Looked at from one perspective, A Doll's House comes across as an extended commentary on materialistic values. Interestingly, we tend to look upon the overly enthusiastic valuation of money as an American, or perhaps a more broadly Anglo-Saxon, tendency. Ibsen's plays—not only A Doll's House but Hedda Gabler and Enemy of the People as well, in my view—would suggest it's just as much of a factor in Scandinavian culture. The opening scene of A Doll's House shows a dynamic between Nora and Torvald based on money. He berates his "little skylark" for spending too much of it, while she seems to accept the stereotype of a woman who has married a successful man for the material possessions he can provide her with.

It is only as we progress further into the play that materialism seems more and more the root of conflict, secrecy, and manipulation. The plot turns on Krogstad's wish for a position at the bank which Torvald has the power to give him, and he intends to use Nora to achieve this, threatening to expose her as a forger. The "crime" Nora has committed is itself rooted in money, which she obtained through the loan from Krogstad for her husband's medical treatment. Though Nora's obtaining the loan was motivated by anything but materialistic concerns, she is victimized by the money-based culture in which Krogstad is caught up, in the usual rat race to obtain a top job and the salary that comes with it.

Torvald also is about as materialistic as one can get. With the revelation of the blackmail plot, he goes into a hysterical panic, yelling and screaming at Nora for having jeopardized his career—his status and, obviously, his material wealth. It is of such concern to him that he becomes completely disregarding of everything else, including, or especially, his wife's feelings. Nora, upon seeing this reaction and realizing what Torvald's true priorities are, finally realizes that her marriage is unsustainable.

One can counter that it's only from a blinkered perspective that materialism per se is at the root of this outcome. But it is one cause of it. Ibsen could very well have had this in mind, to present a critique of the money-based culture, as well as to show the gender dynamic of the time as dysfunctional and destructive.

There are really two ways to address the question of cultural materialism in the play A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen. The first is to ask whether Karl Marx's theories of cultural materialism shaped or influenced the play and the second is two ask how modern literary critics can use the theory of cultural materialism as a way to interpret the play. Ibsen was certainly influenced by new forms of social thought and new ideas about gender roles, but it was really his English interpreters, especially George Bernard Shaw, who made the link between class and gender oppression. A culturally materialist reading would also emphasize how the money issue set in motion the main conflict of the plot. The central issue is more one of gender though than class, as is seen in the dialogue towards the end of the play:

HELMER: Before all else, you are a wife and a mother.

NORA: I don't believe that any longer. I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being, just as you are—or, at all events, that I must try and become one.