With more than two-dozen plays, including Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, Hedda Gabler, and A Doll’s House, he is called “the father of modern drama.” He is believed to be the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after William Shakespeare. Like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Emile Zola, and Upton Sinclair, Ibsen can also be described as a protest writer, pointing out injustices. A Doll’s House may be the best example of this. In the 19th Century, Norwegian women, like the play’s main character, Nora, are oppressed by stultifying patriarchal rules. When Nora sees that her father and her husband treat her like a doll, an object, she stops being submissive. Instead, she pieces together a new identity and understands her need for autonomy. The play ends with Nora walking out of her home and shutting the door. That one piece of stage direction said what so many women were forbidden to say – for centuries.
A Doll’s House hit Norwegian audiences like a bomb. Many women saw themselves in Nora and began demanding an end to the country’s patriarchal laws. Lots of men were furious to be portrayed as egotistical misogynist taskmasters. Reporters and social scientists who study this sort of thing have noted that many heterosexual couples who see current productions of the play have similar, gender-based reactions to those during Ibsen’s lifetime.
For his 70th birthday, the Norwegian Women's Rights League organized a banquet in Ibsen’s honor. At the event, the playwright said, “I thank you for the toast, but must disclaim the honor of having consciously worked for the women's rights movement... True enough, it is desirable to solve the woman problem, along with all the others; but that has not been the whole purpose. My task has been the description of humanity.”
A b/w photo portrait of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen Image source: Britannica
“I don't imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over.”
Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, born on this day in 1828
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