Reverse reverse.

Eeeps trying to clear my brother's room is like entering a swamp. I think I might never come out alive sometimes. :( Siblings (grumbles) He's coming back today, so he's going to have a pleasant surprise, and I'm going to charge him for clearing up all his books. He didn't even clear his textbooks from last century! Good thing is that we're donating them all to Salvation Army so I hope that someone will benefit because many of the books are still in extremely decent condition.

And I finally threw away my jc mechanics notes. Out. Out. Out. And lots of others, and I'm only keeping the literature essays because they were once-upon-a-time my source of pride. :) I really liked Lit. And it's amazing that ALL of us studied Animal Farm, which is a killer text for basic level. I love that book.

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I read Ibsen's A Doll House Play (finally!) last night and it was really mind-blowing. The last parts were stunning, and to add to the atmosphere, right after I read the last line the lights went out (blackout). Talk about dramatic effect!
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NORA. [Looking at her watch.] It's not so late yet. Sit down, Torvald; you and I have much to say to each other.
[She sits at one side of the table.

HELMER. Nora- what does this mean? Your cold, set face-

NORA. Sit down. It will take some time. I have much to talk over with you.

[HELMER sits at the other side of the table.

HELMER. You alarm me, Nora. I don't understand you.

NORA. No, that is just it. You don't understand me; and I have never understood you- till to-night. No, don't interrupt. Only listen to what I say.- We must come to a final settlement, Torvald.
HELMER. How do you mean?

NORA. [After a short silence.] Does not one thing strike you as we sit here?

HELMER. What should strike me?

NORA. We have been married eight years. Does it not strike you that this is the first time we two, you and I, man and wife, have talked together seriously?

HELMER. Seriously! What do you call seriously?

NORA. During eight whole years, and more- ever since the day we first met- we have never exchanged one serious word about serious things.

HELMER. Was I always to trouble you with the cares you could not help me to bear?

NORA. I am not talking of cares. I say that we have never yet set ourselves seriously to get to the bottom of anything.

HELMER. Why, my dearest Nora, what have you to do with serious things?

NORA. There we have it! You have never understood me.- I have had great injustice done me, Torvald; first by father, and then by you.

HELMER. What! By your father and me?- By us, who have loved you more than all the world?

NORA. [Shaking her head.] You have never loved me. You only thought it amusing to be in love with me.

HELMER. Why, Nora, what a thing to say!

NORA. Yes, it is so, Torvald. While I was at home with father, he used to tell me all his opinions, and I held the same opinions. If I had others I said nothing about them, because he wouldn't have liked it. He used to call me his doll-child, and played with me as I played with my dolls. Then I came to live in your house-

HELMER. What an expression to use about our marriage!

NORA. [Undisturbed.] I mean I passed from father's hands into yours. You arranged everything according to your taste; and I got the same tastes as you; or I pretended to- I don't know which- both ways, perhaps; sometimes one and sometimes the other. When I look back on it now, I seem to have been living here like a beggar, from hand to mouth. I lived by performing tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and father have done me a great wrong. It is your fault that my life has come to nothing.

HELMER. Why, Nora, how unreasonable and ungrateful you are! Have you not been happy here?

NORA. No, never. I thought I was; but I never was.

HELMER. Not- not happy!

NORA. No; only merry. And you have always been so kind to me. But our house has been nothing but a play-room. Here I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I used to be papa's doll-child. And the children, in their turn, have been my dolls. I thought it fun when you played with me, just as the children did when I played with them.

That has been our marriage, Torvald.
-----
*~*
Nora slowly crumbles the doll-wife persona before revealing the tragic heroine she truly is. It was quite a masterful stroke. The build-up was fantastic, and how true-how true-! Nora-the doll, the unformed being- to the true human being she seeks to become.

It was classic, although Ibsen wrote this with no obvious intent to champion women's rights, or feminism, or any of those themes along those lines. Rather, he was hoping for 'a revolution in the spirit of man...'.

Labels: a doll's house, ibsen, tidying