This is a very pertinent question to ask about this
excellent play. Certainly there is ample evidence in the text to suggest that Nora's
situation is the result of more than one person and society. A key part to analyse
closely is the end of the play, when Helmer and Nora have their final showdown. Nora is
able to be completely honest with her husband and is able to express how she was treated
both by her father and then by her husband:
When I lived with Papa, he used to tell me what
he thought about everything, so that I never had any opinions but his. And if I did have
any of my own, I kept them quiet, because he wouldn't have liked them... then I passed
from Papa's hands into yours. You arranged everything the way you wanted it, so that I
simply took over your taste in
everything...
Thus we can say
that Nora's plight is the result of the way she has been treated by her father and then
the way that her husband treated her in exactly the same way. This has resulted in Nora
being married to a complete "stranger" and has never been able to achieve independence
herself, because her father and then her husband have always protected her from the
world because she was supposedly so "weak and
fragile."
However, it would be unfair to lay all the blame
at the feet of Nora's father and Helmer. Ibsen equally blames society for the way that
it treats women as fragile objects or possessions that men need to dominate and protect.
Ibsen seems to be suggesting that we do society at large a profound disservice by
treating them this way and that women need to be recognised as human beings rather than
just another possession, like the "doll" that Nora identifies herself
with.
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