Ibsen Quotes

• "A comfortably and tastefully [...] furnished room"

  Stage Direction

  - material comfort

  - not liminal unlike opening of Goblin Market
• "a fire in the stove"

  Stage Direction

  - Symbol of warmth and domesticity Nora doesn't get from her husband
• "humming contentedly to herself"

  Stage direction

  cf Goblin's cry
• "carrying a lot of parcels"


  Mercantile activity - performing doll - cf Goblins carrying lots of fruit
• Nora: "Hide"


  - First words spoken

  - secret

  - subversive
• "laughing happily to herself"

  Stage Direction

  Dramatic irony - she won't be laughing later on
• Torvald: "Is that my skylark twittering out there [...]My squirrel rustling"


  small, diminutive zoomorphism

  = patronising

  * May be terms of endearment|!
• Torvald: " You mustn't disturb me"


  Typical gender division man working
• Torvald: "Has my little squander bird been overspending again?"


  Modern perspective = financial control is effectively intelligent abuse
• Torvald: "Oh, Nora, how like a woman!"

  "A home that is founded on debts and borrowing can never be a place of freedom and beauty"

  0.1 = dismissive simile

  0.2 = dramatic irony
• Nora: "I want to show you everything I've bought"


  = self-expression and agency

  CF. Goblin exploitation
• Nora: "I don't want anything"


  = selfless nature

  - similar to Lizzie

  - Opposite to Laura
• Nora : "'(quickly) You could give me money, Torvald."


  Moment of opportunity and independence yet still a passive recipient
• Torvald: "But you'll spend it on all sorts of useless things for the house"


  Division between men + woman

  - shows he doesn't fully know Nora as that's not what she's truly been using the money for
• Torvald: "what an expensive pet she is for a man to keep"


  possessive nature / control

  zoomorphic
• Nora: "(hums and smiles, quietly gleeful)Hm. If you only knew how many expenses we larks and squirrels have, Torvald"


  = secrets

  example of some agency
• Nora: "just like your father"


  determinism

  naturalism
• Nora: "I promise you, honestly - !"


  lie + defiance

  = beginnings of agency

  = not just a possesive doll

  Not "Angel in the house" (Patmore 1854)
• Torvald: "It's a wonderful thing to know that one's position is assured and that one has an ample income"


  Irony as it is due to his wife

  $ Obsessed
• Torvald: "You simply wanted to make us happy, and that's all that matters"


  Gender divide

  "Angel in the house" (Patmore 1854)
• Torvald : "pretty eyes [...] delicate hands"


  woman defined as weak and defined through physicalality
• Mrs Linde: "Not even a feeling of loss or sorrow"

  Nora stage direction - "looks incredulously at her)


  Dramatic irony
• Nora: "Well, I mean it's lovely to have heaps of money and not to have to worry about anything. Do you think?"


  $ = freedom
• Mrs Linde: "Nora, Nora haven't you grown up yet?"


  reference to Lizzie/Laura

  Nora = grown up + matures when she leaves
• Nora: "'Nora, Nora isn't as silly as you think."


  Cf. Laura in the goblin market

  Nora isn't simple an "Angel in the house" (Patmore 1854)
• Nora: "crocheting, embroidery"


  work = $

  cf. Laura
• Nora: "isn't it a wonderful thing to be alive and happy!"


  idealist
• Mrs Linde: "little shop"

  "little school"

  "one endless slog for me"


  belittling women
• Mrs Linde: "unspeakably empty"

  "easier to find some work here that will exercise and occupy my mind"


  0.1 Nora = agent, Laura = bewitched

  0.2 agency -> needs fulfillment
• It was I who saved Torvalds's life


  Nora -
• like other young wives; I cried and prayed


  Nora -
• his duty as a husband not to pander to my moods and caprices [...] well, well I thought you've got to be saved somehow. And then I thought of a way -


  Nora -
• 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


  Nora -
• amuses him to see me dance and dress up and play the fool for him


  Nora -
• completely useless, am I?


  Nora -
• but it was great fun, though sitting there working and earning money. It was almost like being a man


  Nora -
• I can play all day with the children. I can fill the house with pretty things, just the way Torvald likes


  Nora -
• there's a moral cripple


  Rank -
• what do I care about society?


  Nora -
• just something I'd love to say to Torvald [...] I've the most extraordinary longing to say: 'Bloody Hell!'


  Nora -