A Doll’s House is a play by Henrik Ibsen, probably his most famous one.

Plot:
Nora is the young wife of successful lawyer Torvald. They have two kids together, Torvald just got promoted, it’s Christmas – life seems to be just dandy. But a little while back, Nora borrowed some money from Krogstadt without Torvald’s knowledge. Krogstadt now happens to become Torvald’s employee and Torvald is threatening to fire him. But since Nora forged a signature to borrow the money, Krogstadt now has leverage and uses it to blackmail Nora into convincing Torvald that he shouldn’t fire him.

A Doll’s House is a fantastic play. Intelligent, interesting and well-written. I read it in school when I was 17, I think, and then I didn’t quite appreciate it as much as I did now, on re-reading. Strongly recommended.

Nora is a fascinating character. Very childlike, and yet she knows what has to be done and does it without complaining or even mentioning it. The play concentrates on her character development and Ibsen sketches it wonderfully.

At the same time, the secondary characters are well-developed, too. I especially like how Torvald, even though he’s the “bad guy” and he treats Nora like shit, he is not a bad person. So many shades of gray are always a joy to read.

The resolution of the play is great, too. It’s a beautiful, feminist statement and it’s still valid today. In fact, it is almost sad how current the play still is.

Summarising: if you haven’t read it, you should.