had few property rights. They were expected to be passive, no matter
what their true personality was. Ibsen sided with women who sought
to change their traditional role.
He decided to write plays about modern people who would use
contemporary, everyday language. Writing in prose instead of poetry,
he turned from imaginary, romantic settings to "photographically"
accurate everyday settings. His first realistic prose play was The
Pillars of Society (1877). It was a success, but some readers feel
it was only practice for his next play, A Doll's House (1879).
It's hard for us to realize just how revolutionary A Doll's House
was. It took the form and structure of the "well-made play" but
turned it from a piece of fluff into a modern tragedy. In addition,
the "hero" isn't a prince or a king--or even a member of the
aristocracy. Instead, it's a middle-class woman, who decisively
rebels against her male-dominated surroundings.
A play that questioned a woman's place in society, and asserted that
a woman's self was more important than her role as wife and mother,
was unheard of. Government and church officials were outraged. Some
people even blamed Ibsen for the rising divorce rate! When some
theaters in Germany refused to perform the play the way it was
written, Ibsen was forced to write an alternate ending in which the
heroine's rebellion collapses. Despite the harsh criticism of A
Doll's House, the play became the talk of Europe. It was soon
translated into many languages and performed all over the world. The
furor over Ibsen's realistic plays helped him to become an
international figure. Some writers like Tolstoy thought Ibsen's
plays too common and talky; but the English author George Bernard
Shaw considered Ibsen to be more important than Shakespeare.
No matter what individual viewers thought about its merits, in A
Doll's House, Ibsen had developed a new kind of drama, called a
"problem play" because it examines modern social and moral problems.
The heroes and heroines of problem plays belonged to the middle or
lower class, and the plays dealt with the controversial problems of
modern society. This seems commonplace today, as popular
entertainment has been dealing with controversial topics for years.
Until Ibsen's day, however, it just wasn't done. Many of the most
important plays written in our day, like Death of a Salesman by
Arthur Miller, have their roots in the problem play.
Ibsen's Realistic Period (1877 to 1890) earned him a place as a
theater giant. Not only did he introduce controversial subjects,
everyday heroes, and modern language, he resurrected and modernized
the "retrospective" plot, which had been popular with the ancient
Greek playwrights. In a retrospective play, like A Doll's House and
Hedda Gabler, the major events have taken place before the curtain
goes up. The play concerns the way the characters deal with these
