Reading this play, which is still quite a new genre for me, I was reminded of the objective fac that in plays, the whole story, the plot, character introduction and development, climax and aftermath, is carried by dialogues alone. Aside from the little descriptions before a new act begins, the story in a play is solely based on dialogues. This feature distinguishes plays quite a lot from novels, which have other descriptive ways to progress a story in the direction that the author wants.
Plays, then, are a truer reflection of the lives we live, at least on the outside. Should our lives be distilled to our social interactions, it would soon be quite apparent that talking is the only thing we do in our lives. Even within ourselves, the monologues are indeed dialogues between us and ourselves; it’s just that it happens rather quietly inside our minds than verbally on the outside.
Still, I wouldn’t be particularly sure if this ‘conversationalist’ structure of plays is the reason why I’ve come to admire and relate to them so deeply. Both short, direct, and independent of any outside explanations, the dialogues of the plays offer the reader exactly what he needs to know, and no more. The distillation of what has occurred, be it a physical act or an emotional maneuver, is totally left to the reader to take upon, making the plays, in effect, more subjective a genre. The fact that we only read the words spoken by the characters, and only a few exclamatory remarks from the writer, puts us in a situation where we go through the following emotions, feelings, and reactions ourselves, rather than these being explained in a following paragraph, as is the case with novels.
It shouldn’t then be surprising that plays might come out to be more moving than novels, given that its experience is only complete with the characters and the reader combine to produce the effect that the writer had in mind.
But as with any new genre, the realm of plays has many great stories in store for my toddler presence, among which Ibsen’s classical masterpiece was one of the prominent ones. I was quite excited for this one, both for the praises I had heard of it and the still-going adaptations of it in the theatres today. Based on a domestic life of late nineteenth or early twentieth century, this play sweetly reaches to the core of dominant patriarchy and boldly shatters it.
Nora, an innocently marry, earnestly loyal, and childishly tempered lady, is the wife of Helmer, a now bank manager, and a very patriarchal, but rather sweet, husband. From the very start, which is on the Christmas eve, we see the hierarchy in this marriage: where sweet Nora is eager to please her husband and is earnestly dependent on Helmer for cash to bring about those little happinesses for her family. Helmer, on the other side, is both sweet and dominant, in that he calls Nora of such sweet nicknames like, skylark, sweetbird, etc., but also appears larger upon her by treating her as a child and someone totally under his control.
The twist comes when Nora’s old friend, Christine, now a widow with no children, comes to Nora looking for work, and she gets promised the job of an ill-reputated man, called Krogstad, at the bank where Helmer is about to be the manager. Nora, unbeknownst to Helmer, owes money to Krog, who still has something fishy about Nora’s debt, which could possibly destroy their apparently happy marriage. What follows as the result of this little secret and what Nora decides to do with it, is both groundedly real and boldly progressive, especially for the play’s times. What appeared to be a happy, well-knitted, and solid family, soon finds itself apiece and in shock, as the consequences of Nora’s action reveals a tragic truth about the hypocrisy, authoritarianism, and injustice of patriarchal domestic lives.
Nora’s bold action, defended in her heart-piercing and jolting-to-core speech, especially for the male readers, made crystal clear the nuanced as well as plain offenses, we as the leader of the families, commit against the socially and psychologically caged women. Nora’s epiphany, that she arrives at through a bitter realization, is truly progressive and equally as courageous is her honest admission of how confused, betrayed, and lost, she then felt as a result.
It is so much more real, empathy-bearing, and moving, is Nora’s
predicament, than today’s pseudo-feminism and the noise it had created to
around a topic of such urgent importance. Ibsen, in a play as small and
impactful as this, has harnessed the very truth of social injustice that’s
being going for centuries, and has portrayed an even truer act of courage from
a now liberated woman.
Ratings:
5/5 ***** July 7, 2022_