A Doll's House

Ibsen's drama of Nora Helmer, whose door-slamming exit exposed the falseness of a conventional marriage.

Specifications & Metrics

author

Henrik Ibsen

type

Realist drama

era

Modern realism (1879)

language

Norwegian (Danish)

setting

A Norwegian town, Christmas season

source text

The life of Laura Kieler, Ibsen's friend

acts

3 acts

Relative Scale in Plays

Core Principles & Analysis

• Premiered in Copenhagen in 1879 with a staging of the forbidden final conversation.
• German theaters forced Ibsen to write an alternative ending in which Nora stays.
• Its final door slam is often called the shot that started modern drama.

Sources

• Wikipedia: A Doll's House