During his lifetime, Norwegian poet and playwright Henrik Ibsen wrote twenty-six plays and a collection of poems. He was born in Skein, Norway, on March 20, 1828. In 1867, Norwegian Parliament awarded Ibsen an annual writer's salary of four hundred dollars, enough to pay for housing and food, which he would receive for the rest of his life. A Doll's House (1879), Ghosts (1881), and Hedda Gabler (1890) have probably been the most frequently performed of his plays. After suffering three strokes in his last six years, Henrik Ibsen died in his sleep in May 23, 1906, at age seventy-eight.
             A Doll's House, published in 1879, was the second of Ibsen's social plays. It is about a Norwegian wife, Nora Helmer, who realizes that her comfortable life is not really comfortable at all. She sees that she was just a doll-child to her father, and then she was passed along to her husband, Torvald, who calls her things like his "little squirrel" or his "sweet skylark." All her life she has had the same tastes and opinions as her father and husband; she doesn't really know herself. She realizes that she has duties to herself that she must fulfill, so she leaves her home, her husband, and her children. A Doll's House caused much controversy in those times because no wife or mother would desert her family merely to become a "human being."
             When the play starts, it is Christmas Eve, and Dr. Rank, a dear friend of Torvald, has come to visit. Another unknown visitor came to visit at the same time, and Nora is surprised to see her school friend Christine Linde. Nora and Mrs. Linde talk while Torvald and Dr. Rank are in Torvald's office. Mrs. Linde says she hopes that Torvald could employ her at the bank, and Nora promises to speak to Torvald. Nora then reveals an important secret to Mrs. Linde. Some time ago, doctors came to her and told her that Torvald was very ill, and the only way...