Heroine in the Play A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

In the play A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, the character, Nora, brings the term heroine into a new light. Nora starts off as the child who is ignorant of the real world and is not clear as to how it works. However, she does excel above new heights in the end of the play. She overcomes her fears and finally takes a stance. But it isn't easy for her to begin with. She battles with herself by trying to keep a secret to herself and from surfacing itself to her husband. Her husband is the one she is hiding her secret from. But she is not only hiding her secret but her true self and true intentions. She unravels herself as the secret unravels itself right in front of her husband. Despite the views being thrown on her by her friends and family she emerges an entirely different Nora Helmer, and eventually saves herself from being doomed.

The play itself begins with Nora coming home from Christmas related errands. She keeps herself busy by getting ready for Christmas and a ball where she gets to dance for a crowd of people. This is a typical hero/alter ego situation. Her husband, Helmer, seems busy with work related matters. He seems to belittle her with baby talk:

HELMER: What do we call my pretty little pet when it runs away with all the money?

NORA: I know, I know, we call it a spendthrift... (Ibsen 1058)

He speaks of and to her as if she was a child. As the play goes on she meets her friend from school, Mrs. Linde. They catch up and gossip as Helmer speaks to Dr. Rank, a family friend, in his study. A man named Krogstad appears to speak with Helmer on matters of work. It would seem everyone, with the exception of Dr. Rank, knows Krogstad to be somewhat of a shifty and crooked person. In the play he appears to be the face of evil at first. As the play continues the plot thickens as Krogstad threatens to blackmail Nora because Helmer plans to fire and replace him with Mrs. Linde. Nora does not want this to happen so she tries her hardest to prevent Krogstad from letting Helmer know her best kept secret and destroying her family. This is the alter ego beginning to realize that there is a crisis and only Nora can stop it from worsening. Toward the end of the play Nora dances her Tarantella and it is nearing to the point where Helmer will discover what mischief her wife has been up to. Nora still tries to prevent him from finding out. But once it seems that all was hopeless, as she hopes for a miracle, there was a glimmer of light which quickly faded once Helmer reads the letter Krogstad dropped off consisting of what Nora has done behind his back. After Helmer through his fits and fusses his tantrum QUICLKY subdues after he reads another letter consisting of the solution to get both Helmer and Nora out of trouble. After yelling at Nora and insulting her he totally turns around and becomes apologetic and sympathetic. Nora, too, has made a complete turn around. Instead of her continuing along with Helmer to live a paradise of a life she cherishes, she wakes up and confesses to Helmer that she doesn't want to be with him or the family anymore. This is the alter ego transforming into the hero. She has grown from a child into an independent woman. She decides to leave them for her sake. She saves the day, so to speak.

At this point she adopts a new role and that is to live for her self. She only wants no part of Helmer. It could be because of the fact that he was so quick to apologize after yelling at her and calling her nasty things. It could be that she is not happy with her life. What ever the reason she has changed out of her shell liked she changed out of her gown:

HELMER: ...What are you doing in the spare room?

NORA: Taking off this fancy dress.

HELMER (standing at the open door): Yes, do. You try and get some rest, and set your mind at peace again, my frightened little song-bird...What's this? Not in bed? You've changed your things?

NORA (in her everyday dress): Yes, Torvald, I've changed. (Ibsen 1104).

The miracle she was praying for turns out to be freedom from her cage; to leave the doll house Helmer has placed her in believing that this is happiness.

Leaving her family was probably the first thing she has ever done for herself. That is what makes her a heroine. The term heroine is reinvented in this case. She didn't save anyone's life from being doomed and destined for disaster. She only saves one life and that is her own. She saves it from the lie she is so very used to. There are also two other aspects as to why she is considered a heroine. One of those aspects, obviously, is her gender. The next aspect is who sees her as such.

A hero doesn't don the title of a hero upon themselves. Heroes are donned that title by those who witnessed the selfless and heroic actions of an individual. Nora, being a woman, automatically places her in position to be a heroine (because to be a hero one must be a man and to be a heroine one must be a woman). In the case of this female character she makes what may look like a selfish decision. But from her shoes this is the most important decision she could make. This is an impressionable act. This play was written in late 19^th century Germany. In that era it was okay for a woman to stand out to make decisions like that in Germany. This may explain why Helmer was not hesitant on replacing Krogstad with Nora's friend, Mrs. Linde, who is in fact a woman. Women can hold positions like that in Germany at an early time like that. Alma H. Law, author of the article "The Editors and Board of Trustees of the Russian Review" from the journal Russian Review, says, "Shaikevich points out that Russian audiences, unlike those in other countries, Germany in particular, were more prepared to accept Nora's rebellion against her husband. The reason, he says, is to be found both in the facts of Russian life which have demanded that women be independent and in the image of woman in Russian literature." What makes it so confusing, unlike Germany, other countries could not understand why Nora went against her husband. Other women in that era might've seen this as a message to not be afraid to stick up for yourself and stand up for what you believe in, adding more power to the Women's Rights Movement that was just about underway at that pint of time. British playwright, Bernard Shaw, puts it well by saying, "[Ibsen] has not only made 'lost' woman lovable; but he has recognized and avowed that this is a vital justification for them..." This justifies the point of the term heroine being redefined.

However, it is not Ibsen's intention to relay the message of freedom to women everywhere. Ibsen is a realist. In this play he uses symbolism in a clever way. The symbol in this play is the tarantella. Nora dances the tarantella in the play but she was frenetically 'dancing' the tarantella throughout the whole play. The tarantella is so much as a remedy as it is a dance. It is named after the tarantula. One would dance this dance of spins and turns for more than twelve hours to rid themselves of the poisonous bite from the tarantula. It is not a guarantee to rid all the poison from the body. Those who died after the dance either did not dance enough, was too late, or got bit by something with more deadlier venom (in this case it was commonly the Black Widow). Jennette Lee put it best from her essay, "A Doll's House: An Illustration of Symbolism:"

"The tarantelle is the play. Coming in the natural course of the play, it seems a simple stage device, a mere feature of the fancy-dress ball, which, in its turn, is an episode of the play...The tarantelle is the symbol of Nora. Its wild, unresting movement is the tragedy of her nature -- light and frivolous on the surface, but concealing underneath a dread secret -- a wound that carries death in its train. It is the gruesome climax of Nora's doll life, and it is placed where the chief symbol of Ibsen's play is always placed, at the climax of the play. It is the culmination of the plot."

The evil face turns out to be her life and not Krogstad. Nora saves her life by fighting the venom that she calls happiness and when all seems bleak when things were actually going to be okay she finally makes a final blow by growing up and taking charge for herself for once.

Ibsen placed Nora in situations where she had to make life changing decisions. Nora was in trouble, not only with what she did, but with the life that was destroyer her inside out. At what seemed like things getting better for them was actually Nora being pulled back into her hell disguised as paradise. Nora made the decision that she did not want that and that is when Nora, the heroine, saved her. Ibsen's actual message may be that there is a hero in everyone.