A Doll’s House/Playwright answer key

(Most explanations are cut directly from the Canvas page pertaining to the topic):

A Doll’s House Genre:

Domestic or Bourgeois Drama (two terms for the same genre)

•The replacement of heroic drama, domestic (bourgeois) drama reflects modern society.
–Domestic—indicates plays dealing with the family or the home
–Bourgeois—indicates plays dealing with characters of the middle or lower classes

•The power of domestic drama lies in its ability to present the audience with characters that are
easily recognizable and identifiable.

 The conclusion is serious, but not tragic

A Doll's House is one of the earliest and best examples of Domestic Drama

Nora’s Character Type

Representative or Quintessential Characters (interchangeable terminology)

These characters are usually middle or lower class characters -- ones that the audience can identify
with. When watching a show with these characters (Fences and A Doll's House are good examples) we
watch characters in situations we can see ourselves in and imagine how we might deal with the same
problems.

A Doll’s House Structure

Climactic Structure

The climactic structure is one you learned somewhere along the line in school. This is excerpted from
storyboardthat.com and clearly explains the key elements (and edited by me):

The Climax

This is the turning point of the play. The climax is characterized by the highest amount of suspense or
highest point of tension and is the point of no turning back. It is the final and most significant
crisis of the play.

In A Doll’s House Torvold opens the letters and belittles Nora. Once he opens the second letter it is too
late to turn back, and he has revealed his true self to her.

Theme (from thoughco.com)

The main themes of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House revolve around the values and the issues of late
19th-century bourgeoisie, namely what looks appropriate, the value of money, and the way women
navigate a landscape that leaves them little room to assert themselves as actual human beings.

Note: Other themes may include the importance of reputation vs. reality, marriage and family, and a
couple of other