Thalia @ Pictures in the Words

I’ve always felt like this is just one of those classics that I’ll never understand. This is the second time I’ve read this (I had to read it last year in my AP English class [though no review was written because I barely paid attention and relied heavily on sparknotes], and then again just now in another English class), and I still don’t understand what all the fuss is about. I wasn’t impressed with the characters or the moral of the story (mostly because I thought Nora was an insufferable idiot, and it really had nothing to do with the way her husband, Torvald, treats her), and while the rest of civilization seems to think it was a great piece of feminist literature, I just really didn’t see it.

Short review ahead!

What I Liked: Spoilers!

• Honestly, there’s not much I really enjoyed about reading this, except that there were some insightful one-liners and it wasn’t absolutely horrendous. I liked certain parts and ideas, and if taken out of context of the story, they really are inspiring.

What I Didn’t Like:

• I just couldn’t connect with the story because I disliked Nora so incredibly much. Nora has absolutely no self-awareness—she floats around and does illegal things and refuses to believe that anything bad could ever happen to her. She believes that Krogstad is a terrible man, even though he committed the same crime she did in forging a name, and when Krogstad asks her, “What about me?” she answers rather simply that she didn’t think about him at all, and she didn’t need to. But she doesn’t see her own faults, and while some of that is her being spoiled by a husband who, while possessive, dotes on her all the livelong day, a lot of it is her own selfish nature. And that nature continues when she leaves Torvald. It’s supposed to be some grand act of independence, but she also abandons her children, and that’s not something I take lightly. Not being able to care about or sympathize with the main character made reading this extremely unenjoyable.

Overall: Honestly, this isn’t a play I recommend. I just didn’t like the characters, Nora in particular, and I thought the message was lost because of how unlikable she was. It has some dramatic and literary merits, but unless you actually need to read this for a class or something, you shouldn’t bother picking it up.

(http://thaliasbooks.tumblr.com/post/80516142209/a-dolls-house-review)