Une maison de poupée (1879)

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I've been meaning to read this ever since I finished Miss Julie, that beautifully written atrocity of Strindberg. To have an empowered female protagonist in a 20th century Naturalist play is out of ordinary, and Ibsen's plays are just that extraordinary. Like Torvald the husband, almost all of the dramatists of 1900s lobbed all women into the same category, ascribing to them personalities so diverse, that they could've been condensed to just one inconsequential character that nudges the hero's path.

I've never really identified with the utter breakdown of a person described in books, but I saw myself in Nora. Silently going through life liking everything your father likes, and then your lover, afraid of disagreeing, afraid of holding a different opinion, going silently through personal hell for them, only to come out and discover that that reciprocation will never come. Nora holds out till her final breakdown. She silently prepares herself for the worst, hoping it would never materialise because they would surely come through for you. And then one desperate moment you realise that you're utterly utterly mistaken.

Walking out has always been hard, you know you'll be labelled as the immoral, inhuman wretch by society. I don't know if Nora ever explained her decisions to the world, and if she did, was it all in vain?

Note:
In this review I've often drifted from Nora's pov to mine. It is grammatically inconsistent, and I realised that when I proofread before hitting send. But I've decided to let it stay as it is. This kind of representation in literature is hard to come by. Oh to discover their pain in yours... ( )

Drama “Shtepi kukulle” u shkrua me 1879 dhe pati si pikenisje nje fakt nga jeta reale. Ibsen duke zbuluar nderlikimet dhe kundershtite e jetes, i shtrengoi shikuesit te hiqnin dore nga ndarja tradicionale e heronjve pozitive dhe negative, por ti pranoje ata ashtu sic jane ne teresine e tyre te nderlikuar, me te gjitha mosperputhjet. Teatri i Ibsen shquhet per vertetesine e karaktereve dhe te detajit artistik, per thellesine e trajtimit te argumentit dhe per nje game te gjere tematike. Ne kompozicionin e Ibsen rolin me te rendesishem e luan misteri dhe ngjarja.

Great little play. Still relevant and revolutionary in today's society. ( )

I decided to revisit Ibsen's A Doll's House (1879) while I was concurrently reading George Gissing's The Odd Women (1893). Very happy in my decision. Ibsen's masterpiece is the perfect crafting of a theatre piece as delivery mechanism for a contemporary issue of the highest magnitude. It is proffered by the literary academicians that Gissing was not influenced by Ibsen's play, insisting that Gissing did not read the Norwegian playwright until 1888, but I'm unconvinced. No matter, the two works go together quite nicely. Unintentional feminist writing they say. Hmm... ( )