Customer Reviews

A Doll's House and Other Plays (Penguin Classics)

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While "Penguin Classics" are generally reliable when it comes to editions, paper-type, or publications in general, with Ibsen's masterful plays, it falls pitifully short in terms of collection. This collection gives us three plays - one less than the usual four per collection that can be found. While this may overall seem like quite a bit, it is not, in fact, worth much.

Yes, "A Doll's House" is still the intriguing, fascinating play it always is. As a play, "A Doll's House" is highly recommended. Just don't get it HERE. Why? Well, mostly because of what ELSE is offered. The first play here is the strange, confusing "League of Youth". It unfortunately did not reach Ibsen's level of mastery as found in the later plays. Too many characters and nothing particularly interesting just had the play stop and stall.

While all of Ibsen's plays are worth purchasing (if only for study), the problem here is the edition. For the same price (or less), one can get "A Doll's House" with much better plays with four per collection. A personal recommendation is that of Oxford's World Classics, mostly due to the presence of the incredible "Ghosts". Signet Classics also has an edition, for those who want something cheap and easy, though it has "The Wild Duck" (not as good as "Ghosts", but still so much better than "League of Youth"). Both editions also have "Hedda Gabler" and "The Master Builder". When given a choice between four plays or three, four is preferred, especially when they are the better works.

Turn elsewhere.

The description of this purchase said the volume included about 6 or more of Ibsen's works. However, upon recieving the book I discovered only 3 of Ibsen's works were included. I was buying the book for the main play of "A Doll House" but I was looking forward to having the other plays as well. Nice printing, just not as many plays as expected.

In this interesting play, Henrik Ibsen sets up a scenario of a married couple with three children that seem to have a good relationship with each other. This couple is Nora and Helmer (called Torvald by Nora). They always seem to have romantic conversations with each other, but soon, we learn that years ago Nora had to take a loan from Nils Krogstad, in order to pay off a lifesaving medical treatment for Helmer. He doesn't know this and thinks that the money came from Nora's father, who has passed away.

Helmer, who has just been named a manager of a bank, is always treating Nora in such a sweet manner, such as "Is that my little lark twittering out there?" or calls by another bird's name. She always gets little money from Helmer, but never gets large sums because Helmer is worried he thinks she doesn't know how to manage her money wisely. In the beginning, Nora treats Helmer with overwhelming respect although Nora is hiding her loan that she is paying off on a regulaly with some of the money from Helmer. Nora doesn't want Helmer to think she took a loan since she thinks it could affect their relationship.

There are three other supporting characters in this play: Dr. Rank, Nils Krogstad, and Christine Linde. Dr. Rank is a friend of the family who is seriously ill. Nils Krogstad a worker at the bank, who is about to his job to a friend of Nora's, Christine Linde, a woman who recently moved back to the area because her husband died.

At the end of Act II, we find out Nora forged her father's signature on the loan. Krogstad had written a letter to tell Helmer about the loan. Nora is worried that Helmer will read the letter Krogstad wrote.

This play is about a woman trying to understand her marriage, and always wanting something wonderful to happen. With Helmer, she finally realizes that she isn't being treated the way she wants, and nothing wonderful seems to happen. Nora had no trouble making the decision of leaving her family, but perhaps she would have had a hard time recovering from this rare type of circumstance in this time and age.

As I very clearly stated above, this is a read-worthy book, though not my favorite or one of the best books that I have ever read. If you're in the mood for some feminist action or any politics, go ahead, pick up the book. This is, however, NOT a book for anyone who's looking for comedy.