payment page
Ibsen uses colloquial dialogue to create a realistic, relatable drama for audiences. His characters speak in everyday language and in sentences, rather than in metered or rhymed lines that playwrights used in the past. When Nora greets her children after they come back from playing outside, for example, the audience can identify with Nora as she tries to talk to all three children at once, her speech zipping from one topic to the next as the children talk over each other: “Really? Did a big dog run after you? But it didn’t bite you? No, dogs don’t bite nice little dolly children. You mustn’t look at the parcels, Ivar. What are they? Ah, I daresay you would like to know. No, no—it’s something nasty!” Additionally, by having characters mutter to themselves, like Nora at the end of Act I (“Deprave my little children? Poison my home? It’s not true. It can’t possibly be true.”), Ibsen is able to show audiences what his characters are thinking in a realistic way, without having the characters speak directly to the audience.
