Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen helped create the global marketplace of ideas with such plays as A Doll’s House, an 1879 work critical of traditional gender roles, as this conversation between Torvald Helmer and his wife, Nora, reveals. With women like Frieda von Bülow traveling the globe, Ibsen increasingly believed that the middle-class housewife did not develop as a full human being. His plays were performed in many countries—not only in Europe but also in Egypt, the United States, and as far away as Japan. A Doll’s House sparked fierce debate around the world, especially about the condition of women. If European artists and writers borrowed from other cultures, Europe’s cultural influence also spread beyond its borders.

Helmer: Nora, how can you be so unreasonable and ungrateful? Haven’t you been happy here?

Nora: No; never. I used to think I was; but I haven’t ever been happy.

Helmer: Not—not happy?

Nora: No. I’ve just had fun. You’ve always been very kind to me. But our home has never been anything but a playroom. I’ve been your doll-wife, just as I used to be Papa’s doll-child. And the children have been my dolls. I used to think it was fun when you came in and played with me, just as they think it’s fun when I go in and play games with them. That’s all our marriage has been, Torvald.

Helmer: There may be a little truth in what you say, though you exaggerate and romanticize. But from now on it’ll be different. Playtime is over. Now the time has come for education.

Nora: Whose education? Mine or the children’s?

Helmer: Both yours and the children’s, my dearest Nora.

Nora: Oh, Torvald, you’re not the man to educate me into being the right wife for you.

Helmer: How can you say that?

Nora: And what about me? Am I fit to educate the children?

Helmer: Nora!

Nora: Didn’t you say yourself a few minutes ago that you dare not leave them in my charge?

Helmer: In a moment of excitement. Surely you don’t think I meant it seriously?

Nora: Yes. You were perfectly right. I’m not fitted to educate them. There’s something else I must do first. I must educate myself. And you can’t help me with that. It’s something I must do by myself. That’s why I’m leaving you.

Helmer (jumps up): What did you say?

Nora: I must stand on my own feet if I am to find out the truth about myself and about life. So I can’t go on living here with you any longer.

Helmer: Nora, Nora!

Nora: I’m leaving you now, at once. Christine will put me up for tonight—

Helmer: You’re out of your mind! You can’t do this! I forbid you!

Nora: It’s no use your trying to forbid me any more. I shall take with me nothing but what is mine. I don’t want anything from you, now or ever.

Helmer: What kind of madness is this?

Nora: Tomorrow I shall go home—I mean, to where I was born. It’ll be easiest for me to find some kind of a job there.

Helmer: But you’re blind! You’ve no experience of the world—

Nora: I must try to get some, Torvald.

Helmer: But to leave your home, your husband, your children! Have you thought what people will say?

Nora: I can’t help that. I only know that I must do this.

Helmer: But this is monstrous! Can you neglect your most sacred duties?

Nora: What do you call my most sacred duties?

Helmer: Do I have to tell you? Your duties towards your husband, and your children.

Nora: I have another duty which is equally sacred.

Helmer: You have not. What on earth could that be?

Nora: My duty towards myself.

Source: Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House (New York: Anchor, 1966), 96–97.

Question to Consider

How do Helmer’s attempts to convince Nora to stay reveal his ideas about women and their proper roles in society?