Emma Goldman: Her Thoughts on a Doll's House

In 1914, Emma Goldman published a thorough analysis on Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House. Predominately focused on Nora's growing consciousness on the inequality of marriage, Goldman writes through a feminist lens about the "happiness" associated with matrimony. This part struck me as most interesting:

"Down deep in the consciousness of Nora there evidently slumbers personality and character, which could come into full bloom only through a great miracle–not the kind Nora hopes for, but a miracle just the same. [...]

For forty-eight hours Nora battles for her ideal, never doubting Torvald for a moment. Indeed, so absolutely sure is she of her strong oak, her lord, her god, that she would rather kill herself than have him take the blame for her act. The end comes, and with it the doll’s house tumbles down, and Nora discards her doll’s dress–she sheds her skin, as it were. Torvald Helmer proves himself a petty Philistine, a bully and a coward, as so many good husbands when they throw off their respectable cloak. [...]

When Nora closes behind her the door of her doll’s house, she opens wide the gate of life for woman, and proclaims the revolutionary message that only perfect freedom and communion make a true bond between man and woman, meeting in the open, without lies, without shame, free from the bondage of duty."

The rest of her essay can be read here.



Emma Goldman, The Social Significance of the Modern Drama
(Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1914; The Gorham Press, Boston, U.S.A.)