How does it change Ibsen’s statements about gender roles and middle-class marriage in late nineteenth-century Norway?

Choose one of the following topics on which to write a well-structured paragraph of about 160 words. Provide details from the play to support your view. If you include quotations, choose only key ones and edit them, if necessary, to incorporate them grammatically,

1. In A Doll House, Ibsen contrasts two relationships: the renewed relationship between Kristine Linde and Nils Krogstad and the marriage between Nora and Torvald Helmer. By the end of the play, what are the key characteristics of each relationship? How does the contrast between them help Ibsen state his themes about personal identity, gender equality, and marriage?

2. As The Bedford Anthology explains, in Germany in 1880, Ibsen revised the ending of A Doll House, which scandalized audiences, “to forestall anyone else’s doing it” (Jacobus 379). The German actress Hedwig Niemann-Raabe had refused to perform in the play as written “because she personally would never leave her children” (Jacobus 379). The revised ending featured Nora’s being led to the door of her children’s room and then collapsing into tears as the curtain goes down. How does this revision change the process of Nora’s self-development? How does it change Ibsen’s statements about gender roles and middle-class marriage in late nineteenth-century Norway?

3. In composing A Doll House, Ibsen combines the genre of the “well-made play” with shocking subject matter. An important element of the “well-made play” is suspense, and Ibsen is skilled at building it. Among the devices that sustain suspense in a “well-made play” are “surprises, such as letters to be opened at a critical moment and identities to be revealed later” (Jacobus 368). Also featured are “characters who miss each other by way of carefully timed entrances and exits” (Jacobus 368). In your paragraph, analyze the devices Ibsen uses to build suspense in A Doll House. Remember not to lapse into plot summary but stay focused on analyzing the devices.

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