INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR INNOVATIVE RESEARCH IN MULTIDISCIPLINARY FIELD

First performed in 1879, A Doll’s House occupies a foundational position in the genealogy of feminist drama. Although Henrik Ibsen publicly resisted the label of feminist playwright, the play’s sustained interrogation of bourgeois marriage, gender ideology, and female subjectivity situates it firmly within the intellectual trajectory of feminist thought. This paper offers an extended critical analysis of Nora Helmer’s transformation from infantilized domestic figure to autonomous moral agent, arguing that her departure constitutes a radical destabilization of nineteenth-century patriarchal structures. Drawing upon liberal, existential, and materialist feminist frameworks—particularly the works of Simone de Beauvoir, Kate Millett, Friedrich Engels, Judith Butler, Toril Moi, and Joan Templeton—this study examines the play’s treatment of economic dependency, linguistic diminishment, performative femininity, domestic space, and institutional marriage. Through close reading and theoretical synthesis, the essay demonstrates that A Doll’s House not only reflects first-wave feminist anxieties but anticipates later feminist critiques of gender as construction, marriage as ideological apparatus, and subjectivity as political claim. The enduring resonance of Nora’s “door slam” confirms the play’s continuing relevance in feminist discourse and modern theatre.