A Doll S House by Henrik Ibsen s1

A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

Create your own timeline

Teaching notes

· The timeline may be completed as a wall chart, so that students have continual visual reminders of when events occur.

· It may also be reduced in size (for example over two A4 sheets) for students to keep a copy for revision purposes.

The timeline may be used as the basis for essay questions on the structure of the play:

1. How does Ibsen use time to illustrate the predicament faced by Nora in her marriage?

2. How does the subplot add to your understanding of events in the main plot?

3. How does Ibsen use time before and after the actual events in the play to expand upon the audience’s perception of the characters? (This task may be completed in groups, with each group working on a different character during study of the play).

4. How effective is Ibsen’s use of time in relation to the dramatic unities of time, place and action?

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Task

There are two plots in the play:

· the main one involves Nora, Torvald and Krogstad;

· the subplot involves Krogstad and Mrs Linde.

Sometimes these plots converge and sometimes they diverge.

Ibsen uses the two plots to show how time and events affect the situation in which Nora finds herself.

Your task is to:

1. Plot the timeline for events involving Nora, Torvald and Krogstad. Show events which happen before, during and after the play, and give the relevant page numbers where reference is made to them.

2. Underneath this timeline, do a second one which shows times when events occur in the subplot. Again, you need to make page references.

Keep the timing of events together between the two tasks: for example, the successful relationship between Mrs Linde and Krogstad needs to be at a point in the second timeline which reflects the point in the first timeline where Nora realises she will never find happiness with Torvald.

If the two timelines are synchronised, it will help you to understand how Ibsen is using time and two interwoven plots to highlight Nora’s predicament.