THE INTRINSIC ANALYSIS OF NORA IN A DOLL’S HOUSE
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THE INTRINSIC ANALYSIS OF NORA IN A DOLL’S HOUSE
I GD BAYU SUTRA ADI W
Ekstensi Sastra Inggris
Fakultas Sastra dan Budaya Universitas Udayana
Abstrak
Merupakan salah satu drama tahap pertama dari abad ke-19 untuk menggambarkan keterampilan yang luar biasa, kehidupan biasa realistis bukan romantis dan sentimental. Drama ini bercerita tentang seorang ibu rumah tangga yang selalu didikte nilai palsu oleh suaminya. Nora, karakter utama dari drama ini tidak tahan menjadi boneka lagi. Dia memutuskan untuk meninggalkan keluarganya untuk mencari identitas sebenarnya, manusia motivasi diri. Konflik bermain dimulai dengan Nora yang diam-diam meminjam sejumlah besar uang untuk menyelamatkan suaminya dari penyakit serius. Dia tidak pernah mengatakan pinjaman kepada suaminya. Ketika suaminya, Helmer dipromosikan menjadi manajer bank, ia kebakaran staf banknya yang memiliki reputasi buruk. Orang ini Nils Krogstad dan itu adalah Krogstad yang menyetujui pinjaman untuk perjalanan ke Italia, tapi ia telah menemukan bahwa Nora ditempa nama ayahnya pada obligasi ia gunakan untuk mengamankan uang. Ayahnya meninggal tiga hari sebelum obligasi itu ditandatangani. Dia memberitahu Nora bahwa pekerjaannya di bank dalam bahaya Helmer berencana untuk memecatnya dan dia mengancam untuk mengungkapkan kegiatan ilegal nya kecuali dia berlaku pada suaminya untuk mempertahankan dirinya. Krogstad memiliki dokumen untuk mendukung tuduhannya.Untuk menganalisis permainan, terutama, karakter utama Nora, ada dua teori utama yang diadopsi dalam penelitian ini . Pertama adalah Knickerbocker dan Reninger "Terjemahan Sastra" dan reaske "Bagaimana menganalisis Drama”. Analisis ini berfokus hanya pada konflik Nora dan hubungannya dengan suaminya yang mempengaruhi kehidupan keluarga mereka.
Kata kunci: cinta, kehidupan, kematian,
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1. Background of the Study
Literary work cannot be separated from human life. The expression of literary form is language. Literature is an act of language, it is inseparable from life because it presents and describes the events that can happen in real life in society. Through literary work, which usually reflects our life, we can experience through our imagination and also we learn about human being.
A literary work is created based on the imagination of the writer and it generally reflects the social condition, which uses the social surrounding as the
foundation. Wellek Warren ( 1973:39 ) states that the works of literature themselves justify all our interests in the life of an author, in this social environment and the whole process of literature.
A Doll’s House was a revolutionary play, for it was among the first stage dramas of the 19th Century to depict, with extraordinary skill, ordinary life realistically instead of romantically and sentimentally. In so doing, it exposed dirty little secrets about the middle-class values of Norwegians and other Europeans. On a single stage, set up as a single room where all the action takes place, Ibsen slowly opened a fester, allowing the pus to run with hypocrisy, inequality, condescension, deception. The ending of the play shocked audiences of Ibsen's time. Some producers reworked the ending before staging the drama. Today, A Doll’s House represents a turning point in the history of drama. In this manner, Ibsen strongly contributed to giving European drama a vitality and artistic quality comparable to the ancient Greek tragedies.
A Doll’s House, one of Ibsen’s famous works, contributed a new value to society in his era make the readers wonder about following the development of characters in the drama. Through highlighting, there are two problems which need to be discussed; they are formulated as follows:
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1. Analyzing Nora, as the main characters in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House
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2. Analyzing how Nora’s problem affects her family life.
The aim of this study is to get the description about one of intrinsic elements of fiction in drama A Doll’s House by Hendrik Ibsen through analyzing Nora, the main character. The second aim is to understand about the sociological elements of the character that supports the development of the story.
There are three points in this section: data source, method and technique of collecting data, and method and technique of analysing data.
The data of this study was taken from the drama entitled A Doll’s House by Hendrik Ibsen. The data was in the form of dialogues and action in the drama.
The data was collected using the documentation method. Documentation was the methods of collecting data that was taken from the written text. The steps were used in collecting the data:
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1. Firstly, searching the drama in the library and selecting the drama that relevant with the analysis about the plot of drama.
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2. Secondly, reading the drama repeatedly and carefully in order to understand and comprehend the content of the text.
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3. Thirdly, finding out the statement of feature that belongs to intrinsic data, especially the plot of drama and the type of drama in relation with plot applied in this drama.
The data was analyzed by using qualitative method. The qualitative method was used in order to explain the plot of the data based on the theory adopted in this study. The analysis was done by listing the plot in the dialogues, then identifying and classifying the plot based on the five parts of plot, and the last analyzing the type of this drama based on the plot analysis. The data were analyzed based on the plot that was proposed by Christoper R. Reaske (1966) and the type of drama that was proposed by Wellek, Rene and Austin Warren (1966)
The analysis was done by observing the characters in action in the play based on the theory proposed by Reaske. How do they behave in different
situation? How do they differ from one another in their behavior when sharing the same situation? How is their action made logical and what the readers know of their thought and motives? (1966: 40).
There are many questions could be asked about the characters in action. According to the theory above and after observing carefully in the play, Nora Helmer, with some consideration, such as, she involved into trouble from the beginning and the conflict emerged to her later, and it made the readers have an emphatic feeling to the struggle of Nora for her identity from a doll-wife became a self-motivated being. This emphatic feeling to Nora contributed one of the reasons that she was the main character or protagonist.
Moreover, as the conflict was concentrated on Nore and she had a role as the source of the principle idea which appeared in the play, it made her as the centre of the story.
Nora was also more dominant compared with the other characters; this is also the consideration in determining Nora as the main character in the play.
As the characters became more involved in the action of the play, it was quite naturally to learn about them. Unlike a person in real life, a literary character’s personal qualities and actions are limited by his or her function in the story, whether the character seems designed to fit the plot or the plot is derived from the character. At the center of the plot is the HERO or protagonist. The hero is usually an admirable figure. (Reaske. 1966: 40) Here Nora was described as a person who acted spoiled and she was easy to get angry, especially when Helmer did not fulfill her wish of money. It appeared when Helmer reminded her that they should economize and not spend too much money. Even Helmer would get a big salary as he had been promoted to be the bank manager but it would be after New Year, the following month. It was clear that Helmer often called Nora a spendthrift for she liked going shopping to buy presents for the family and the maids, too, but for herself, she did not want anything. It indicated that Nora was now selfish.
It was contrary to Helmer’s opinion that Nora was spendthrift, Nora actually spent the money given by Helmer carefully. She tried to economize as possible as she could and she never spent more than half of money given by
Helmer. Even she bought the simple and cheap things in order to pay the installment secretly to Krogstad. As what was discussed before that Nora once secretly borrowed a large sum of money so that her husband could be recuperated from the serious illness. Nora never told Helmer that the loan was secretly paid back by saving her household allowance.
Nora was facing into inevitable choice when her husband was in serious illness. The doctor said that his life was in danger and the only thing to save him was to live in south. Unfortunately at that time the family was in financial problem. Nora tried to persuade him to borrow some money to save his life but Helmer was so angry at Nora. He said that Nora was thoughtless and that was his duty as her husband not to indulge her while her father whom she expected to lend her money was serious sick. It was impossible for Nora to talk about the loan with her father and lent her money from the bank where he worked.
That was the inevitable choice that was faced by Nora when her family was in the financial trouble. This condition caused Nora to forge her father’s signature in order to get the loan to save her husband’s life.
Krogstad, a subordinate of Helmer in the bank, from whom she had borrowed the money, and after being fired by Torvald, he confronted Nora, declaring he no longer cared about the remaining balance of her loan and would tell Helmer about Nora’s forgery, unless Nora persuaded Helmer on her behalf, to undo Helmer’s decision of firing him. Krogstad said only Nora’s influence can protect the job in the bank. Krogstad revealed that he could prove that Nora borrowed 250 pounds from him by forging her father’s signature.
Here below described that Nora was a careless woman but to save her husband’s life she would do whatever she could without thinking of the consequence of signature forgery.
From the above dialogue, it indicated that Nora had combination characteristics of being childish, energetic, spoiled, careless, naïve but she was not selfish.
The question that “Is Nora right or wrong to walk out the door at the end of the play?” does not admit of a clear answer. The play insists that such a
demand for simple moral clarity in the face of human actions is naïve, rather like asking if a wife is right or wrong to destroy her own family by leaving the husband and children. Nora is both right and wrong. She is free, brave, strong, and uncompromisingly herself and, at the same time, socially irresponsible, naive, self-destructive, and destructive of others.
In this play, Nora is considered as a tragic hero, but something special in Nora that she is not simply a heroine because she has weakness. She never tells her husband about the loan. Helmer, even though he seems to be contradictive and this causes Nora to leave her family, is not simply a bad husband. He has many characteristics of a kind, considerate and good husband father. Helmer must find out the truth, and all concealment and falsehood to be exposed in order that both, Helmer and Nora should realize a true marriage.
Finally, it shows that Love means having strong feeling for someone and love can create a feeling of caring more for someone else, which may result happiness or sorrow.
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