Redeeming the dolls

Henrik Ibsen set A Doll's House at the season of Christmas. His story of liberation and loss takes place during a period associated with merriment and family unity. This holiday context heightens the irony of the narrative as well as making the pain of the characters more acute. It serves an additional purpose, however. Ibsen's decision to set the play at Christmas is a subtle indication of his theme. The Christian tradition associates Christmas with redemption and hope; Ibsen constructed a story in the tradition of Realism to illustrate a different method of deliverance.

The redemption in A Doll's House occurs in a thoroughly modern and humanistic way. Ibsen's main characters experience emancipation through exertion of will or celebration of their own nature, not through the intercession of God or other people. Nora Helmer, the protagonist, is redeemed from a state of marital subjection; she finds freedom by asserting her individuality. Her friend Christina Linden is redeemed from loneliness; she finds meaning by choosing love over material comfort. The insidious Nils Krogstad is redeemed from bitterness; he finds hope by forgiving others. Finally, the weary Dr. Rank is redeemed from pain; he finds peace by celebrating the inevitable end of his material existence.

This theme of liberation is also clear in Patrick Garland's 1973 film adaptation of the play. This movie adheres closely to the original text. Its few departures from the source serve only to make redemption a less abrupt process. By omitting some of Nora's rambling conversations with Christina, for example, the film makes Nora's private manner much more direct and rational; the Nora of the motion picture is far less silly in the absence of men than the Nora of the text is. This change creates the impression that Nora's characteristic childishness is primarily a mask that she wears in her husband’s presence, whereas the play indicates that her frivolousness is rooted more deeply. Despite the fact that the play's Nora decides to shed her mental subjugation just as she symbolically changes out of a masquerade gown, the text implies that her foolishness is deeply ingrained. Nora is as absurd and impractical in her relations with Christina and her children as she is in her relations with men. The viewer of the film adaptation is less likely to have received this impression. Similarly, the redemption of Nils Krogstad seems to be a less drastic change in the film than in the text. Because the movie departs from the text by showing Krogstad's wretched circumstances and hungry offspring, it makes him a less repulsive and sinister character. His transformation is, therefore, less startling. The film shows the external bonds of both Nora and Krogstad, but it does not succeed as well as the play in showing their internal bondage.

Both the film and the play, though, express Ibsen's conviction that redemption cannot come from an external source. In both, Nora hopes for "the miracle"; no miracle appears, whether divine or human. An outside source of relief does appear briefly—Krogstad relents and hands over his evidence—but Nora does not find freedom in this. Even though her husband Torvald celebrates the letter's arrival as his deliverance ("I am saved!"), Nora can find no real joy in it. Meaning is impossible for her without freedom, and freedom is impossible without assertion of her individuality. This is why Torvald Helmer is the only major character not to find redemption. Although powerful, he depends upon others for his self-concept. He remains a slave. Liberation must begin internally.

Ibsen's story may be seen, therefore, as an individualistic version of the message of the Christmas story. There is no Christ child, sent from a heavenly Father, bringing external hope to those in captivity. There is instead a middle-class woman, born to be subject to her father, escaping captivity by rejecting external obligations. In Ibsen's worldview, peace with oneself is more important than peace with others—perhaps even more important than peace with God.