Gail Finney reports that Ibsen’s plays were ‘enthusiastically welcomed’ by feminist thinkers in Norway and throughout Europe. In closing the door on her husband and children in A Doll’s House, Nora opened the way to the ‘turn-of-the-century women’s movement’. However Ibsen’s concerns were not narrowly feminist or political. He stated in a speech given at a banquet held in his honour by the Norwegian Women’s Rights League on 26th May 1968, “I am not even quite sure as to just what this women’s rights movement really is. To me it has seemed a problem of humanity in general.” Ibsen’s concern with the state of the human soul cut across the lines of class and gender.

Ibsen believed that there are two kinds of moral law, one in man and a completely different one in a woman. He noted that the woman’s conscience is judged by the masculine law and he examined this contradiction through his presentation of Nora Helmer. Ibsen condemns society’s conventions, its construction of femininity which incorporates the domestic ideal addressed by the play’s title ‘A Doll’s House’. He criticises the idea that women are born to play the role of the housewife and loving mother – the idea that they are to function like dolls; attractive in appearance, entertaining, voiceless and in need of care and attention. That Nora and Torvald’s relationship is based on economic imperatives is obvious from the play’s outset. Torvald asks her, “Has my little songbird been spending all my money again?” Marriage for women in the 19th century was in many cases a means of gaining financial security; it was not based on the romantic ideals of love and happiness.

Through Ibsen’s characterisation, the gendered ideals of the male as active and the female as passive are examined. In his relationship with Nora, Torvald is the active participant; he fulfils the traditional male role as provider. In Act One Nora tells her husband, “I can’t manage without you.” At this stage in the play she is under the illusion that she cannot live independently, that she is in need of guidance and authority. This kind of male control and domination which was promoted by Victorian society is condemned by Ibsen. As a man, Torvald believes that he is more intelligent (represented by his study – a male only area) and more financially aware than his female counterparts. He believes that such factors give him power and the right to objectify his wife, claiming her as his possession; he refers to Nora as ‘my little squirrel’ and ‘my own little spendthrift’. His language in A Doll’s House is full of these labels and neologisms which although may first appear as mere terms of endearment, are ultimately demeaning and condescending. It would seem that Torvald uses language to infantilise and objectify Nora in order to assert his dominance and control over her, thus further trapping her in a destructive image – one where she believes herself to be inferior to her husband.

Money is time and time again revealed to be at the centre of the Helmer’s marriage. Nora believes that with wealth comes happiness; she expresses her delight to Mrs. Linde that Torvald’s new job has ‘a big salary and lots of bonuses’. However, Ibsen is critical of such bourgeois values and the use of money as a form of control. It is ironic that in taking out a loan to aid her husband’s recovery, Nora gains financial freedom from Torvald but is in turn financially bound to another man, Krogstad.

In Act Three, the sexual objectification of women by men is condemned by Ibsen. Torvald believes Nora is his possession to use and abuse saying, “My darling. No one else’s. My sweetheart, my treasure.” When she resists him he believes she is ‘more delicious than ever’ contesting, “Darling you’re joking, it’s a game. Won’t? Won’t? I’m your husband.” Ibsen criticises his patriarchal control and arrogance; Nora must meet the demands of wife, mother and lover. In order to remain sexually attractive she dresses up for Torvald, dancing and performing for him. The Helmer’s relationship is artificially constructed to maintain the pretense of a happy family when in reality it lacks meaning and depth; their marriage is fundamentally flawed, based on economics, convenience and appearance rather than love.

As Act Three of A Doll’s House continues, Ibsen reveals Torvald’s hypocrisy and thus the hypocrisy of a male-controlled, image-obsessed society. After holding his wife out to be a trophy, Torvald quickly dismisses her as a criminal after finding out about her forgery. Torvald makes stereotypical, condescending statements about women highlighting the low status they held in society at this time, “A silly, empty-headed woman – and now I’m dead.” Torvald believes moral values are heredity and that Nora is like her father, “No religion, no ethics, no sense of duty.” Torvald fears that now Nora is tarnished, she cannot have contact with the children in case they develop her undesirable qualities. Such beliefs about hereditary morality were common in Victorian times and it is clear that Ibsen finds them ridiculous.

By the end of the play Nora leaves Torvald realising that all her life she has been performing; playing the role of dolly-baby to her father and dolly-wife to her husband. Ibsen shows a woman defying social conventions by making her own decisions and taking control. Nora points out that she was not born to be a wife and mother, “I think that first I’m a human being, the same as you.” She elevates herself to the same level as her husband and for the first time in their relationship, she is the dominant one. Ibsen criticises society’s oppression of women highlighting that they are not male possessions, their roles in life are not predetermined and that they have minds of their own. He challenges society in his play to realise that relationships based on finances and power are flawed; that the image of the providing husband and adoring wife is exactly that: a façade.