A Doll's House: A Level York Notes

Ibsen called his play ‘a tragedy of modern life’. The plot of Chaucer’s tale – familiar to many of its first hearers – is a comic fable. But ‘The Merchant’s Tale’ is tinged with bitterness and ‘A Doll’s House’ is full of humour. In neither case is the writer simply trying to vary the tone; the mixture is crucial to the design.

The structure of ‘A Doll’s House’ resembles the domestic comedies Ibsen directed for the Norwegian National Theatre – what he called ‘dramatic candy floss’. Typically, these used humour and suspense to tell a story in which a young wife tries to exceed the ‘limitations’ of her gender, makes silly mistakes – which the audience find hilarious – and finally ‘learns her lesson’ as the status quo is restored. As a naturalistic playwright Ibsen wants to show the experience of real people, morally ambiguous and continually changing in response to circumstances, and this kind of story could not be manipulated towards a ‘happy ending’.

However, he allowed the audience initially to assume that it might be the case. Nora’s first entrance with Helmer popping out of his study on the word ‘bought’ and her comically glib lies about sweet-eating might lead them to anticipate a ‘harmless’ frivolity. Nora’s lies and coquettishness are always entertaining, because of her vitality and quick thinking.

The comic balance shifts, however. Increasingly, Helmer becomes the real figure of fun: his sulky resentment when Nora accuses him of being ‘petty’ in dismissing Krogstad, his tipsy attempt to demonstrate the relative merits of knitting and sewing to Mrs Linde, are irresistibly funny. But these episodes hint that there cannot be a resolution to the story. Nora is becoming better at managing her money and is more mature – for instance, her relationship with Rank deepens from flirtation into one of mutual respect and understanding. Meanwhile Helmer is stagnating, pampered and protected from the real world. Inevitably, the pair are becoming incompatible.

In contrast, before the Merchant even begins his tale, Chaucer makes him announce, ‘We wedded men liven in sorwe and care.’ We instantly understand that, however conventionally comic the story, the teller and his tale are in conflict. The frame shapes our understanding of the tale from the outset. There are flashes of straightforward absurdity – the old man ‘in his nyght-cappe’ on the wedding night – and even slapstick – the young bride scampering up to her lover on the back of her elderly husband. But while Ibsen likes to use subtext to show the tragic rifts in the Helmer’s marriage, the Merchant gives us little idea of the real inner lives of Januarie and May. Instead the situation of an old man with a young wife and all the possibilities for infidelity provide the cue for the comedy.

Conversely, in ‘A Doll’s House’ it is almost impossible to ignore the painful feelings beneath the trivial actions. It becomes clear that Nora’s giddy image is a mask: she is efficient but exhausted from overwork; she becomes increasingly aware that she may face criminal charges; finally, she loses her love for her husband. Helmer’s heroics underline his exposure as the weaker partner. Comedy does not disappear, but the play seems to demonstrate that ‘domestic comedy’ is impossible. Nora and Helmer certainly perform their gender stereotypes of sweetly feeble woman and heroic male, often to comic effect. By the end, however, when Helmer talks about his ‘great wings’ moments after his selfish criticism of Nora, the humour has turned to outright satire, showing the demeaning and corrupting side of these stereotypes. The damage the postures of ‘squirrel’ and ‘man of honour’ cause to the Helmers’ marriage is too great for a ‘candy-floss’ ending.

Compared to, say, ‘Othello’, Ibsen’s play, as Toril Moi points out, is a tragedy about ‘modern individuals’, ordinary bourgeois citizens. The domestic tragedy is not that someone dies or kills for love, but that love itself dies. The naturalistic setting in which life goes on despite suffering means that it is possible for the tragedy to be concluded with a note of hope. Episodes such as Nora’s long conversation with Rank show humour, compassion and resilience, which will support her in her new life. It is possible, Ibsen seems to suggest, to discard tragic and comic stereotypes and be ‘first and foremost a human being’. Nora’s transformation will happen after the fall of the curtain. In his own transformation of the ‘well-made’ domestic comedy, Ibsen reminds us that, as he said, ‘The true end lies beyond.’

This could also be said of ‘The Merchant’s Tale’. Its ‘true end’ is not May’s quick thinking or Januarie’s gullibility – these are only the comic punchline. The sourness of the Merchant, who takes for granted that all women behave like May and most men are fools, leaves us wondering what tragedies may lie in the past of the Merchant himself – or, perhaps, of the women in his life – and to attend to the marriage debate taking place across society as exemplified by the Canterbury pilgrims.