After reading Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House”, I had observed throughout the play that Ibsen has created very “real” characters. These characters in the play had “real” problems and were very complex. For example, Nora struggled with being happy which in her eyes the only way to do that was to make sure the house was making sure her husband has everything he likes, which in reality is a very toxic and misogynistic view that a wife can only be happy if her husband is kept happy. Ibsen uses these real problems to create a story that is interesting because viewers/readers can actually relate to the suffering of the characters because the characters seem like “real” people. Personally reading this play in our day and age, I find myself hating Torvald. I think the reason I most hate him is that he seems real, he has created a toxic atmosphere for his wife where she can’t even be herself, but at the same time, his wife saved his life by doing something against his will. So it is a complex situation with Torvald being the person of utmost attention because these issues are really his fault directly and indirectly.
For most of this play, we witness Nora’s struggles for the happiness of other people (mostly Torvald), but at the end, we see Torvalds faults come back for him and his struggles create a route of happiness for Nora. When Nora walks out, she is no longer obligated to the “happy home” and “happy husband” responsibility, meaning she no longer has to suffer for other’s happiness, whereas now Torvald is going to have to go through those suffrages that she once did in order to maintain his family. This at the time of the play was a very controversial thing, but now we would see that as something Torvald deserves. So as well as having these real problems he also brings justice to these problems, but the thing is its not complete justice for Nora because Nora now has to go into a misogynistic society where we saw from Kristine, is very hard for a woman to get by and live a happy life by herself in that time period, so I found that very interesting because there is justice but Nora still is suffering. In short, Ibsens “A Dolls House” was very interesting because of the realism in the characters and their struggles as they are very real and are observable in real life and also because of how the play ends with Nora walking out leaving us with a question of whether Nora really got her justice or not.