Verified Document

Drama: "A Doll's House," By Henrik Ibsen Term Paper

DOLL'S HOUSE: FILM AND TEXT The one play that seriously endured criticism and lasted much longer than anticipated was Henrik Ibsen's Doll's house. For some strange reason, people continue to read this play and directors/producers enjoy enthralling the viewers with cinematic versions of this play. And if that is not enough, the play is regularly played on Broadway. There indeed is an enduring quality about the play that gives it a universal meaning and every woman especially married ones feel they can relate to the central character Nora. But as with all cinematic adaptations of play, Doll's house's various versions have shown inconsistencies in the depiction of the central character. The husband's character has remained more or less static primarily because it doesn't undergo a transformation in the play and basically doesn't evolve. On the other hand, Nora's character takes a 360-degree turn at the end and we see a new completely transformed version of once subdued wife of Helmer.

The story is brilliantly built up for the twist near the end of the play. Nora, the simple and rather naive wife, of Torvald Helmer considers herself lucky to have married a man who adores her and whom she loves dearly. On the surface, everything is absolutely as it should be, two people are deeply in love with each other and they are leading a peaceful life. But it is when the story progresses that one realizes how the male leading character is taking advantage of his wife. Poor Nora is always made to believe that she should consider herself fortunate for having found a husband as perfect as Helmer and Nora worships him believing that he was like a god who could not do anything wrong. She is of the view that her husband...

The wife realizes that the on man whom everyone despised in the area was not being thrown out of the bank where her husband was the supervisor because of his immoral character but because her husband had some old grudge against him. Nils Krogstad was a man with a rather checkered past but he was trying to make up for his past mistakes. A job at the bank was his first step in the right direction but Helmer, for his own selfish reason, tries to throw him out of work.
That is when Nora realizes how naive and absolutely foolish she had been about her husband and her duties. "You and father have done me a great wrong. It's your fault that my life has been wasted."

In the 1973 film version of the play, Claire Bloom played the central lead role of Nora while Anthony Hopkins played Helmer. Patrick Garland directed the movie and Christopher Hampton wrote its screenplay. This was a time when women's movement was at its peak so the director knew the film version would appeal to the people. In the same year, Jane Fonda starred in the competing cinematic version of this play making it harder for people to understand which portrayal of Nora was more faithful to the actual character. Hilard Elkins produced the film who was incidentally also Claire Bloom's husband.

The screenplay by Hampton was extremely close to the actual play since screenwriter had already worked on the stage version of the play. The film was nicely shot though there were some additions and subtractions that were meant to highlight the final message. The film is restricted to the interiors and manages to capture the one-day action of the play properly. Camera shots move from one room to another but mainly remain within the interiors of the house, and the director chose to add a Christmas ball scene too where Nora is shown dancing the tarantella.

Good camera work is obvious from…

Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Henrik Ibsen's a Doll's House Henrik Ibsen's
Words: 1295 Length: 3 Document Type: Term Paper

Henrik Ibsen's a Doll's House Henrik Ibsen's characters are not the people they appear to be. On the surface and at the beginning of the play audiences see typical people, pursuing typical lives with typical problems. Not until the play progresses, and in retrospect, do audiences realize that society negatively or positively stimulates the characters motives and actions. This paper looks at three such characters in Henrik Ibsen's play A

Doll's House Henrik Ibsen's Play a Doll's
Words: 3654 Length: 12 Document Type: Essay

Doll's House Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's Housemade him the father of modern literature. His writing showed tragedy and drama in a new and rather modern way. Prior to an analysis of the story at hand, it is only relevant that the plot and main characters are discussed in detail. This story does not revolve around a whole bunch of characters and is based on only a few days. The story

Doll's House Henrik Ibsen's 1879
Words: 1206 Length: 4 Document Type: Term Paper

"The dramatically active question of the last act is whether the "wonderful thing" will happen or not. The scene in which Nora realizes that it won't is one of the great scenes in modern drama, not only in precipitating the same mordant speeches" (Bloom, 32). Nora rapidly discovers that she cannot save Torvald and sadly leaves him as she knows that she needs change in her life and that

Dolls House Doll's House Henrik
Words: 1534 Length: 5 Document Type: Term Paper

He feels that Nora's freedom is not a reality since she couldn't possibly just leave her house and establish her own identity without money. "Nora needs money -- to put it more elegantly, it is economics which matters in the end. Freedom is certainly not something that can be bought for money. But it can be lost through lack of money." (Found in Schwarez) In short, whatever were the reasons

Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House
Words: 1875 Length: 6 Document Type: Term Paper

Nora's life has been made economically easy by her husband, but that subordination is what takes the ease out of her life of comfort. Torvald is the dominant partner in their marriage. Without his consent, she cannot make major decisions, like make a loan, without her husband's permission. "Frankenstein" is also about parental and filial obligation and relationship. Dr. Victor Frankenstein is the creator and father of the monster,

Doll's House: Father Failures in a 19th Century Drama
Words: 795 Length: 2 Document Type: Essay

Doll House -- Henrik Ibsen The play by Henrik Ibsen brings to the mind of the reader and the audience that many men in the past and in the present too, see themselves as superior to women, and women in fact should be happy to carry out the wishes of men. Nora Helmer becomes a kind of plaything for her husband Torvald, and in fact he admits to having fantasies

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now