It is time for another blog entry!


The whole point of this entry will be to introduce to all of you some of the characters of A Doll's House.


NORA - she is the main character of this play and it is her story that Ibsen tells us. Nora is a normal, a little childish woman, living in an ideal house with her husband and 3 children. She is a woman that would do anything for her husband and children ... ideal picture of a married woman in an ideal 19th century household. Women at these times were, at least according to the society, made to breed and care for children and listen to their husbands and do anything they want, nothing more and nothing less. It was very hard for a woman to find a job other than dressmakers. But Nora is very ambitious and wants to be respected by the society and likes to show off. I would say she lives in her own perfect and carefree world, but she has lived through hard times too, when she had to work and keep her family alive while her husband was sick. So I would say that she earned her time of peace. But once her world has scattered and she saw what her life was really about, she did not hesitate and  took her faith into her own hands and left her husband, since, in her eyes, he was holding her down and she would not be able to find out who she really is.

HELMER - he is Nora's husband. It is a normal 19th century man and also behaves to his wife like this and it is expected from him, and only him, to keep the family alive. Helmer behaves to Nora as if she was child and he likes it, since in 19th century it was probably normal behaviour of husband to his wife. For him, Nora is like a doll that he can play with, but at the same time, he feels somehow connected to her, since she saved him and the family in the past, when he was sick and was not able to earn money. He shows his appreciation of what Nora did for him by kind of respecting her opinions and feelings. But when Nora means a threat to his reputation, he wants to keep his distance from her and at the same time not anyone know in order to save his carier. He stops to care about her and instead of helping her, he leaves her all alone to stand against it, just not to involve himself.

CHRISTINE - she is an old friend of Nora, that has come to visit her after a long time. Her husband died and left her nothing, so she looks for a help and Nora was probably the first person that came to her mind. It is hard to describe her character from the book, as she is not that much present in the book. But from what it is written I can say that she honours her friendship with Nora and also appreciates what friends do for her and is able to repay them in full. And that she did for Nora. At the same time, when she married her husband it was not for love, but for money, these money were not of her, but her mother that was sick and needed them. But back then, she had to make the worst decision of her life, since she must have left her loved man and marry the wealthy one for the sake of her sick mother. So we can say she is a really caring person, that has had to make hard choices in her life and experienced bad, as well as good things in her life.

KROGSTAD - a lawyer and a "bad" person in this play. I put "bad" in quotes, since he is not bad, but is forced to be bad, since he had a hard life. He is the one that helped Nora to save her husband (he borrowed her money), but when he is about to be fired from work (by Helmer, since he is to become his senior) he brings up the agreement between him and Nora and forces her (he shows her the agreement and tells her that she must have forged the sign) to speak for him and safe his work. He is in the play picture bad, in order to have some plot and not just description of a ideal family life in 19th century. At the same time, he is the one Christine was in love with at the time she married the wealthy man, so this kind of broke him and altered his character. So we can say, that he was unfair, but that is what life is sometimes too, isn't it? He might symbolize what life can do to a good man, when it is really harsh. 

DR.RANK - a doctor that has serious sickness and is about to die very soon. Despite that he is very lively person and a good friend of Nora and Helmer. He comes to their house everyday and talks with them and really likes them, maybe more than he should. He is in love with Nora, but Nora is not in love with him. She loves him only as a good friend and companion. But even after he expresses his feelings to Nora and she rejects him, since she is already happily married to Helmer, he is not sad, maybe disappointed, since he thought it was mutual, but not sad. Just as Christine, he is not much described in the book, so it is hard to tell what he was like. But he was living alone in his home, with no wife and/or children and was a really good friend to Nora and Helmer. 

And that is about all of the imporant characters of this play, those that played major role in it anyway. Of course there is more characters, such as the children and the maid, but those are just a "little" characters that play little role in the play.