he discovers Nora’s fraudulent method of obtaining money to pay for his medical treatment:

“This thing must be hushed up at any price. As regards our relationship – we must appear to be living together just as before. Only appear, of course. You will therefore continue to reside here. That is understood. But the children shall be taken out of your hands.” (Act Three)

Thus, in this sense too the past (the values that Torvald has nurtured over the years) bears upon the present. Indeed, the extremely paternalistic way in which Torvald treats Nora – as his property – is typical of a man of his times, and therefore by implication is because of his upbringing. We may perhaps discern this from Nora’s exclamatory response to Mrs Linde’s question about whether Nora has told her husband about the source of the money:

“For heaven’s sake, no! What an idea! He’s frightfully strict about such matters. And besides – he’s so proud of being a man – it’d be painful and humiliating for him to know that he owed anything to me. It’d completely wreck our relationship. This life we have built together would no longer exist.” (Act One)

Krogstad

Torvald’s commitment to honour and reputation affects not only his “collapse” at discovering Nora’s subterfuge but also his attitude to Krogstad:

“Men often succeed in re-establishing themselves if they admit their crime and take their punishment…But Krogstad didn’t do that. He chose to try and trick his way out of it. And that’s what has morally destroyed him.” (Act One)

Krogstad himself is motivated by a desire to regain his position in society:

“My sons are growing up; for their sake, I must try to regain what respectability I can.” (Act One)

He goes on to say that the crime he committed has ruined his whole social position, and warns Nora that:

“If I get thrown into the gutter for a second time, I shall take you with me.” (Act One)

We can see from this analysis that Krogstad’s past crime and subsequent fall from grace has had a direct bearing on his present actions of threatening blackmail, and then informing Torvald of Nora’s illegal forgery of her father’s signature. We can draw a line straight from Krogstad’s action in the past to Helmer’s reaction in the present.

In other words, while Nora’s behaviour might be explained, from Torvald’s point of view, as arising from her hereditary stock and so illustrates, by implication, an example of biological determinism, both Torvald’s and Krogstad’s viewpoints and conduct are more readily explained by social and psychological factors.

Dr Rank

This is not to say, however, that the idea of biological determinism has been abandoned. It is demonstrated again in the person of Dr Rank. Dr Rank reveals to Nora that he is a dying man. This is presaged slightly earlier in the play by Nora’s answer to Mrs Linde as to whether Dr Rank is always in such low spirits:

“No, last night it was very noticeable. But he’s got a terrible disease – he’s got spinal tuberculosis, poor man. His father was a frightful creature who kept mistresses and so on. As a result Dr Rank has been sickly ever since he was a child…” (Act Two)

Duncan (ibid) reports that critics now agree that this so-called spinal tuberculosis is, in fact, venereal disease.

Dr Rank goes on to tell Nora that:

“… in every single family, in one way or another, the same merciless law of retribution is at work…[and so] My poor merciless spine must pay for the fun my father had as a gay young lieutenant…. Especially a poor spine that never got any pleasure out of them.” (Act Two)

Concluding remarks

In A Doll’s House there are several ways in which the past bears upon the present, or is interpreted as doing so. Nora’s various actions can be explained in terms of doing what is necessary to achieve a particular objective. Whether it’s acting in a way to appeal to her father’s treatment of women, or her husband’s perception of the roles of husbands and wives in society, or in order to obtain money:

“Oh, Torvald, we can be a little extravagant now. Can’t we? Just a tiny bit? You’ve got a big salary now, and you’re going to make lots and lots of money.” (Act One)

and subsequently deceive Torvald in order to protect his sense of self-worth (his masculinity).

Krogstad too is motivated by a desire to reclaim his place in society and the need to earn a living.

In contrast, Torvald interprets the actions of both Nora and Krogstad as arising from heredity. In this sense, he denies them any agency – although that does not prevent him from blaming them for their actions.

Dr Rank’s predicament is, perhaps, the only objective example of biological determinism in that he is, indeed, paying for the sins of his father.

Thus, from a number of perspectives we can agree with the title of the essay: the past does always bear upon the present. How it does so is depicted in the ways in which the characters in the play react to various events and revelations, as shown above. But why it does so is largely a matter of opinion. Although the play is usually interpreted as a feminist tract, it might just as profitably be employed as a starting point for a debate on nature versus nurture, and an exploration of the modern form of biological determinism known as sociobiology.

Finally, we have focused here on only four characters. However, this belies the complexity and richness of the play. The appendix therefore contains a rough graphical representation of some of the ways in which the past bears upon the present in A Doll’s House.

Appendix

References

Allen, Garland Edward, "Biological Determinism". Encyclopaedia Britannica, 25 Sep. 2018, https://www.britannica.com/top.... Accessed 28 April 2022.

Balaki, S.S. H, and Sulaiman, N. A. M.“A Feminist Analysis of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House”, Beytulhikme An International Journal of Philosophy, 1 June 2016. Accessed 27 April 2022.

Duncan, S. “A Doll’s House”, Methuen, 2020.

Hoffman, R. “Alfred Adler's Theories of Individual Psychology and Adlerian Therapy”, https://www.simplypsychology.o..., 17 May 2020. Accessed 21 April 2022.

Ismail, H.I.H. and Nur, H.S.M., “Heredity a Revisited Theme in Henrik Ibsen’s ‘A Doll House’ & ‘Ghosts’”, Journal of English Language and Literature Volume 11 No. 2 April 2019. Accessed 27 April 2022.