Started at the Bottom…Still at the Bottom

     I'm no fan of Drake, but the titular lyric seemed fitting. After finishing A Doll House by Ibsen, I feel much obliged to state that I, in accordance to many many many (I assume) other students and teachers, hate the alternate ending that Ibsen imposed to please the audience he was stuck with. It's no wonder the poor dude can't even live with himself after releasing such an atrocity. Nora, the supposedly enlightened woman and an ideal that all men and women strive for to reach intellectual freedom and self-worth, goes mainstream and stays in her stagnant relationship with her clueless (and just as inexperienced) husband. Where's the sense of closure in that? There isn't any feeling, no artistic and symbolic thought that went into the writing of this ending--a huge contrast for Ibsen, as he wrote most of the play with subtle hints of deeper meaning without giving everything away. All of his artistic credibility as a playwright is lost with that ending.

     The main problem I have with this alternate version is the hypocrisy with which the husband uses to get Nora to stay. That, in itself, seems like a cheap move even for Torvald. In the heat of Act III, Torvald shows his true colors as a selfish husband who cares more for public appearance and perfection instead of the well-being of his family; his cries of "I'm saved! I'm saved!" are testimony to that. Krogstad's letter, which was more or less addressed to Nora instead of Torvald, is seen as Torvald's own saving grace (I'm saved) instead of Nora's (We're saved). It's as if she should have never deserved this solace, that she still has to suffer the burden of 'doing the wrong thing', or pay Torvald a price for making him so angry (even though she did all of this to save his life). There is absolutely no mention of their kids, or of their kids' futures, as far as Torvald's concerned; their well-being is nonexistent. It's like that classic test of parental wit; if a fire alarm sounds in a house, the first thing a thoughtful parent would look for is the child. If a fire alarm had sounded in the Helmer home (or any 1800s equivalent of an alarm), Torvald would be the first to bolt out the door. Sadly, Nora would be the second.

     So the hypocrisy is only overstepped when he uses the children (not his children--he doesn't deserve children) as an excuse to get Nora to stay at home. We see that his offspring are just as much as strangers to him as Torvald is to Nora when Torvald exclaims, "But first you shall see your children for the last time!" 'Your children'. Nora's children. Not 'our children,' a collective responsibility that makes a family whole. He is basically separating himself from his wife and kids here, creating a dividing line to separate 'family' into 'me' (Torvald) and 'you' (everyone else). He manipulates Nora into thinking she's the selfish one for leaving the kids, even though Torvald doesn't give a second thought of them, doesn't even consider them his own. Where is the justice in that? The 'honor'? The concept of a "real marriage"?

     The counterproductive conclusion of the whole story here is that nobody wins. The fact that Nora doesn't escape from her prison doll house shows that no change has happened, that Nora will revert back to her old ways despite her exposure to the benefit of knowledge and independence from the real world (through Dr. Rank, Krgostad, and Mrs. Linde). And, more importantly, the audience will see these three characters as villains for trying to break up such a 'perfect' marriage that the Helmers have. The message it sends is twisted in itself: 'keep living with me because I don't want to raise kids that aren't mine! And I like to control you!' Lastly, Ibsen's message of the struggle for individual freedom is completely lost in translation as Nora changes from a dynamic character to a static one. In the beginning of the play, she's a ditsy lost girl who does not know how to mother her children and happily submits to a husband who doesn't know any better; she climbs up the ladders of self-fulfillment and virtue, an arm's stretch away from the key to happiness and self-adequacy, at the end of it all she tumbles back down to the bottom of the cliff because she feels bad about leaving her children motherless, even though she isn't even qualified to be a mother.

To sum up my feelings, an equally fitting meme: http://img01.lachschon.de/images/155928_SadDoge_1.jpg

Alternate Ending:
http://ibsen.nb.no/id/11111794.0