The San Francisco call., 1909-05-09
STORY TOLD BY
ADOLL'S HOUSE
Nora Helmer's Task of Never
Appearing to Realize
Responsibilities Is
Soul Killing
By coRRINNE MADDERN

-EHE stage setting of the play has
shown you that a dollhouse is. after
all. only the ordinary sitting room
in the ordinary fat. like the sitting
rooms we know so well, and so sug-
gests that perhaps these very rooms
are homes of dolls like Nora Helmer.
Then do you say. We'll, what of it?
What harm in being doll; and what
harm in living in dollhouse?"
Those are plainly the questions asked
and emphatically answered by the play.
| What harm in being doll? What
harm in living in dolls house? Espe-
/ cially If you are some weary young
thing, tired of battling with the world
for living, and at the same time decor
/ ously thirsty for the wine of love,
have you not often said in your heart
| of hearts to the big brawny man you
know, Take me to be your doll wife.
| Will sing and dance and twitter like
any lark-only put me in a bright,
pretty cage free from all HARM
Is it any wonder then that most
people, men especially. hate to see a
play which shows so plainly what be-
| comes of the poor little singing lark
when she has been a plaything, a toy, a
doll for eight long years?
For eight years will teach even a doll
some pitiful secrets about a dolls life.
How, sure enough. she had to dance
and sing and twitter to keep her hus-
band in a good humor. To learn at any
cost to please and fascinate anew. oh,
to know.
And of course she learned other
things as we'll. poor Nora!-bitter, ugly
things. For poverty and sickness and
babies came to the dolls house, and
doll as she was she had to learn in
secret, shameful ways how to bear her
share Of the burden.
And now you have the reason why
woman should not be doll in a dolls
house. 1t is that as a doll she has no
rights or privileges with which to meet
her responsibilities. For she is not
an individual, human being-no; she
is only a doll, and her bargain is to
keep her husband happy in the thought
that he possesses dear little helpless
dependent.
And what has a helpless dependent
to do with responsibilities!
Poor Nora was used to that way of
thinking, for her father had the same
ideas about women. And so, in her
efforts to live her life and do her
woman's work, she had to be careful
never even to appear conscious of hav-
ing any duties or responsibilities as a
worker No. everything of that sort
had to be done in secret. So the habit
of lying and cheating and getting her
way by fair means or foul came to be
her daily practice; and that was how
the poison entered into her soul.
To live life so full of responsibility
and never to be responsible for ones
action, oh, that is the shame and sin
in the life Of a doll in dolls house
But though poor Nora was morally
poisoned she continued to sing and
dance like one bitten by the deadly
tarantula who sings and dances in a
deIirium until, unless a miracle hap
pens, death comes.
Now it seems that poor Nora in her
miracle would happen-some great mir
acle like realization on her husbands
part of her pitiful plight some mag
unanimous assumption by him of the |
responsibility of her deeds
That miracle of strength and nobility
on his part was to be the great recon-
pense for the eight years of heartache
and humiliation for the dolls life she |
had led.
But instead, of course when Helmer |
learns that the dancing one is morally |
poisoned, wildly dancing her spiritual
death, he does the expected masculine |
thing. He denounces her!
Unfit is she hereafter to live there |
and mother the dear doll babies. And |
so she is, poor soul, Ibsen never |
meant to shirk that ugly truth. And |
that was the wonderful power and |
penetration of Mrs Fiske's characteri-
zation. Her Nora was soul sick |
marked for death by her education and |
the life she had led catering to the |
egotism and sensuality of the man, her |
husband; so that unless the miracle |
happened she had to die like her con-
slant companion. Dr. Ranke, slowly dy-
ing of rotten spine.
The pitiful parallelism is depressing.
but at the same time instructive. Ger |
tainly the play ought to be good |
education; nay, more-far more than
that-a revelation. For it is not
preachment but a work of art Can
you say else when you hear the mad |
despairing cry of the tarantula poi |
soned one calling out the mystic num- |
bers of the hours she has yet to live |
while she madly dances the death |
dance-that dance that should be the |
Dionysian dance of love and life?
Origin of Lighthouse Board