A book report on Henrik Ibsen`s book `A Doll`s House`

The play A Doll 's House by Henrik Ibsen features Nora Helmer as a housewife who has been confined in a marriage . Her relationship with her husband is one in which she has been forced to live a double-standard life . She has kept from her husband the secret of a debt that has saved his life . She fears he might consider her work to repay that debt as an example of her having forgotten her place as a woman . However throughout the play , Nora comes to realize the true nature of her situation

as a prisoner in her marriage , and the audience witnesses her transformation from repressed housewife to free woman . The dance sequence found at the end of the second act prefigures her release from the marriage by symbolizing her liberation from the dictates of her husband

The dance begins as a symbol of Nora 's dependence within her marriage She uses it as a means of distracting her husband from opening Krogstad 's letter , because incurring his wrath would place her in at a disadvantage with the one from whom she derives her emotional support Nora 's need to use the dance for such a purpose highlights her fear , and symbolizes the level to which she felt herself bound to her husband and to the destiny of her family as a unit . She even emphasizes her perceived dependence on her husband - to which she alludes in her statement to Torvald : I can 't get on a bit without you to help me (Ibsen , 47 . This demonstrates that , despite her hidden methods of earning enough to repay the enormous debt she had incurred , she still felt herself throughout the years incapable of taking care of herself as her husband does

Gradually , the dance begins to take over , and Nora becomes less and less restrained . This symbolizes the breaking of her marital bonds at the point where she begins to realize that she is able to perform on her own . Although she has previously said she cannot dance without Torvald she begins to openly ignore his wish for her to calm her agitated dancing . One realizes , by making a connection between her life and her dancing , that her husband 's wishes have all this time not been able to restrain her actions . Her oppression has only been apparent , as she has continued doing things behind her husbands back in spite of fact that he would have disapproved of them . When her husband tells her not to dance so violently , her resolute reply is This is the way (Ibsen , 49 . She makes her own decision about how to dance , and this symbolizes the decision she makes every day to continue doing a deed of which she knows her husband would disapprove

Her dancing also prefigures her ultimate decision to leave her husband whose dominance threatens her life by enclosing it in his demands and keeping it hidden . Torvald himself points this out in his statement My dear darling Nora , you are...