Ibsen Context

Question 1

Chronological Context

Answer 1

• 1834-35: Father Knud Ibsen is merchant. Knud has business debts so family property is seized and they go bankrupt.
• April 1864: Ibsen self-imposed, self-impoverished ‘exiled’, left Norway for Rome via Copenhagen
• 1869: The League of Youth opens at Christiana Theatre, characters and themes explicitly prefigure ADH. One female character tells her husband: ‘You dressed me up as a doll; you played with me as one plays with a child.”
• 1879: ADH published to huge acclaim in Scandinavia and Germany, world premiere at Royal Theatre Copenhagen
• 1882: Married Women’s Property Act allows Eng, Welsh, Irish women to own+transact property independently from husband.
• 1889: English translation of ADH open in London, mixed reviews, Radicals such as George Bernard Shaw are impressed, The Standard Newspaper calls it ‘a morbid and unwholesome play.’

Question 2

Real Events Behind A Dolls House

Answer 2

• Laura Petersen = Nora Helmer
• 19 y/o, Laura sent Ibsen her sequel and they became friends
• Ibsen named Petersen ‘skylark’
• 1876: Laura’s husband Victor Kieler had tb and doctors advised to go to warmer climate
• Laura funded travels with a loan she could not repay
• To clear the debt, Laura forged a cheque
• When bank found out, Victor threatened to divorce Laura, put her in metal asylum and stopped her from seeing her children for two years
• Laura hated ADH as Nora willingly left children while she was forced to.

Question 3

The ‘New Woman’ and Victorian Marriage

Answer 3

• 1894: First used by Sarah Grand
• Associated with Ibsen
• Middle class, intellectual, politically active rebels
• Nw criticised sexual double standard for male extra-marital sex v fallen women
• Conservative commentators blamed Ibsen’s influence for nw movement

Question 4

Melodrama

Answer 4

• 19th C dominant theatrical form
• Frequently articulated working class oppression and made innovative use of stage technology
• Tropes: secrecy and revelation, villainous blackmailer, fatal letter
• Nora and Torvald imagine being melodrama heroine and hero
• N expects T to sacrifice himself for her
• T longs to be hero: “often i wish some terrible danger might threaten you”

Question 5

More context

Answer 5

• Economic boom 1840’s-1875 followed by economic stagnation 1875-1890’s
• Fairly behind in new ideas during 19th Century
• Norwegian romantic nationalism, aristocracy still controls government and economy.
• But development of middle class revolutionaries starts taking power
• 1840: women considered legally ‘incapable’
• 1854: Married Womens Property Act
• 1863: Unmarried women no longer given status of minors, eligible for different occupations
• Napoleonic code which forbade women having anything to do with monetary transactions