Reading Order
A Doll's House Reading Order
A Doll's House (1879) by Henrik Ibsen is the founding text of modern dramatic feminism — Nora Helmer's decision, at the end of the play, to leave her husband Torvald and her children and go out into the world to find out who she is. The play is organized around the revelation that Nora once forged her father's signature to borrow money (from the moneylender Krogstad) to pay for the trip to Italy that saved Torvald's health, and that she has been secretly paying back the debt. Torvald's response to the revelation (he thinks first of his own reputation, not of Nora) is the final proof Nora needs that she has been living in a doll's house — playing the role of wife and mother that Torvald's world required of her, without ever being seen as a person. The door slam at the end of the play — Nora leaving — is one of the most famous sounds in the history of the theater. When the play premiered, it caused an enormous scandal, and in Germany, Ibsen was pressured to write an alternative ending (Nora stays for the sake of the children); he did so under protest, but the original ending is the only legitimate text.
Where to start
A Doll's House (1879) — any modern translation; Michael Meyer's is standard, but Zinnie Harris's 2019 version and Tanika Gupta's 2012 adaptation are also excellent. Best Ibsen reading order: A Doll's House → Ghosts → The Wild Duck → Hedda Gabler → The Master Builder → When We Dead Awaken
Complete A Doll's House Book List
- 1Buy
A Doll's House
Henrik Ibsen·1879·The founding text of modern dramatic feminism — Nora Helmer, Torvald, the forged signature, and the door slam at the end. The most performed Ibsen play and one of the most performed plays in the world; the door slam at the end is one of the most famous sounds in theater history - 2Buy
Hedda Gabler
Henrik Ibsen·1890·The companion — Hedda Tesman, the pistols, and the offstage shot. A Doll's House and Hedda Gabler are the two Ibsen plays most frequently staged today and the companion investigations of the position of women in Norwegian bourgeois society: Nora's ending is the active, hopeful version; Hedda's is the version for the woman who has no equivalent exit available - 3Buy
The Awakening
Kate Chopin·1899·The American companion in the tradition of the literary investigation of the woman who discovers she cannot live within the constraints her society imposes — Edna Pontellier in New Orleans. The Awakening and A Doll's House are companion investigations of the same problem from the same decade: both end with the woman refusing the role that her society has assigned her, and both were scandals when they were published - 4Buy
Pygmalion
George Bernard Shaw·1913·Shaw's companion in the tradition of the play that uses a domestic situation to raise questions about women's independence — Eliza Doolittle's final departure from Higgins. Shaw was deeply influenced by Ibsen, and the ending of Pygmalion (Eliza leaving Higgins) is his deliberate echo of Nora's departure: in both cases, the woman refuses to remain the creation that the man has made of her - 5Buy
The Second Sex
Simone de Beauvoir·1949·De Beauvoir's companion in the philosophical tradition of the investigation of what women's freedom actually means and what prevents it — the most important feminist philosophical text of the twentieth century. A Doll's House and The Second Sex are companion investigations of the same question across the gap between 1879 and 1949: Ibsen dramatizes the individual woman's discovery of her unfreedom; de Beauvoir analyzes the philosophical structures that create that unfreedom - 6Buy
Middlemarch
George Eliot·1871·Eliot's companion in the literary tradition of the investigation of what happens to a woman of exceptional intelligence and aspiration in a society organized to waste those qualities — Dorothea Brooke's 'unhistoric acts.' Both A Doll's House and Middlemarch are organized around the question of what a society does to the aspiration of its women, and both arrived at the same moment in the development of the women's question in European culture - 7Buy
Room with a View
E.M. Forster·1908·Forster's companion in the literary tradition of the woman who must choose between the life her society expects and the life she actually wants — Lucy Honeychurch's choice between Cecil Vyse and George Emerson. A Room with a View and A Doll's House are companion investigations of women's freedom: Ibsen's is the tragic version (Nora must leave everything to find herself); Forster's is the comic version (Lucy gets to choose and chooses right) - 8Buy
Nora (A Doll's House, Part 2)
Lucas Hnath·2017·Lucas Hnath's 2017 companion sequel — Nora returns, fifteen years later, to ask Torvald for a divorce. A Doll's House, Part 2 is the most interesting theatrical response to Ibsen's play: Hnath asks what happened to Nora after she left, and his answers are more complex than either Ibsen's optimism or the pessimistic counter-narrative allows
A Doll's House — Frequently Asked Questions
What is the meaning of the door slam at the end of A Doll's House?
The door slam at the end of A Doll's House — the sound of Nora closing the front door as she leaves — is one of the most famous theatrical gestures in history, and its meaning is simultaneously simple and radical: it is the sound of a woman choosing her own freedom over the roles (wife, mother, dependent) that her society has assigned to her. The door slam is famous because it is irreversible: unlike most theatrical endings in 1879 (and most theatrical endings before Ibsen), it does not allow for reconciliation or explanation or a return to the status quo. Nora goes, and the sound of her going is the sound of a fundamental principle being asserted: that a woman's obligation to herself is prior to her obligation to her husband and children. This was scandalous in 1879 — so scandalous that Ibsen was pressured to write an alternative ending in which Nora stays for the sake of the children (he did so under protest, writing later that it was 'a barbaric outrage to the original work'). The door slam has become shorthand for the feminist moment of refusal — the moment at which a woman declines to continue performing the role that her society demands of her.
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