After the Slam of "A Doll's House Door": Reverberations in the Work of James, Hardy, Ford and Wells Author(s): PETER BUITENHUIS Source:Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal,Vol. 17, No. 1, "FOR BETTER OR WORSE": Attitudes Toward Marriage in Literature (Part I) (Winter 1984), pp. 83-96 Published by: University of Manitoba Stable URL: Accessed: 12-01-2020 19:21 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at University of Manitoba is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal This content downloaded from 142.197.126.194 on Sun, 12 Jan 2020 19:21:08 UTC All use subject to
After the Slam of A Doll's House Door: Reverberations in the Work of James, Hardy, Ford and Wells PETER BUITENHUIS "Marriage is august by the magnitude of the issues it involves, balancing peace and strife on the fine point of a natural impulse refined by the need of a tangible ideal." (Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Hueffer, The Nature of a Crime, 1902) A Doll's House was first performed in Stockholm in 1880 and in London in 1889. The climax of the play was the slam of the door when Nora marched out of her husband's house. As James Gibbons Huneker, the influential New York drama and music critic, said at the time, "that slammed door reverberated across the roof of the world!'1 Some producers and actors in other European countries, nervous about public reaction to the play, determined to change the ending. Ibsen bitterly resented this "barbaric outrage" on his play, but in the absence of copyright protection was powerless to prevent the change. He did the version himsel rather than submit his work to what he called "the treatment and 'adaptation' of less tender and competent hands!'2 For him, as for us, that slammed door was the whole point of the play. Mosaic XVI1/1 0027-1276-84/010083-14 SOI.50 ©Mosaic This content downloaded from 142.197.126.194 on Sun, 12 Jan 2020 19:21:08 UTC All use subject to
84 Peter Buitenhuis Nora's act of leaving husband, children and home was outrageous and intolerable to many in the play's Victorian audiences, just as it was exciting and liberating for others. In Munich, where Ibsen's original ending was restored, the Danish critic, Georg Brandes, wrote: "A Doll's House has excited as much controversy as at home. People have taken sides passionately either for or against the play, and it has hardly ever happened before in Munich that any play has aroused such lively discussion'.' London audiences and critics were equally aroused, although condemnation was more frequently
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