91TJ123-8-2009 LK VWD0011 Tradition Humanistic 6th Edition W:220mm x H:292mm 175L 115 Stora Enso M/A Magenta (V)READING 30. 11
CHAPTER 30 Industry, Empire, and the Realist Style 9191Elements of naturalism are found in the novels of
many late nineteenth-century writers in both Europe
and America. Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) in England, and
Stephen Crane (1871–1900), Jack London (1876–1916)
and Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945) in America
are the most notable of the English-language literary
naturalists.
Realist Drama: Ibsen
The Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)
brought to the late nineteenth-century stage concerns sim-
ilar to those in the novels of the Realists. A moralist and a
critic of human behavior, he attacked the artificial social
conventions that led people to pursue self-deluding and
hypocritical lives. Ibsen was deeply concerned with con-
temporary issues and social problems. He shocked the pub-
lic with prose dramas that addressed such controversial
subjects as insanity, incest, and venereal disease. At the
same time, he explored universal themes of conflict
between the individual and society, between love and duty,
and between husband and wife.
In 1879, Ibsen wrote the classic drama of female libera-
tion, A Doll’s House. Threatened with blackmail over a
debt she had incurred years earlier, Nora Helmer looks to
her priggish husband Torvald for protection. But Torvald is
a victim of the small-mindedness and middle-class social
restraints of his time and place. When he fails to rally to
his wife’s defense, Nora realizes the frailty of her dependent
lifestyle. Awakened to the meaninglessness of her life as “a
doll-wife” in “a doll’s house,” she comes to recognize that
her first obligation is to herself and to her dignity as a
human being.
Nora’s revelation brings to life, in the forceful language
of everyday speech, the psychological tensions between
male and female that Mill had analyzed only ten years ear-
lier in his treatise on the subjection of women. Ibsen does
not resolve the question of whether a woman’s duties to
husband and children come before her duty to herself; yet,
as is suggested in the following exchange between Nora
and Torvald (excerpted from the last scene of A Doll’s
House), Nora’s self-discovery precipitates the end of her
marriage. She shuts the door on the illusions of the past as
emphatically as Ibsen shut out the world of Romantic
idealism.
From Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (1879)
Act III, Final Scene
[Late at night in the Helmers’ living room. Instead of retiring,
Nora suddenly appears in street clothes.]
Helmer:... What’s all this? I thought you were going to 1
bed. You’ve changed your dress?
Nora:Yes, Torvald; I’ve changed my dress.
Helmer:But what for? At this hour?
Nora:I shan’t sleep tonight.
Helmer:But, Nora dear—
Nora[looking at her watch]:It’s not so very late—Sit down,Torvald; we have a lot to talk about.
[She sits at one side of the table.]
Helmer:Nora—what does this mean? Why that stern 10
expression?
Nora:Sit down. It’ll take some time. I have a lot to say to
you.
[Helmer sits at the other side of the table.]
Helmer:You frighten me, Nora. I don’t understand you.
Nora: No, that’s just it. You don’t understand me; and I have
never understood you either—until tonight. No, don’t interrupt
me. Just listen to what I have to say. This is to be a final
settlement, Torvald.
Helmer:How do you mean? 20
Nora[after a short silence]:Doesn’t anything special strike
you as we sit here like this?
Helmer:I don’t think so—why?
Nora:It doesn’t occur to you, does it, that though we’ve
been married for eight years, this is the first time that we
two—man and wife—have sat down for a serious talk?
Helmer:What do you mean by serious?
Nora:During eight whole years, no—more than that—ever
since the first day we met—we have never exchanged so
much as one serious word about serious things. 30
Helmer:Why should I perpetually burden you with all my
cares and problems? How could you possibly help me to
solve them?
Nora:I’m not talking about cares and problems. I’m simply
saying we’ve never once sat down seriously and tried to get to
the bottom of anything.
Helmer:But, Nora, darling—why should you be concerned
with serious thoughts?
Nora:That’s the whole point! You’ve never understood
me—A great injustice has been done me, Torvald; first by 40
Father, and then by you.
Helmer:What a thing to say! No two people on earth could
ever have loved you more than we have!
Nora[shaking her head]:You never loved me. You just
thought it was fun to be in love with me.
Helmer:This is fantastic!
Nora:Perhaps. But it’s true all the same. While I was still at
home I used to hear Father airing his opinions and they became
my opinions; or if I didn’t happen to agree, I kept it to myself—
he would have been displeased otherwise. He used to call me 50
his doll-baby, and played with me as I played with my dolls.
Then I came to live in your house—
Helmer:What an expression to use about our marriage!
Nora[undisturbed]:I mean—from Father’s hands I passed
into yours. You arranged everything according to your tastes,
and I acquired the same tastes, or I pretended to—I’m not sure
which—a little of both, perhaps. Looking back on it all, it
seems to me I’ve lived here like a beggar, from hand to mouth.
I’ve lived by performing tricks for you, Torvald. But that’s the
way you wanted it. You and Father have done me a great 60
wrong. You’ve prevented me from becoming a real person.
Helmer:Nora, how can you be so ungrateful and
unreasonable! Haven’t you been happy here?
Nora:No, never. I thought I was; but I wasn’t really.
Helmer:Not—not happy!