“Look into any man’s heart you please and you will always find, in everyone at least one black spot which he has to keep concealed.”
Henrik Ibsen
Let me snatch my tambourine out of the box and let me hurriedly drape myself in my Kashmiri pashmina shawl. I do not have a parti-colored shawl like Nora. You sit at the piano like Helmer and play the first bars of the tarantella. But I will not dance violently like Nora. She was panicked. She was afraid of the consequences. She was too much fearful for the revelation of a letter. The secret she had kept for long. I am not afraid of anything. I am grateful. So I’ll not dance a violent tarantella rather I will go for a soft ballet.
I was reading Ibsen first time in my life and the first time while reading a book I found a desire in me to dance. The genre of literature is made for the performers, yet sometimes a reader could also find him feeling like performing by merely reading a play. This happened to me with this book. This entire play was a five-star reading experience for me from the beginning till the last few pages. It was plain sailing yet very captivating.
Alas! The last five pages forced me to drop one star. It could not happen favorable to this reader. The first two acts had filled me high in expectation. But that was my fault. A reader’s gratuitous conjecture on the plot that just fell flat! Still, it was no short of those five-star reading experiences. So though last night when I finished it I dropped 4 stars on top, yet I am editing to make it five today when I am posting this review. An author does not really care about the conjectures of his readers, so I should also not be vexed upon the turn a book takes at the end. It’s the privilege of the creator. I am familiar with Anton Chekhov’s realism in his stories and plays and have always appreciated him. Similar feel this play gave me at the end. It turned realistic and despondent. But a reader must not be downcast.
A Doll’s House begins on Christmas Eve. Nora Helmer is the main character. Torvald Helmer is Nora’s husband and seems busy and to the point guy. He scolds her for spending so much money on Christmas gifts. Initially, I thought it was a usual rebuke, but later as the play progresses only then I found that money was going to play a big role in their life. Helmer’s friend Dr. Rank has come to visit. At the same time, Kristine Linde, a former school buddy of Nora, comes into the room. They are meeting after a long time and they talk about their good and bad fortunes. Nora keeps repeating to herself and to her friend how she managed to keep her family happy.
“Oh what a wonderful it is to live and be happy.”
A doll’s house
She speaks about how Torvald became sick and the couple had to travel to Italy so that Torvald could recover in health. Nora illegally borrowed money for the trip that she and Torvald took to Italy; she told a lie about the source of the money to her husband. Krogstad, a low-level employee at the same bank where Torvald works, is an important character in the play.
Leave aside the discussion of patriarchy (That is probably the most prominent theme of this play). A girl is a Doll, First, the Papa’s Doll, and then she comes to her husband and becomes husband’s Doll. I was more excited by the free-flowing and effortless conversation among the characters. they were very rhythmic and graceful. Not a single sentence I found uninteresting or out-of-context.
“Yes! don’t you know Nora darling! when we are among strangers do you know why I speak so little to you and keep so far away and only steal a glance at you now and then- do you know why I do it? because I am fancying that we love each other in secret, that I am secretly betrothed to you, and that no one dreams that there is anything between us.”
A Doll’s House
From the first paragraph of this review, You can guess that I was more electrified and exuberant than anything else after reading this book. I found passion in Nora for her case and she delivered her case extraordinarily well. She transfused her passion into the reader. She is smart and confident and was flaunting in the beginning. very attractive and tricky to save her face in the middle. she dances well at the ball and pretends even better. She is an example of a case study of survival-ism till the most part of the book.
The style of the author looked very pure to me. He was a poet. And those poetic blandishments were present in this book. The progression in the play is as flat as pancake. It’s unwrinkled and the dose of emotions in dialogues is heavy. The vehemence of the reactions both in keeping the secret intact and after the revelation of the secret is utterly perceivable. This is the case not only for Nora but for all other major and minor characters. A reassuring beginning for me with Ibsen!
BOOKBROODER 