A CRITICAL APPROACH TO THE DICHTOMY BETWEEN THE INNER AND

OUTER REALITIES OF THE CHARACTER ‘NORA’ IN THE PLAY A DOLL’S

HOUSE BY HENRIK IBSEN

D.N.P Amarasooriya1
1
Department of Languages, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka

INTRODUCTION

Research Problem: - How does the obscured actual reality of Nora impact on Helmer’s
fantasy space in revealing her true identity and securing a liberated existence?

The appearance of femininity and masculinity within a conjugal proximity maintains an

inconstant equilibrium through their exterior and interior selves. ‘Nora’, the nucleus of the
fantasized individualistic psychical formation of Helmer, functions as the constant irrational
organism that beautifies and preserves the fantasizing elements of Helmer’s world. The
implementation of Nora as a deprived object, which the dominant, ‘big’ masculine other
prefers and desires within the romanticized conjugal frame, reproduces her feminine identity
as a nullified yet rainbow- coloured element that exists based on a groundless, fallacious
reality. Along with the claustrophobic psychic atmosphere that confines her social validity
into a bedecked nothingness, she makes her reality of true essence an oblivion to the other by
wearing a mask of pretentiousness that is coloured with elements such as frailty, immaturity,
gendered inferiority, dependency and frivolous perceptive assumptions that are socially
attributed to femininity. Nora’s interior and exterior appearances, which are embedded within
her inner and outer realities, remain circumscribed within segregated spheres that are
incapable of merging with or overwhelming the other.

While the superficial texture that colours the outer reality of Nora screens her hidden
psychical motives, the inner reality that embodies her socially impossible yet individually
possible desires and objectives forms two distinct appearances within her mental and physical
spheres. Nora, being conscious of her dual identities, maintains a distance between them,
creating a barrier through her superficial pretence with the intention of making Helmer
unaware of the separated hidden reality.

The deceptive reality within which Helmer builds his playhouse, into which Nora’s role is
circumscribed as ‘a frail dependent little feminine thing’, evolves a fantasy whole where
Helmer cultivates his dreams, desires, imaginative assumptions and instinctual motives.
Piercing through the illusory veil, the secretive inner reality of Nora emerges, exposing her
true identity and questioning and causing Helmer’s fantasized whole to crumble.

Thus, this study approaches the text to scrutinize how the obscured actual reality of Nora
impact on Helmer’s fantasy space in revealing her true identity and securing a liberated
existence’.

Methodology

This study focuses on analyzing the text ‘A Doll’s House’ by Henrik Ibsen based on content,
discourse and structural analyses. Since the fundamental focus of the study is to scrutinize and
analyze the character ‘Nora’, the content analysis comprises the methods of relational and
conceptual analysis to examine the literary text ‘A Doll’s House’. Thus, the feminist
1
Correspondence should be addressed to D.N.P Amarasooriya, Department of Languages,
Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka (email: nimeshaprsd061@gmail.com)
perspectives of Simon de Beauvoir; the text ‘The Second Sex’; the perspectives of Jacques
Lacan; the Lacanian object: dialectics of social impossibility, seminar xiii and xiv; and Slavoj
Zizek’s ‘From Reality to the Real, How the Non- duped Err, The Seven Veils of Fantasy’ are
utilized for the analysis.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Through this research paper it could be analyzed the human beings are entrapped within a
fantasy whole from which they cannot perceive actual reality. Thus, basically, female figures
are located as the objects of desire and the other within the fantasy space created by
patriarchy. The female is recognized as the docile, inferior and fragile bodies whose existence
is manipulated by masculine demands.

“Women are identified with nature and the realm of the physical; men are identified with the
human and the realm of the mental.” (Warren,11).

Nora, within the patriarchy and its embedded demands and notions, is compelled to be the
other, the secondary body whose essence and identity of the self become nullified and negated
in the face of relentless and prejudiced principles of the social structure.

“In effect, the man finds satisfaction for his demand for love in the relation with
the woman in as much as the signifier of the phallus constitutes her as giving in love
what she does not have…”.(Lacan,321),

Thus, within conjugal affinity, Helmer’s mentality is wholly preoccupied with the motive of
keeping Nora as the immature pleasure object, a nobody whose survival relies entirely on
him, and a vulnerable being whose desires and dreams are projected through him. Thus, the
feminine being is considered to be a dependent role on the masculine authority, and thus
allowing her true essence to be dissolved and the inferior identity to absorb her existence.

“Now, woman has always been man’s dependent, if not his slave; the two sexes have never
shared the world in equality. And even today woman is heavily handicapped, though her
situation is beginning to change.” (Beauvoir, xlix).

Nora, despite her submission and passive existence within the fantasized life world of Helmer,
endeavours to maintain her own self identity. Natural reality results in Helmer being oblivious
to her actual reality, which remains screened by her pretentious superficial outer reality.

Thus, through the scrutinization of the feminine figure ‘Nora’, this study could analyze to
what extent the illusory or the outer reality obscures the actual reality of Nora. Her
consciousness, which is identified with her absolute self, induces her to expose her true self
towards the social other with the intention of enhancing her essential existential validity.
Nora, with the strict determination of doing the most sacred duty to one’s self, induces
herself to become liberated from the dependence on Helmer with whose identification
her ‘self’ is defined and recognized. As a mere “skylark” with “a vain glory”, and “a
play thing” that colours herself to impress the other who holds the symbolic fetters
around her, Nora is subtracted from the cultured formula that is constituted of
variables such as the realms of the mental, rational, masculine, real and authoritative.
In this sense, her independent departure and the resolution to find her true self are not
viewed as a sincere effort with vitality, but as an undignified deed signaling
insensitivity.

1
Correspondence should be addressed to D.N.P Amarasooriya, Department of Languages,
Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka (email: nimeshaprsd061@gmail.com)
“Nora is a carefully studied example of what we have come to know as the hysterical
personality-bright, unstable, impulsive, romantic, quite immune from feelings of guilt,
and at bottom, not especially feminine” (Valency, 29).

Thus, Nora’s revolutionary rejection of her superficial outer reality and the revelation of her
inner actual reality make her the destroyer of the fantasy whole of Helmer’s world.

CONCLUSIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS

The play ‘A Doll’s House’ by Henrik Ibsen elaborately fashions the dichotomy between the
feminine and masculine perspectives concentrating on the social assumptions and forces that
trigger those conflicting relationships. The character ‘Nora’ whose existence is trapped
between the two distinct realities, which evolve into a duel identity within her physical and
psychical realms, portrays the inner desire of a feminine being for the enhancement of
liberated individual identity.

Thus, this study delves into the segregated inner and outer appearances of Nora in analyzing
the secretive identity that exists within her inner reality while her outer reality fashions the
fantasized appearance that the egoistic masculine superiority demands. Consequently, through
a comprehensive analysis of the text, based on the theoretical approaches mentioned within
the methodology, it can be comprehended that the revelation of the true identity, the inner
reality of Nora, dissolves the fantasized sphere of Helmer’s masculine superiority and, more
explicitly, her revolutionary departure from her superficial reality can be interpreted as a
crucial step taken towards feminine liberation.

REFERENCES

Books

• Beauvoir, S.D. 1993. The Second Sex. Translated from French by H.M Parshley,
London: David Campbell publishers LTD.

• Lacan, J, 2001. Ecrits-A Selection. Translated from French by Alan Sheridan,

London: Routledge Classic.

• Warren, K.J (ed). 1994. Ecological Feminism. London: Routledge.

• Zizek, S. 1992. Looking Awry, An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular
Culture. Massachusettes: The MIT Press.

Journals

• Templeton, J. 1989. The Doll House Backlash: Criticism, Feminism, and Ibsen,
PMLA. Vol. 104 , No.1 , 28-40

1
Correspondence should be addressed to D.N.P Amarasooriya, Department of Languages,
Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka (email: nimeshaprsd061@gmail.com)