WHO WAS

Southland Times, Issue 21275, 22 December 1930, Page 6

WHO WAS

NORA HELMER? In these days of emancipated womanhood it is difficult to imagine what a profound shock Henrik Ibsen administered to European thought in his play, "The Doll’s House,” of which Nora Helmer is the chief figure. The popular conception of the ideal woman which prevailed in the late eighteenth century was of an innocent, helpless, clinging creature, childishly ignorant of the world and its ways, and more like a doll than a human being in her placid submission to male overlordship. It is against this ideal that Nora revolts. From a mere desire to help her husband out' of financial trouble, Nora forges her own father's signature, never realizing the seriousness of the deed. How- could she ? She has never been taught or told anything about the law. When the forgery is discovered, the husband, though he manages to protect his wife from prosecution, is furious with her for her blunder, driving her into such an agony of remorse and despair that she even thinks of committing suicide. Realizing, however, that the blame for her own well-meaning folly, no less than for her husband’s unreasoning anger, must be laid at the door of the social system which first proclaims ignorance and helplessness to be virtues in women but would turn and rend them when these supposed virtues show their less pleasant aspect, Nora resolves to defy the system of its entirety. Henceforth, she will no longer live a protected life in her home—her “Doll’s House.” Instead, she will go cut into the world, to, fight her. own battles, ajone and unaided no longer a doll, .but a human being with a will and soul of her own.