A Doll's House
Henrik Ibsen (1879)
“The most consequential door-slam in literary history — a woman walks out on her husband and changes the theater forever.”
At a Glance
Nora Helmer has secretly borrowed money to save her husband Torvald's life, forging her late father's signature on the loan document. When the lender Krogstad threatens to expose her, Nora discovers that Torvald — whom she expected to protect her — cares more about his reputation than about her sacrifice. She walks out the door. The sound of it closing is still echoing.
Read full summary →Why This Book Matters
A Doll's House is the most performed play in the world — more performances annually than any Shakespeare. It created the modern problem play: realistic setting, contemporary characters, a social argument that must be wrestled with rather than resolved. It made women's interiority the proper subject of serious drama, for the first time, in a major theatrical tradition. The door-slam is the most famous stage direction in history.
Diction Profile
Deliberately plain — Ibsen stripped theatrical language of its rhetoric. Domestic vocabulary, interrupted sentences, words said around the subject rather than about it.
Low by design