A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen
AoE: Time & Space
IB English HL 1
The purpose of this assignment is to increase your schema in order to help you
understand the nuances of the historical and cultural allusions and context within the
play. Your goal is to explore each topic through online articles and videos as a form of
investigative research.
A Doll’s House & Henrik Ibsen
For this section, your goal is to
conduct some background research
on the text, without looking at any
spoilers! So let’s start with the
basics:
1. When was the play written?
*Hopefully you are starting to piece
together the relationship between
genre and time period...
- 1879
2. This is a TRANSLATED text! What
is its country of origin and what
language was it originally written in?
- The country of origin is Norway
- It was originally written in Norwegian, Danish
3. Apart from being heralded as a “naturalistic modern tragedy,”
the play chiefly falls under the genre of Realism. List FIVE
characteristics that we know about this genre. *You should be
vaguely familiar with it already---think back to Gatsby!
Five Characteristics:
● Realistic setting and characters
● Has everyday details implemented into the story
● Nothing seems out of the ordinary, everything seems like
it could happen in the world
● It emphasizes social class
● Shows realistic character
development
4. Now, listen to the pronunciation of our author’s name so that
you don’t sound silly in class. Then, quickly skim through Ibsen’s
bio and paste FIVE of the most interesting or pertinent facts
about his life below:
● Wanted to train in medicine but was unable to
● Being appointed to theater poet and stage manager
launched Ibsen on his dramatic career
● Ibsen and Bjornson were rivals but ended up being great
friends
● Many of his works were rejected at first but then he
started becoming very successful
● A Dolls House was inspired by someone that he knew
(Laura Kieler)
Cultural Context
First, watch this video on Women in Victorian England (though
you only need to watch up to 3:40), and then answer the
following questions:
1. What was education like for women in this time period?
Using your critical thinking skills, what would society look like
today if only one sex was given the opportunity to be
educated? How would this change our relationship dynamics?
- Women were not educated and it was believed that the
main goal of women was to grow up and get married.
They thought that education would turn women more
masculine. If only one sex was given the opportunity to
be educated then only that sex would have an income
and make money. This would change our relationship
dynamic because the nonworking sex would be
dependent on the working sex making them inferior and
submissive in a relationship.
2. List FOUR qualities of the “Angel of the House” referred to in
the video:
● devoted
● Submissive to her husband
● Expected to take care of their husbands
● Expected to produce children
Second, watch John Green’s take on Women in the 19 Century
(only up to 5:00) and then address the remaining questions:
3. Explain the positive and negative aspects of being a “high
class woman”:
- Positive: lowest mortality rates
- Negative: not able to pursue a career, husbands held
authority over the person; property; and choice of wife,
unable to vote, shut out of the political process, had to
raise the future voters,
4. Specify the principle of Coverture that Green briefly
mentions:
- Husbands held authority over the person, property, and
choice of their wives
5. Thoroughly explain the Cult of Domesticity:
- Decreed that a woman’s place was in the home, so rather
than making stuff, the job of the woman was to enable
their husbands to make stuff, by providing food and
clean living space, but also providing ‘non-market values’
such as love, friendship, and mutual obligation.
Vocabulary Preparation:
Idioms & Cultural References
Please research each of the following phrases and terms so that
you are aware of their meaning before experiencing them in
the text:
1. “as a matter of course…”: something that is to be
expected as a natural or logical consequence. Its natural,
usual, or logical
2. Plucky: having or showing determined courage in the face
of difficulties
3. Rubbish: waste material, refuse, or litter
4. Tarantella (also watch this video for a visual image): a
rapid whirling dance originating in southern Italy
5. Consumption: the using up of a resource, a wasting
disease
6. Parcel: a thing or collection of things wrapped in paper in
order to be carried or sent by mail, a quantity or amount
of something
7. Shilling: a former British coin and monetary unit equal to
one-twentieth of a pound or twelve pence
8. Barrister: a lawyer entitled to practice as an advocate,
particularly in higher courts
9. Spendthrift: a person who spends money in an
extravagant, irresponsible way
10. Capricious: given to sudden and unaccountable changes
of mood or behavior
