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What is the point of view in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House?
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The point of view in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House is third-person objective, focusing on a "camera lens" perspective where the audience sees actions and hears dialogue but cannot access characters' inner thoughts. This perspective is often considered limited third-person, as it centers on Nora's experiences. Occasionally, the audience gains insight into Nora's thoughts through her side remarks, creating a "near proximity" effect within the third-person narrative.
This play is written in a third-person objective point of view. This point of view is often referred to as a "camera lens" perspective because nothing can be reported which is not visible to the eye. The play does not have a narrator; rather, the audience is able to see and hear everything the characters say and do. If a character does not say something out loud or act in such a way that we may infer it from their behavior or body language, then we cannot know it to be true. This is why characters in plays have to say how they feel aloud; there is usually no narrator who can report their secret thoughts and feelings to the audience. There is no one to interpret what is unsaid.
Henrik Ibsen wrote his play A Doll's House in what we call a limited third person point of view. We...
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call point of view third person when we see speech and action, but never learn any thoughts of the characters. Ibsen's play focuses on the characterNora, but only from an outsider's perspective.
Because we, the reader/viewer, have not become one with Nora, but still remain
outside of her perspective, observing her, we can say that we are not observing
her from the first person, but from our own point of view, the third person.
However, since Nora is the character that we focus on the most, we can also say
that it is a limited third person point of view. We can tell that Nora
is the main character, or main focal point, because she is the character who
opens the play and is in every scene until she walks out the door.
Furthermore, Ibsen's point of view for A Doll's House can also be
categorized as a limited third person narrative with a near proximity.
Proximity is determined by how close the narrator gets to the characters' inner
thoughts. There is near proximity and distant proximity. With distant proximity
the reader/viewer does not learn anything further about the character than what
the reader/viewer reads or sees. However, with near proximity narration the
reader/viewer has the opportunity to read/observe a central character making
side remarks. We see Nora making some side remarks in both acts I and III. For
instance, In act I, after Torvald tells Nora that deceitful women poison their
homes and their children, leading to immoral human beings like Krogstad, we see
Nora pause and whisper to herself "No, no--it isn't true. It's impossible; it
must be impossible" (Act I). A few lines further down, while being "pale with
terror," Nora asks herself "Deprave my little children? Poison my home?...It's
not true. It can't possibly be true" (Act I).
Therefore, because the play is written and viewed from an outsider's
perspective, Ibsen's viewpoint is third person. Also, the play focuses on Nora,
making it a limited third person narrative, and, we hear some of her thoughts
through side remarks, therefore Ibsen's point of view for A Doll's
House is limited third person with a near proximity.