On A Doll's House: A first impression

Oh sure, another play where men are bad and women are victims.

This is how I understood the play: in terms of settings, everything happened in the family's middle-class house. Based on the excessively elaborate descriptions the author employed, the house seemed pretty cozy, yet somehow it felt too crammed and so small for all the action happening in it. Maybe that was a mere effect of the unity of place, but I see this as a hint for the internal struggle and confinement Nora has faced during her stay there.

The structure was interesting. We have 3 acts: one introducing characters and conflict (patriarchy and societal norms), another where we have the rising action and hope building up in Nora's character, and lastly we have the act where the hope (the miracle) is shattered, which wasn't actually a bad thing and one can regard that as the resolution

Here, I see no clear hierarchy of characters, but it's more like that every character was an embodiment of some concept that contributes to the final liberation of Nora. For example, Rank was a clear indication that the marriage was very weak (for your wife to be more open to talking with your best friend than with you? That's pretty missed up, not to mention that this best friend was hiding true love for your wife). He also intensifies the notion of inherited struggle, which is a major theme here (though some stuff is not scientifically accurate. Spine TB is not inheritable nor infectious; Rank's father is innocent in that aspect). Kristine embodied a real example of independence which Nora sought (unconsciously at first) and her actions helped Nora see the truth. I could speak about the other characters but that would be pointless now that I have made my point; so yeah, no clear hierarchy because it's not actually very needed here: it's all about Nora, everyone else is there to either symbolize an aspect of her struggle or to enlighten her path to freedom (one can also not be so Nora-centric and say that each character is representing, in a way or another, an aspect of the feminine struggle with social norms during that era, which is obviously in line with Ibsen's motive of demonstrating such feminism-related stuff).

In terms of text and language, it sounded like Nora was playacting for all her 8 years of marriage, and she finally broke out of character at the final scene. In that scene, she almost sounded like the very-independent Kristine (verily so). Aside from that, the only thing I noticed is the repetitive use of pet names by Torvald when addressing Nora, showing his controlling nature.

But this one actually has a happy ending, as our Nora is finally free! And Torvald is now the one living with the hope of a miracle, the greatest of all miracles, which is good for him. Kristine and Krogstad now finally have a meaningful, happy life (at least from their perspective), which is exactly what they wanted. Poor Rank is dead, but yeah I guess it would have been weird if he wasn't.

I rate this one 7/10.