Shattered Back Wall: Performative Utterance of "A Doll's House"

Author(s): Branislav Jakovljevic

Source: Theatre Journal, Vol. 54, No. 3 (Oct., 2002), pp. 431-448
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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Shattered Back Wall:

of A DoWs House
Performative
Utterance
Branislav

The

Jakovljevic

Performative

(on) Stage

In the last decades of the twentieth century, J. L. Austin's performative

speech act
as
one
most
of
the
contested
There
ideas.1
theory emerged
philosophical
passionately
are many reasons for this. One of the most significant is that a performative
speech act
reintroduces
the referent into linguistics: it brings language, so to speak, back to the
body and to the stormy question of identity. The general performative
speech act
and enters the
the disciplinary
boundaries
of analytical philosophy
theory oversteps
feminist
of
domains
of poststructuralist
course, performance
theory,
theory, and,
theory, to name some. This is, in part, due to the brilliant clarity and simplicity of
or in saying
"in which
idea to "isolate" utterances
Austin's
by saying something
are
we
source
seems
to be the
what
The
of
other
something
doing something."2
so
in
not
is
of
the
Austin's
which,
way
actuality
unending
theory
brilliantly, he
excludes

certain

utterances:

performative

"a

performative

utterance

will,

for example,

. . .
be in a peculiar way hollow or void if said by an actor or spoken in a soliloquy
a
in
in
not
circumstances
is
such
special way?intelligibly?used
Language
seriously,
its normal use?ways
fall under etiolations of
but in ways
which
parasitic upon
this attempt to exclude literature
(22, italics in the original). Paradoxically,
language"
acts
attracts
from the theory of performative
speech
literary critics, and rightfully so;
the performative
speech act theory not only introduces "plain speech" to philosophy
but also establishes powerful
literature and its surroundings,
between
connections
between writer and reader, or writer and critic. That is, until we hit upon Austin's

Branislav

University.
and Museum

Acto,

Iwould
Gluzman
Bennett,

his
the Department
Studies at New York
of Performance
PhDfrom
been published
in The
Drama
Primer
Review,
Rec,
PAJ, Theater,
and
Management
Curatorship.

recently
Jakovljevic
His
articles
have

received

at the various
like to thank Peggy Phelan, who
read this work
and Yelena
stages of writing,
I am also grateful
to Susan
Yankelevich
for being
and loving readers.
insightful
comments
David
and the outside
readers
of Theatre Journal for their valuable
and
Rom?n,
and Matvei

suggestions.
1
was marked
of Austin's
in the seventies
J. Searle
Reception
theory
by the Jacques Derrida-John
on the pages
in the eighties
of the journal Glyph, while
debate
Jean-Francois
theory of
Lyotard's
new set of contradictions.
to Austin's
and a whole
Alain
added
postmodernism
theory a new valence
one of the most
French
thinkers
of the 1990's, adamantly
Badiou,
prominent
rejects Austin's
theory
and philosophical
that rest on it.
projects
2
How
to Do Things with Words
Harvard
Press,
J. L. Austin,
1962), 12, italics
University
(Cambridge:
in the original.
will be included
in the text.
references
Subsequent
parenthetically

Theatre Journal54 (2002) 431^48 ? 2002 by The JohnsHopkins University Press

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432

Branislav

Jakovljevic

from his theory. This adamant rejection of

emphatic exclusion of literary performatives
artistic uses of language points precisely toward the theatricality deeply imbedded in
Austin's performative
speech act theory.3
In bringing
and Ibsen's analytical drama,
together Austin's
analytical philosophy
aim
to
in Austin's
is
neither
and
search
for
inconsistencies
lectures nor
my
paradoxes
to dispute
act.
the validity of his general theory of performative
Instead, I
speech
to
believe
that it is much more
in which
examine
and
useful
the
ways
important
theatre and Austin's
theory inform and support each another. A series of questions
arise from this juxtaposition: How do the theatre and the performative
act upon each
is the role of performatives
in a dramatic
text and in a theatrical
other? What
Is there a critical approach to theatre that is not concerned only with its
performance?
sense of
formal and aesthetic properties but also with its performativity
(in Austin's
to the kind of
the word)? Assuming
that Ibsen's A Doll's House belongs precisely
theatre that Austin sought to exclude from his theory, Iwill argue in this essay for the
and effectiveness
of a performative
possibility
analysis of theatre, an analysis that
from
examination
of
the
and extends to its various
the
of
process
begins
writing
a
I
will
show
theatrical
not an isolated utterance
that
and
act,
Also,
performances.
delivered on stage, can achieve an impact similar to that of a performative
speech act.
In other words,
Iwill look not only at how theatre is performed but also at the ways in
which
theatre performs.
In doing

like to start at the very opening of Ibsen's A Doll's House. At the

so, Iwould
room: "A warm, well
is
there
just an ordinary, comfortable
beginning,
drawing
furnished room, reflecting more taste than expense. At stage right, a door leads to a
hall. Another door, stage left, leads to Helmer's
these
study. There is a piano between
two doors."4 Ibsen's family drama is set within
the space of perspectival
constraints.
The entire play takes place in this single set that represents the living room in amiddle
class family flat. In his book Theatrical Space in Ibsen, Chekhov and Strindberg: Public
Forms of Privacy, Freddie Rokem extends the perspectival metaphor
to Ibsen's dramatic
our
to sins
set
that
"the
focal
of
the
directs
attention
asserting
technique,
point
in the distant past."5 He shows that the orphanage
committed by the hero, usually
in Ibsen's Ghosts plays the
visible through the large windows
of the conservatory
double role of the visual and symbolic focal point of the play. In the bourgeois drama,
reality of the stage is always measured
against the truth of the outside world, and this
room through the
enters the enclosed visual space of the drawing
outside world
on a sidewall. Removed
windows.
The window
inA Doll's House is located downstage
in
from the focal point as far as possible,
it is a "blind window" which
is not engaged
the organization
that
A
Doll's
of the perspectival
concludes
Rokem
House,
image.

3
Barbara
he gives
names
found
Johnson,

the very name

'mere doing/
[Austin] uses to name
that most
is none other than the word
commonly
theatricality,
were
not ironic enough,
the same split can be
the word
perform. As if this
exactly
see Barbara
other favorite word:
of Austin's
act." For her excellent
discussion
theory,

asserts
Johnson
to that from which

theatricality:
in Austin's

The Critical

that "for the very word

he excludes

in the Contemporary
Essays
Difference:
Press,
1980), 65, italics in the original.
A Doll's House,
trans. Frank McGuinnes

Rhetoric

of Reading

University
Hopkins
4
Henrik
Ibsen,
(London:
in the text.
will be included
references
Subsequent
parenthetically
5
Freddie Rokem,
Theatrical Space in Ibsen, Chekhov and Strindberg: Public
UMI Research
Press,
1986), 17.

Faber
Forms

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The

(Baltimore:
and

Faber,

of Privacy

Johns

1996),

(Ann Arbor:

1.

SHATTERED
BACKWALL

433

"Ibsen's most

optimistic social drama," does not have "a clear focal point with which
on the sidewall is not
the hero has to struggle."6 However,
the large, curtained window
room.
in this bourgeois
the only window
family living
At the end of the second act of A Doll's House Nora Helmer anxiously expects the
in which he threatens to reveal the major misdeed
letter from Krogstad
of her past. It
arrives:

surely

A Letterfalls into the post box.We hear Krogstad's footsteps which gradually diminish as he goes
down

a
gives
stifled
post box. The
enters with
the costume.

the stairs. Nora

The

Mrs

Linde

Nora:
Mrs

Linde

Mrs

Linde:

Nora:
Mrs

cry, runs across the floor to the sofa table. There is a short pause.
-we
are lost.
letter's
there. Torvald,
Torvald
.
. . Nora
a
in
stifled way.
speaks hoarsely,

come here.
Kristine,
throws the clothes on the sofa.
are you
so
What's
wrong?
Why
upset?
Come
here. Do you see the letter? Look

Linde:

Yes,

I can

see

through

the glass

in the post

box.

it.

[67]
can see

We

it. The glassed

letterbox is the window
the Helmer
through which
does not allow us to see the
opens toward the outside world. This window
in the distant background of
physical space, the landscape with fjords and orphanages
toward the discursive,
the stage. Instead, it is an opening
legal space that surrounds
household

Ibsen's

drama:

the

entire

on

is centered

play

letters,

cards,

contracts,

signatures

and

are not only the hard proofs of past

"papers" in general. These written documents
of the
actions; they fuel the ongoing action in the drama and every actual performance
It is a play about writing with
play. In a word, A Doll's House is a play about writing.
about words
that act and generate
the
action, and it is precisely
that we see played out on the stage. Even
of different kinds of writing
consequences
more precisely, it is a play about non-fictional writing, about legal writing, writing
that
teems
acts.
and
that
with
acts,
writing
obliges
speech
performative
consequences,

utterance vitally depends on its

Like an utterance made on stage, a performative
own
environment.
its
has
is
stage, its own situation, which
Every performative
the
utterance
In
from
itself.
the
conclusion
of
the
Harvard
lecture
fourth
inseparable
Austin acknowledges
inherent to performative
this "theatricality"
speech acts: "we
must consider the total situation inwhich utterance is issued?the
total speech act?if
we

are

are

see

to

can

each

not

the

go wrong"
to

used

parallel
(52).
perform

between
By
an

statements

and

"statement"

Austin

and
utterances,
performative
to constatives,
utterances
refers

action

instead

to describe,

but

report,

or

"constate"

how
that
a

are subject to categories of

certain state of affairs. He stresses that while constatives
can be judged only according to their "felicity" and
truth and falsity, performatives
The force of a performative
"infelicity," or according to their effectiveness.
speech act
a performative
is just as important as its meaning.
Like a theatrical performance,
speech act is reiterable: it is an act that has "the general character of ritual or
it is a "conventional act" (19, italics in the original). Austin does not stop
ceremonial,"
at that, and throughout

his

social

circumstances

conventions,

Ibid.,

and

lectures he returns

to considerations

of ceremonial

of utterance.

27.

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acts,

434

Branislav Jakovljevic

Certainly, Austin's

objective

in appearance

interested

and

is not to teach us how

in

performance,

to do things with words.

language

and

In his

action.

He

is

Harvard

in language and what kinds of

appears
performance
In another series of
from
prevent performance
linguistic appearance
happening.
1947 and 1958 under
the title Sense and Sensibilia, Austin
lectures, held between
In the penultimate
focused on appearance and perception.
lecture he hinted that his
concern
not
main
is
Austin's
criticism of empirical
but
primary
perception
knowledge.
own
as
that
it
is
its
that is beyond
establishes
foundations
philosophy
something
lectures

doubt,

he

examines

how

that is incorrigible:

something

Reflections of this kind apparently give rise to the idea that there is or could be a kind of
sentence

in the utterance

I take no

of which

so that in
minimal;
principle
would
be "incorrigible."7

could

nothing

chances

show

that

at all, my
I had made

commitment

is absolutely
and my
remark

a mistake,

of empirical philosophy's
If, in Sense and Sensibilia Austin denies the "incorrigibility"
non-committed
speaker, in How to do Things with Words, he sets out to find the total
is absolutely
opposite to this absence of commitment. The "speaker" of a performative
utterance
to the utterance. Indeed, the very possibility
committed
of the performative
to her speech. A performative
utterance does not
depends on a speaker's commitment
to the world of disembodied,
It reminds us that
purely linguistic statements.
comes
not
it
and
is a bodily act.8
from
the
but
that
that,
language always
body,
only

belong

of the speaker at the moment

is responsible,
for the
of utterance
it
for
Austin's
famous
exclusion
of
theatre
from
his
would
great part,
theory. However,
to reduce Austin's
be wrong
general attitude toward theatre to the two instances in
utterance. The
which he takes acting and joking as perfect examples of non-committed
in
act
not
is
role of theatre
speech
theory
predicated
only by commitment
performative
of the speaker but also by what we might call the public character of speech. Iwill use
This commitment

two examples
First

is the

to illustrate
sudden

this point.

appearance

of

the

reference

to Greek

tragedy

in the

of

conclusion

the introductory
lecture by restating the
the first lecture. Austin begins to wrap-up
a
an
utterance
be
that
may
by
appropriate gesture or
point
performative
accompanied
to a performative
that
that itmay be completely replaced by a gesture. Then, he moves
does

not

rely

on

a conventional

phrase,

speech,

and

even

gesture:

"the

awe-inspiring

that
to . . ." (9). Three years later, during the discussion
performative
at Royaumont,
followed his presentation
of the paper Performative-Constative
France,
Austin addressed briefly the structure of the "awe-inspiring"
performative, which, he
act which
in general
from "that species of mental
said, is inseparable
accompanies
in good faith to another, and which makes us say sotto voce T
every promise made
...

promise
7

myself

I promise

to keep

the promise

I've

just made'."9

Toward

the end

of

the

Press,
1962), 112, italics in the original.
(London: Oxford
University
to date The
act
in
dramatic
literature written
of a literary
speech
York: Cornell
Press,
1983),
(Ithaca, New
University
Literary Speech Act: Don Juan with J. L. Austin
at
utterance
is "a relation
Felman
and body
that the relation between
Shoshana
observed
consisting
8

Sense and Sensibilia

J. L. Austin,
In one of the best discussions

utterance
is
that for this reason
and
and of inseparability,"
of incongruity
performative
it is doing"
in the fact that the act cannot know what
"the scandal
consists
"scandalous":
(96).
9
E. Caton
in Philosophy
ed. Charles
and Ordinary
"Performative-Constative"
J. L. Austin,
Language,
of Illinois Press,
1963), 38.
(Urbana: University

once

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SHATTERED
BACKWALL

435

the respondent
Poirier characterized
this kind of "mental act" as a
on
the
which
"hazier
laws of belief, of probability, of
"performative
depends
thought,"
a
utterance
to
of
From
of
volition."10
loud
desire,
(sotto voce), to thought,
hope,
whisper
a
to the unconscious,
of
decreases
until it completely
performative
perceptibility
and
from
But
at Harvard, Austin
the
fields
of
back
disappears
philosophy
linguistics.
to
the
laws"
his
toward
the question of
escape
argument
managed
"hazy
by driving
discussion,

commitment:
Imust

not

be

joking,

nor

for example,

writing

a poem.

are

But we

to have

apt

feeling

that

their being serious consists in their being uttered as (merely) the outward and visible sign,
or other

for convenience
which
purposes
inward

it is but

a short

the

outward

record

step to go
utterance

or
on

for information,
of an inward
or to assume
to believe
without

is a description,

true

or

act: from
spiritual
that
for many
realizing
of the occurrence
of the
and

false,

performance.

[9]11
in the original Greek. In his comments on
He then offers the example from Hippolytus
Austin's
the significance
of this
lectures, philosopher
Stanley Cavell underlines
in discussion
of Austin
and theatre:
reference which was customarily
overlooked
"When Hippolytus
says, 'My tongue swore to, but my heart did not,' is he an actor on
a stage? Does he think he is, that is, takes himself to be on some inner stage?"12 Austin
line: "i.e. my tongue swore to, but my heart (or
offers his own translation of Euripides'
mind

or other backstage

artiste) did not"

(10).

The organ of speech

Tongue, the utterer, the speech organ occupies the proscenium.
nor
area
is not the speech itself. The utterer is by no means
is
the backstage
alone,
his
of
and
Austin
his
translation
vacated, enclosed,
prompts
Euripides,
peaceful.
In the
recitation of Euripides' words, by yet another layer of hidden scenic machinery.
footnote added to the line from Hippolytus, Austin says13: "But I do not mean to rule
out all the offstage performers?the
lights men, the stage manager, even the prompter;
I am objecting only to certain officious understudies,
who would duplicate
the play"
talks not only about language but also about voice and gesture, and about
take part in the production
of
tongue, heart, the brain itself?that
organs?hand,
are
in
their
mutual
the
hands
These
about
bodies
organs bring
relationships:
language.
(10). Austin

stage

hands,

and

there

are

also

and

managers,

even

prompters.

Second,
discussion

this brief reference to theatrical apparatus points

toward his detailed
and illusion in Sense and Sensibilia. Here, like
of the nature of perception

elsewhere,

Austin

cunningly

insists

camouflaged

on

the

concreteness

so that it looked

10
Ibid., 49.
11
Italics in the original. Austin's
dismissal
The
whose
Arithmetic
Foundations
of
Frege,
book-length

work

that Austin

published

of

experience:

like a barn, how

"If

his lifetime.
during
see The Foundations

church

were

could any serious question

and empiricism
of psychologism
This
into English.
translated

he

...

can be

traced

translation

to Gottlob

was

the only
on
For Frege's
and
empiricism
opinion
Northwestern
Arithmetic
(Evanston:
of

in relation
to analytic
logic,
psychology
and 37.
Press,
1968), especially
pages v, viii, 3,11,
University
12
A
Pitch
Exercise
Harvard
Cavell,
Autobiographical
Stanley
of Philosophy:
(Cambridge:
University
Press,
1994), 90.
13
one can not avoid
the obvious
how was
this footnote
Here,
raising
question:
(per
presented
in the lecture?
formed)

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436

Branislav Jakovljevic

be raised about what we see when we look at it?We see, of course, a church that now
looks like a barn. We do not see an immaterial barn, an immaterial
church, or an
It is the
immaterial anything else."14 The analogy with theatre is more than obvious.
not
its
illusionist
the
that
of
theatrical
very materiality
stage,
just
provides
qualities,
continuity

between

stage and auditorium.

The "abstracted" and "erased" fourth wall is just that: an abstraction and an erasure.
the spectator to
immaterial fourth wall permits
of the "invisible,"
The convention
scrutinize the events on stage, while at the same time it prevents
the events to "spill
over" from the stage into auditorium. A happy, successful performative
speech act
as
"break the
threatens
theatre
uttered on the naturalistic
to,
it,
stage
put
professionals
fourth wall" and render null and void the very conventions under which itwas uttered.
to propose
that the performative
This is, I hope, the appropriate moment
force of
not
wall
but
toward
the
theatre
toward
the
immaterial
naturalistic
is directed
front
rear
If
wall that delineates
of the stage.
the
the physical boundaries
visible, material
the relation of discontinuity
immaterial
front wall establishes
between
stage and
then the material back wall restores the continuity; it is a concrete object
auditorium,
with other concrete objects arranged on and in relation to it,which evokes the concrete
world behind it. The offstage area of the naturalistic
theatre is just as important as the
stage itself. It is the realm of pure potentiality. The encounter between the playwright,
and the audience does not happen, as it is commonly
assumed, on the
performers,
screen
occurs
It
in
front
wall.
is
of
the
invisible
the
transparent
offstage area. Offstage
event
the
the ambiguous
where
of
theatrical
and
sphere
experiential
"unreality"
"reality" of the audience interact, merge, and shape each other. If the footlights and the
convention of the immaterial fourth wall affirm the neat distinction between "reality"
and "unreality,"
the back wall and offstage area question
this distinction. As the
continuation
of the fictional reality of the stage event, the offstage area is the most
concrete immediately behind the back wall. The cleft on the mail box inA Doll's House
suggests what is beyond the Helmer
family room, the staircase, the entrance door of
the apartment building,
the street, and the city.
The offstage is not only a spatial but also a temporal category. In relation to the
in general, the generation of the theatrical event, from
opening night and performance
to dress rehearsals, happens offstage. Offstage
time is just
the process of script writing
as ambiguous
as offstage space: it can be slowed down or accelerated;
it can be
in
and
immediate
dramatic
observed
the
the
of
described, analyzed,
temporal vicinity
tense of the play "for
event, or in a distant past. The importance of the present
to
of
the
Peter
the
Szondi,
conjuring up
key element of Ibsen's
past" is, according
so
case
not
his
later
This
in
the
is
of
of A Doll's House: here
analytical technique
plays.15
the ongoing events of the play have the function of conjuring up the future. Or, more
the offstage past, the dramatic present, and the performative
future are
a
acts.
series
in
of
Considered
their
aligned by
performative
speech
totality, performative
speech acts employed on and backstage of A Doll's House reveal much more about the
characters than is discernable
from the naturalistic
logic of the play.

precisely,

14
Sense
Austin,
15
Peter Szondi,
Minnesota
Press,

and Sensibilia,
30, italics in the original.
ed. and trans. Michael
Drama,
Theory ofModern
1987), 16.

Hays

(Minneapolis:

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University

of

SHATTERED
BACKWALL
Nora's

437

Knowledge

considerations
of a hypothetical
of "verbs that act" Austin
dictionary
two kinds of sources: the plain English dictionary and the law books.16 He
used in his analytic philosophy
with
repeatedly compared the word "performative"
the word "operative" as used in the language of jurisprudence. One of his favorite
antithesis was to compare itwith the
ways of illustrating the performative-constative

In his
mentions

"preamble" and "operative" clause of a legal instrument.17 Even in his dismissal of a

Austin uses the lawyers' idiom: if uttered in a joke or in a
parasitic performative,
is "null and void."18 Performative
the
poem,
performative
speech acts are thus divided
into normal and not normal, serious and not serious, into utterances of judges and of
jesters. The last distinction describes accurately the division of characters in A Doll's
House, who fall into two categories sharply distinguished
by gender and profession:
male lawyers and their wives. Austin certainly does not fail tomarry the dictionary of
of the "I do" as an exceptionally
clear
plain English and the law books by privileging
a
act.
in
of
total
the
else
interlocked,
However,
process something
gets
example
speech
or should we say wedded. As Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick points out, the matrimonial
"I
so often expressed
in the
do" always brings about another familial relationship,
"Shame on you."19 Shortly, we are going to see that gender performativity
performative
of A Doll's House effectively enacts the double relation of "I do"/ "Shame on you." In
between
the performative
aspects of guilt and shame,
important distinction
asserts
is
"available
for
the
latter
that,
metamorphosis,
Sedgwick
refiarning, refiguration,
but unavailable
for
affective and symbolic loading and deformation;
fnmsfiguration,
A
House
the
and
closure."20
Doll's
shows
the
work
of
purgation
deontological
effecting

her

workings

of the "transformational

grammar"

of shame

in all of its stages.

In the opening part of the play, Ibsen presents

the image of a happy household
in the first exchange between Nora and
infested with unhappy performatives. Already
of improper naming. He addresses Nora as
Helmer, he fires a series of performatives
not exhaust the inventory of Nora's
"little
bird."
This
does
"skylark," "squirrel,"
names:
in
Torvald
calls
her a "songbird," a "spendthrift," a
later
the
improper
play
This improper naming (aswell as Torvald's
"sweet tooth," and "Miss Stubbornshoes."
ear
jokingly) suggests lack of seriousness
performative gestures such as pinching Nora's
on Torvald's part in his dealings with Nora. Hailed with multiple names, Nora responds
in

multiple

ways.

The

entire

macaroon

game

reveals

a network

of

unhappy

performatives.

Asked if she had any macaroons, Nora (mis)fires a performative:

"No, Torvald, I really
swear it" (7). Furthermore,
in the continuation of the game, she turns a different face to
each character with whom she interacts. In the encounter with Mrs. Linde and Dr. Rank,
Nora utters a bold lie about the origin of the candies that are banned in the Helmer
household. Her lie is a stifled cry of awoman who entertains her husband and fears him

16
In the last chapter
His
idea of a

a
list of performative
to do Things with Words Austin
outlines
of How
provisional
was
See her English
of performatives
pursued
by Anna Wierzbicka.
dictionary
Press
Academic
Australia,
1987).
Speech Act Verbs: A Semantic Dictionary
(Sidney:
17
23.
Austin,
"Performative-Constative,"
18
Ibid., 23.
19
Eve Kosofsky
'The Art Of the Novel/"
GLQ: A
"Queer Performativity:
James's
Henry
Sedgwick,
Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 1.1 (1993): 4.
20
Ibid., 13.

verbs.

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438

Branislav

Jakovljevic

at the same

time. Torvald's relation to Nora is defined

by his incessant repetition of
of improper naming. These failed
account for a Butlerian
performatives
performative
interpellation, an authoritarian hailing, which shows "the power and the
force of the law to compel fear at the same time that it offers
at an
recognition
is
not
that
all
is
in
there
Nora's
and
Torvald's
But,
expense."21
performatives.

performatives

of the first act, Nora

At the beginning
is alone on stage. She holds a
bag of
macaroons.
Torvald greets her from his study, and then "he opens the door, looks out,
pen in hand" (2).Nora quickly hides the bag, and Torvald holds his pen. She has been
in the act of transgression; he has been
interrupted
interrupted in the act of writing.
Her lips still taste sweet with
candy; his pen still wet with ink. Lips and pen, mouth
and hand, speech and writing?the
characters in A Doll's House are deeply marked
by
the kind of writing
and in writing.
they perform, by their performatives
of writing
Torvald's non-serious manner
in his interaction with Nora stands in reverse
propor
tion to his attitude of utter seriousness
in the world of jurisprudence and business.
The initial conflict between Torvald and his
antagonist Krogstad happens near the
of
the
This
sole
face-to-face
encounter between
them occurs,
very beginning
play.
are
Both
of
them
Helmer
doesn't hide that he attended
significantly, offstage.
lawyers;
law school with Krogstad.
the two lawyers
Although
they share the same profession,
come from different?even
opposite?ethical
backgrounds. Helmer had been a dedi
cated civil servant until he met his wife Nora while
investigating her father's dubious
business ventures. He left his low
and toiled to support his
paying job at a ministry
family as a free-lance lawyer until he lost his health and almost died. Unlike him,
in his business
for his
Krogstad was unscrupulous
dealings when it came to providing
wife and two children.
Helmer
and Krogstad do not share
student memories,
their
only their pleasant
but
education, and their professional
also
their
for
For
the
occupation
passion
writing.
honorable Helmer as well as for the notorious
a
is
secret
a
Krogstad, writing
weapon,
utilitarian

and

means

effective

for

is portrayed as being
is scared to death of
...
newspapers
[that] can do ...
on the
body; it bruises, injures,
such wicked
things about Papa

reaching

a writer

their

goals.

In act

two

of A Doll's

House

before

anything else. Nora admits to Torvald

because
he "writes in the most dreadful
Krogstad
untold harm" (50).Writing
leaves traces on paper and
and destroys. Nora says for
example: "People wrote
in the papers. Remember
that. They slandered him so
is immune to this kind of
viciously." Torvald, however,
injury: "Don't you see it's
insulting to think Iwould be frightened because some failed, depraved hack wants
about writing
is deeper than Nora's. In the
revenge against me?" (53).22His knowledge
about the
early draft of the play Torvald boldly declares the source of his knowledge
"I got my job by
...
the
power of "pen-pushing":
in a
opposing
present system
in a series of newspaper
pamphlet,
articles, and by a pointed speech at the last general

Krogstad
that she

meeting."23

21
Judith Butler,
In McFarlane's

22

reads:

Bodies

that Matter:

translation

On

the falsity

the Discursive
of Krogstad's
that anything

"It's hardly
to suppose
flattering
me\" Henrik
Ibsen, The Oxford Ibsen, vol. 5, ed. and
Press,
1961), 244, italics in the original.
University
23
Ibid., 301.

Limits

of "Sex" (London:
is much more
writing
this miserable
pen-pusher

trans.

James Walter

Routledge,

1993),
The

emphasized.
wrote
could

McFarlane

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(London:

121.
line

frighten
Oxford

SHATTERED
BACKWALL
Unlike
effective,

the two "hack journalists," Nora

writing.

original

seems
can

Nora-the-actress

only

an

imitate

439

any kind of

of producing

incapable

already

existing

text.

She proudly admits to Kristine Linde that a year earlier, while her family was in deep
financial trouble, she got a copying job and she worked
the rest of the
secretly, while
... like
was
to
Kristine
"it
She
confesses
that
felt
like
family
asleep.
being aman" (19).
Of course, this work remained hidden from Torvald. He has been led to believe that
Nora spent long winter nights making Christmas paper decorations, which were at the
in secrecy
end destroyed by a cat. Surely, that is not the only copying Nora undertook
and without Torvald's knowledge
and approval. She also copied her father's signature
on the contract for the loan she took from Krogstad. At one moment, Nora's
inau
is suddenly
from
thentic, forced, and forged writing
interrupted, but as it disappears
a
never
it
in
In
actions.
continues
her
and
about
Ibsen
paper,
gestures
play
writing,
shows the act of writing or reading explicitly on stage. All letters are written and read
in the play's back rooms, their contents are never fully presented
in view of the
audience. The network of performatives
forms an alternative notation of the play. This
in stage
hidden notation parallels
the conventional
notation of the play executed
directions.24

Like the offstage world of naturalistic

theater, the letters and contracts that drive the
are
never fully
and imagined. This writing
remembered,
evoked,
play
anticipated,
as if this living text was written
in invisible ink. The precious papers
materializes,
or into the stove)
appear on stage, but they swiftly vanish (into pockets, backrooms,
before anybody reads their contents aloud. The two lawyers and "hack journalists"
communicate
she exists between pen and paper, between
the
through Nora Helmer;
is literally notated by this suppressed
addresser and the addressee. Her performance
She herself writes
network of performatives.
the letter by her actions, voice, breath,
is
the
form
She
without
the referent, the signifier
gestures.
grimaces,
signifying
without
the signified. In her performance,
she is writing
the letters in action and as
action.25 This ephemeral

writing

is important

because

it spells out Nora's

knowledge.

Torvald's performative
establishes his wife's
interpellation
effectively
ignorance;
awoman-child.
the skylark is a feather-brained woman,
The expense that Nora pays is
In the opening scenes of the play, this ignorance appears as
precisely her knowledge.
studied and artificial; it is as feigned as is the signature on the contract that she has
given
encounter

to Krogstad.
with

This false ignorance

Kristine.

The

same

begins

pretense

that provides Nora with

certain freedom
in her interaction with Kristine:
unbearable

of

to deteriorate
a careless

in her

already

intellectual

relation with

in Nora's

first

feather-weight

Torvald

becomes

24
are the
to drama
inherent
and theatre
that Austin
Stage directions
only performatives
readily
into his taxonomy
includes
acts.
In
How
to
of performative
Do
speech
Things with Words he classifies
them into the family
"a kind of performative
that he names
concerned
behavitives,
roughly with
to behaviour
reactions
and with
others
and designed
to exhibit
behaviour
toward
attitudes
and
(83).
feelings"
25
Commenting
"it's the closest

on her role of Nora

in the Lincoln
Center
said that
of the play Ullman
production
to writing
if you are an actress?you
write a person
you can come
your
through
of her character
and your actions on stage." See Joan Templeton,
"Nora on the American
interpretation
1894-1975:
to Ibsen, vol. 7 (Oslo,
the Integral Text" in Contemporary
Stage,
Acting
Approaches
Norway:
Press,
1991), 126.
Norwegian
University

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440

Branislav

/
Mrs

Linde:

Jakovljevic
this

Nora,

I know

Nora:
Mrs

Linde

Mrs

Linde:

is so kind

of you,

you want

so little of how difficult life can be so

-1 know

little

to

help

me

especially

you who

knows

are a child,

Nora.

smiles.
Dear

God,

you

do

some

needlework,

you

embroider

you

[15]
finds insulting this comment about her childishness:
"You are as bad as the rest
of them. You all think that I'm useless when
it comes to knowing how hard life can
be -" (15). Ignorance is not the lack of learning, but the lack of experience,
the lack of
In this bourgeois home, inexperience
amounts
to uselessness
empirical knowledge.
not only inwork but also in dealing with the "facts of life," which are incorrigible and
use of knowledge
fundamental. Nora's question about the possibility
of woman's
("if
a wife knows how to use her brains") sets her on a journey out of ignorance. However,

Nora

her emergence
from structural stupidity
is not procured by accumulation
of knowl
and
Ibsen
avoids
the
of
the
experience.
edge
skillfully
trappings
bildungsrornan, that
more
masculine
excellence.
is
Nora's
task
much
difficult
than collecting
genre par
an
and
archival
Her
out
of
the feigned
way
experiences
building
knowledge.
not
leads
her
toward
but
true
toward
kind of
This
ignorance
knowledge
ignorance.
and forgetting
ignorance cannot be achieved through learning, or through unlearning
of the already existing knowledge.
This kind of ignorance is not a matter of exposure
and experience,
and commitment.
but of decision
The only way out of the false
out
of
the
learned
and toward true ignorance is a
absence
of
ignorance,
knowledge,
leap,

a decisive

and momentous

break.

in some kind of representation

Any attempt to capture this authentic movement
on the outside,
ends in failure. Like Nora's
famous tarantella dance,
it happens
a
one
in
broader
than
the
contained
the
visual
field
of representa
offstage,
reality
by
tion that is the theatrical stage. In the words of Torvald the aesthete, this movement,
this performance
is "too much"; it goes "beyond the demands of art" (82). The stage
permits
House

us

to see

unravels

the
only
in a series

leap. Ibsen isolates

ative

rehearsal,

the promise

of performance.
and
rehearsals
try-outs,

of deliberations,

this movement

in a way

similar

to Austin's

In this

sense,

of Nora's

isolation

A Doll's
decisive

of a perform

utterance.

In the sequence of considerations

to a simple plummet
of alternatives
into the abyss,
evident is the famous "stockings scene" in the second act of the play. By this
moment, Nora's destiny has been decided: Torvald decisively put a stop to her pleas
on Krogstad's
behalf by sending him a letter of dismissal
from his post at the bank.
the most

Rank. Nora is aware of his venereal disease, which

sentenced him to
and
in
death.
Like
ill
other
Ibsen's
disfiguration
painful
mortally
people
plays, Doctor
true
Rank has a profound, almost prophetic,
into
the
insight
significance of events that
unfold around them. Suggesting
that she is "in the mood formadness," Nora takes out
Enter Doctor

the silk stockings from her costume box and shows them to Rank. That is not enough.
The room is in semi-darkness,
and she describes
the stockings: "The colour of flesh.
aren't
Rank
with
She
touches
the stockings. Flesh to flesh: a
Lovely,
they?" (57).
a
woman
to
and
Nora is not a seductress: she
Flesh
death.
healthy young
living corpse.
is being seduced by the possibility
of a disfiguring
death. She rejects this possibility,
and this decision

resonates

throughout

the rest of the play.

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BACKWALL
SHATTERED

441

Nora reaches the nadir of her seductive play with death during her second agon
the protagonists'
In the early draft of A Doll's House, in which
with Krogstad.
family
name is Stenborg, Ibsen composed dialogue that abounds with references to death and
in the final draft of the play Nora briefly and unconvincingly
self-destruction. Where
warns Krogstad
commit suicide, in the early draft they discuss that
that she might
that she will
and
detail. Here, Nora is almost convinced
at
much greater length
issue
to
confesses
she
have to die young and leave her children behind;
Krogstad that in the
then
lists the
He
else."
about
painstakingly
nothing
past few days she "thought
acts
is the
in
final
of
this
suicide. Incorporated
inventory
possible ways of committing
name
But
what
be.
means?
That
Helmer: "Krogstad:
first mention of the family
may
by
Poison? Not so easy to get hold of. Shoot yourself? That takes a fair amount of skill,
Mrs.

Helmer.

Ugh,

Hanging?

that's

an

business...

ugly

you

get

cut down."26

As

we

are

surfaces in the play in an action, as an action, of the

going to see, "Mrs. Helmer"
reversal of death. This action entails a double performative
speech act: the "awe
to oneself, and the most
illustrative speech act of
inspiring" speech act of promise
naming.

Famous for his intimacy with his fictional characters, Ibsen once made a remark that
the proper name of A Doll's House's heroine "was not really Nora." He continues, "She
was christened 'Eleonora.' But at home they called her 'Nora' because she was such a
is real about the name of a
little pet."27 (At which home? Who christened her? What
was
the
unshaken
followed
Ibsen's
fictional character?
public conviction in the
by
play
as 1924, the Boston
a
As
a
late
and
doll's
house.
real
Nora
Helmer
real
existence of
the article entitled "The Real Doll's House"
The Living Age published
based magazine
was portrayed as the model
for Ibsen's
Laura
Kieler
inwhich the elderly Danish lady
out
the
of the
Koht
Nora Helmer.28) Ibsen's biographer Halvdan
points
symbolism
stone.
the
word stenbo,
name Stenborg, which at its root has the Norwegian
According
into a
husband"
to Koht, Ibsen changed this "too obvious reference to domineering
to
class Helmer."29 However,
"neutral middle
stenbo, the stone, also refers
weight,
a baptism
turns
into
of
Nora
suicide
The
failed
and
Stenborg
sinking.
gravity, falling,
In the first version of the play, Krogstad hypothetically
of the heroine Nora Helmer.
Mrs.
Helmer deep into the cold water of the noisy, wild
new-named
the
submerges
river:

Nora:

of. But perhaps

been
that's what
of course,
you have
thinking
now
down
into it.
it vaguely.
about
Imagine
really getting
thought
you've
only
into the swirling,
black water...
down
late at night...
Out of the house,
swept
. . .
and being
fished
the ice . . . fighting,
under
up
away,
choking,
dragged
. . .
.
.
.
a
state
in
what
and
far
below
sometime,
. . .
. .Oh,
. . .Oh,
I can't.
it's horrible
it's horrible
Oh,

Krogstad:

What

Krogstad:

Nora:

26

river.

The

You

Yes,

is?
see

Ibsen, The Oxford Ibsen,

27
Halvdan
Koht,
Life of
Bloom Publishers,
Benjamin
28
"The Real Doll's
Xiane,
29
Koht, Life, 319.
30
Ibsen, The Oxford Ibsen,

it all,

it's no use

trying

to hide

it. I haven't

courage

to die.30

321.
Ibsen,
1971),
House,"

and

ed.

trans.

Einar

Haugen

and A.

E. Santaniello

318.
The Living Age

320

(1924): 415-16.

321.

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(New

York:

442

Branislav

Jakovljevic

In the final version

of the play

this scene

is considerably

condensed:
then, in the

the ice, perhaps? Sinking into the black, cold water? And

Krogstad:

Under

Nora:

to the surface,
spring,
floating
You can't frighten me.

with

unrecognizable,

ugly,

your

hair

fallen

out.

[66]
"I haven't courage to die" turns into "I am not afraid of life" and "I have courage to
live." The elaborate drama of sneaking out from the house, of a terrifying night walk
to the riverbank, and of a desperate
leap into the stream of "black water" has been
replaced by the final image of a disfigured, bloated, and hairless female body. In his
narration of Nora's eventual suicide, Ibsen relies on the literary tradition of feminine
the body of the victim initially remains intact.
death. In the suicide by drowning,
this un-heroic body receives an excess of liquid. In
Instead of heroic blood shedding,
of "the Ophelia
her discussion
complex," Elaine Showalter asserts that "water is the
and
of
the liquid woman whose eyes are so easily drowned
profound
organic symbol
in tears, as her body is a repository of blood, amniotic fluid, and milk."31
the ridge. The possibility
of the leap seems
young woman
approaches
can
side by pushing
from
the
the
of
She
reach
the
other
disaster
inseparable
plummet.
means
stream
herself
with
the
exposure, desecration,
go
resolutely upwards. Letting
and fatal inversion of the interior. Nora's rejection of suicide is her decisive turn away
in the final version of Ibsen's
from the drowned Ophelia. Although
underemphasized
as her refusal to compromise with Torvald.
drama, this rejection is just as momentous
The two rejections constitute the two sides of the same decision: the image of a lifeless,
The

bloated

is the dark side of the image of a domestic

body

doll.

At one point in A Doll's House, the play's visual and verbal contents are violently
at the moment
is exhausted
The meaning
of the spatial organization
separated.
Torvald opens the letterbox. The notation of performance hidden in letters ceases with
the burning of the contract that contains Nora's
forged signature. This separation of
voice and image is accurately described by Austin:
to say

It is better

you something
often are void
of

that
but

because

the putative
it is not mine
the objects

statement

is null

or

been
(having
are about
they

and void,
exactly
is no longer
exist, which

as when

I say

in existence.

burnt)
do not

involves

that

I sell

Contracts
a breakdown

reference.

[137]
this "breakdown of reference"
evidence has been destroyed. However,
The material
"Precision in
does not end the drama. What is left, then, is the force of performatives.
- its
Austin:
what
is
it
said
makes
clearer
"explicit
meaning," explains
being
language
ness,

in our

Austin

sense,

referred

other meaning,

makes

clearer

the

force

of

the utterance"

to the performative
force as "the second
true
and
false, is the expressiveness
beyond

(73). On

another

occasion,

kind of

'meaning'."32 The
and explicitness
of action.

31
Elaine

of Feminist
and the Responsibilities
Madness,
Showalter,
"Representing
Ophelia: Women,
Hartman
in Shakespeare and the Question
Patricia
and
ed.
Parker
(New
Geoffrey
of Theory,
in literature
in his Water
the "Ophelia
Bachelard
discusses
York: Methuen,
1985), 81. Gaston
complex"
Criticism"

and Dreams:
32
Austin,

Essay on Imagination
"Performative-Constative,"

An

ofMatter
43.

(Dallas:

Pegasus

Foundation,

1983),

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80-85.

SHATTERED
BACKWALL

443

In the coda of A Doll's House, the language becomes more real than the objects on stage.
This force is the only reality of theatre, continuous with the offstage reality. Nora's
ends before she slams the
voyage from false ignorance into true absence of knowledge
street door offstage. By the moment
she declares her ignorance
she has already
told
departed: "I don't even know what religion is... I only know what Pastor Hansen
me when Iwas confirmed"
of life,
(101). Her leap is not calculated. It is not knowledge
but an affirmation of life, of the outside, infinite, boundless.
The

Prospect

to
the promise
to
her
the wedding
ring
"good-bye," opens the door, passes
the sound comes from downstairs.
street. Nora's final exit is not seen
She has made

returned

of

the Performative

to herself. She
leave, the awe-inspiring
promise
husband.
She un-married
herself. Now
she says
in the stairwell. Then
and disappears
the mailbox,
Another door slams shut. She is outside, on the
or reported. It comes as a noise. This sound is raw

and artificial about it. Nora's

exit,
inarticulate, and there is nothing designed
an
entrance.
is
also
She leaves the home and enters into dangerous,
however,
unpredictable
reality. She exits the stage and enters the ambiguous
offstage world.
to her. No more
Before she leaves, Nora makes sure to prevent Torvald from writing
letters. Her departure is the end of writing. And then what? The writing
stops but the
it asks for a continuation
of some
story continues. A Doll's House needs an epilogue,
on
kind. She slams the door. What happens next? She steps
the street. And?
and

As Nora

on

the pavement
entrances

and she
Dances,
Into the laughing
circle
The magic

of her

As Nora

on

dances

circle

the grey
of her

glances,
the midnight

hour

power.

pavement.33

in the outside world are not pedestrian.

The first steps that Nora makes
The English
Arthur
Nora
and
in
her
poet
Symons imagines
dancing
leaping graciously
regained
naivete. The poem "Nora on the Pavement,"
in
dated April 22, 1893, was published
In
1896
of
London
Nora
exits
her
collection
his
poems
poem,
Symons's
Nights.
in an unnamed
town and enters the streets of London.
Scandinavian
apartment
Symons was responding to the English commercial premiere of Ibsen's play at Novelty
as "perhaps the only
Theater (June 1889), which George Bernard Shaw characterized
one that has really got home in England." In his review of A Doll's House revival Shaw
and Sedan. Itwas,
compared Nora's slamming of the door with cannons of Waterloo
he wrote, "the end of a chapter in human history."34 For Shaw, the slam of the door is
"more momentous"
than battle cannons because itmarks the crumbling down of "an
institution upon which so much human affection and suffering have been lavished."35
and Sedan, the outcome
Unlike
the consequences
of Waterloo
exit was
of Nora's
repeatedly

imagined

33
Arthur
Symons,
34
Bernard
Shaw,
Brentano's,
35
Ibid.,

1922),
260.

and reimagined,

corrected,

Poems, vol. 1 (London: Martin

Dramatic
and Essays
Opinions
259.

reversed,

Seeker,
1924), 173.
an
With
Apology

and questioned.

by Bernard

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Shaw

(New

York:

444

Branislav

Jakovljevic

In the early stage history of A Doll's House, this urge to "epilogize" Nora's story was
often indistinguishable
from the urge to apologize
for the play. In Germany,
Ibsen's
text was appended with a fourth act in which a "reconciliation"
is achieved between
at the price of the cynical scorn of Nora. At the end of this phantom fourth
the Helmers
in
Nora
which
act,
begs his forgiveness, Torvald "pulls an enormous paper bag out of
his pocket, opens it, takes out a macaroon
and pops it in her mouth,"
at which Nora
cries in rapture: "The miracle
of miracles!"36 The actress Hedwig
Neimann-Raabe
refused

to perform

in this bowdlerized

version of A Doll's House, but she also rejected

never leave my children."37 Under
original, reasoning
laconically: "I would
an
to
Ibsen
write
alternative ending in which Nora decides not to
pressure,
agreed
leave after Torvald makes her look again at her sleeping children. From phantom
to frau Neimann-Raabe,
to Ibsen himself, attackers and defenders of A Doll's
writers,
House alike insisted on adding text to the existing version of the play rather than
deleting scenes from the script. Back in England, this curious textual swelling took a
turn away from the script itself and toward the offstage continuation
of the story.
Ibsen's

Less

then six months

after the opening of A Doll's House at Novelty
Theater, Walter
a
to
Ibsen's
entitled
"The
Doll's
House?And
prose sequel
published
play
which
the
Nora's
after
from the
After,"38
story twenty years
picks up
departure
Helmer household.
Besant follows the principal characters of A Doll's House out on the
street, into the city and the world at large. The long twenty years brought a reversal of
Besant

to Besant's thermodynamics
fortunes. According
of fate, when the Helmers plummet,
the Krogstads
rise: Torvald becomes a desperate drunk, and Krogstad the chairman of
the bank's board and a mayor. And Nora? She, says Besant, "went forth to find Herself. She found something
and called it Herself."39 In short, she became a writer
and a prominent women's
her new vocation
takes her on a
rights leader. Although
tour through European capitals, "Norah" (Besant spells Nora's name with
perpetual
an "h" at the end,
to make it closer to his English readers) never entirely
apparently
ever
leaves the scene of her crime: she occasionally
returns to her hometown without
her

visiting

children

and

husband.

Besant's sequel is a tragedy of puritan revenge. It is a plot of repetition and reversal

in which
the sins of the past pursue the next generation.
The love affair between
Nora's daughter Emmy and Nils the younger can't come to fruition because of the bad
of Emmy's
and plan to escape to
reputation
family. They are secretly engaged
America. Meanwhile,
in Krogstad's
brother
works
who
Robert,
Emmy's younger
bank, forges a signature on a check. Nils Krogstad Senior visits Emmy in her poor
and asks her to cancel her engagement
with his son. Emmy repeats her
dwelling
gesture and returns the ring. This time, the same action has the opposite
"In heaven, Emmy Helmer, you will have reward," says Krogstad
and
significance.
leaves. Besant goes for a kill. The same evening Norah is in a carriage on her way to a
her past deeds
railway station. She has decided never to come back again. However,
return with a vengeance.
The carriage is stopped by a small procession.
Torvald is

mother's

36

Ibsen, The Oxford Ibsen, 457.

37
Ibsen: A Biography
Michael
(New York: Doubleday,
Meyer,
38
Illustrated
1890.
English
Magazine,
January
39
in Verbena
Walter
"The Doll's House?And
After"
Besant,
(New

York: Harper

and Brothers,

1892),

1971),

459,

Camellia

italics

in the original.

Stephanotis

327.

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and Other

Stories

BACKWALL
SHATTERED

445

there, and so is Christine. The burden on the hands of the people in the procession
finally revealed. It is the body of Emmy who did precisely what her mother refused
do twenty years earlier. There she lies in the image of fair Ophelia:
Emmy
lay upon
her
had arranged
cheek
lashes

was

white

lying

on

is
to

who
had
found her; someone
formed
by the coats of the fishermen
as if in prayer;
across her bosom;
her
her hands were
joined
long fair hair
the long
her eyes were
and waxen,
in no way
closed,
injured by the water;
at rest, and for ever.40
the cheek; her face was
a bier

The publication of Besant's story launched a frenzy of the writing of sequels to A Doll's
of literary sequels, the genre that marked
House. This was not an ordinary progression
the literature of the Victorean era. While
sequels to A Doll's House, as well as sequels'
a
continuation
in
of the narrative, what
the form of
they
sequels, often appear
reverse
installment.41 It is a debate
the main point of the previous
effectively do is
is actually a
carried out under the guise of literary sequels. In a debate, continuation
a
and context. Besant's story
critical citation used against its original meaning
citation,
Ibsen's play. As a response to the
does not continue, or complete, or set in motion
statement made by the play, it clearly represents the play's effect, which brings us back
if the
and his insistence that "an effect must be achieved on the audience
act
to
out"
The
effect
the
is
be
carried
(116).^
illocutionary
produced
by
illocutionary
speech act is a part of the total speech act: "generally the effect amounts to bringing
and of the force of the locution. So the
of the meaning
about the understanding
an
act
involves
of
securing uptake" (117, italics in the
illocutionary
performance
to Austin

original).
is a theatre review. In his
response to a theatrical performance
the
Besant
Ibsen's
takes
unconventional
up
response,
literally
play and presents
ensues
wants
to
Besant
of the play.
that
after the conclusion
inevitable outcome
autonomous
that
Helmer
is
somehow
convince his "fair readers"
the
family history
from the writer's will, that it develops
according to laws and certainties that are far
more predictable
than mere intentions of the author. Thus, A Doll's House becomes a
return and continuation. Nora can not
of perpetual
house haunted by the possibility
once.
In Besant's sequel, Christine says to Norah, who is about to depart
return only
The conventional

"perfectly cold and indifferent" to the fate of her family: "Go! you will be haunted for
ever with the destruction
of your own children by your own hand."43 Nora's
story,
of definite
however
trivialized by Besant, is the story of haunting and impossibility
departure. But from where? Toward what?
Besant's treatment of Ibsen's play was again taken up
Shortly after its publication,
Bernard
His
Shaw.
by George
sequel of the sequel, entitled "Still After The Doll's

40
Ibid., 337.
41
Gerard Genette

new
a work
in motion
asserts
that a literary sequel
"set[s]
again with
episodes"
Literature
in the Second Degree,
Gerard
considered
Genette,
Palimpsests:
already
complete.
trans. Charma Newman
and Claude
of Nebraska
Press,
(Lincoln: University
1997), 162.
Doubinsky
we
are
between
where
in
^Austin
distinguishes
illocutionary
performatives,
doing
something
that was

saying

and

something,

Butler

something.

Judith

Performative
conventions,
43
Besant,

(London:

perlocutionary
discusses

performatives,
this

important
1997). She asserts

Routledge,
acts proceed
perlocutionary
338.
"The Doll's,"

by way

where
distinction

that "whereas
of consequences"

we

are
doing
by saying
something
in Excitable
Speech: A Politics
of the
acts proceed
illocutionary
by way of
(17).

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446

Branislav

House,"

was

Jakovljevic
in "Time"

published

in

1890.44

February

Besant's

story

with

concludes

the laconic address of the carriage driver to Norah: "Madame will be in time to catch
the train."45 In Shaw's continuation of the narrative, she changes her mind and returns
for her. In the ensuing
the elder waiting
(again) to her room only to find Krogstad
reverses
all of its major
and
Shaw
Besant's
story by revisiting
reinterpreting
dialogue
within
Doll's
House?And
After":
House"46
resides
"The
"Still
After
The
Doll's
points.
comes
it.
to
He
and
enters
and
examines
the
cracks
haunt
Shaw
Besant's tale
gaps in
secret
and exposes
the architecture of Besant's narrative, brings down false walls,
name
rooms. Nora
is restored in this sequel) discovers
(the original spelling of her
in their sons' successful
"cupboard skeletons" in the lives of Krogstad and Christine,
of the bank's Board of Directors over
affairs of the members
careers, in the hypocritical
which Krogstad presides. Besant's offstage world shrugs, trembles, and cracks open as
Ibsen's play and all of its sequels return to it.
is the sequel to Ibsen's play, which
Shaw's story is a sequel to Besant's story, which
is based on a biographical
accident from the life of Laura Kieler, who first came in
a
touch with Ibsen as a twenty-year-old
sequel to his play Brand.
girl who published
The suffering caused by her affair with the forged bill of exchange, which Ibsen used
as a pretext for his play, was much harsher than any theatrical and literary sequel: her
husband Victor Kieler divorced her; her children, including a newly born baby, were
to a mental
from her; and she was committed
asylum. She told her
to
two
that
[Victor Kieler's] plea and returned to
years later she "agreed
biographer
their marriage,"
primarily in order to get back to her children.47 A decade later Laura
the play The Men of Honor in which
she "turned the sting against the
Kieler wrote
life's most serious subjects."48 Ibsen
artists' and writers' purely aesthetic play with
a public statement about
endorsed her play but carefully avoided making
privately
and
his
The
of Men of
Nora Helmer.
between Laura Kieler
differences
publication
the newspaper
Honor provoked heated debate in the Kopenhagen
press.49 Eventually,
an article which
referred to the past of the author of The Men of
Politiken published
taken away

Honor,
of

her

asserting
male

that

she

colleagues."50

doesn't
The

have

the

article

was

"to

right
signed

constitute

herself

"Helmer."

Laura

judge

Kieler,

of
"the

some
real

turned into a sequel to

haunted by the fictional Nora. Her biography
Nora,"
of yet another
In
Shaw
the
Ibsenism
Ibsen's play.
Quintessence of
suggests
possibility
was

44
Another
was

provoked
reconciliation

woman
a prominent
Ednah D. Cheney,
to A Doll's House, written
New
England
by
in Boston. This story of
In April
1890, a slim volume was published
sequel.
by Besant's
not surprisingly,
Nora's
told in epistolary
and Helmer
between
Nora
prose was entitled,

sequel

Return.
45
"The Doll's,"
338.
Besant,
46
and Company,
Bernard
Shaw, Short Stories, Scarps and Shavings
1932).
(New York: Wise
47
in Edda: Nordisk
Ibsen og Laura Kieler"
B. M. Kinck,
"Henrik
tidsskrift for litteraturforskning,
Argang
"Laura
See also B. M. Kinck,
translation
into English
22, Bind 35,1935,
by Anja Musiat.
unpublished
and Bookman 37 (1937): 12-15.
The London Mercury
for Ibsen's Nora,"
Kieler: The Model
48
21.
"Henrik Kieler,"
Kinck,
49
were Danish
that raised campaign
to Laura Kieler,
the main
against her
conspirators
According
was at that time member
who
brother
Brandes
and
his
friend
and
Ibsen's
critic
Edvard,
Georg
literary
of the management
of Royal
affair and on the relationship
1935.
Kieler,"
50
Ibid., 26.

Theater

in Kopenhagen,

between

Ibsen and Laura

which
Kieler,

rejected Kieler's
see B. M. Kinck,

of this
play. For details
"Henrik
Ibsen og Laura

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SHATTERED
BACKWALL

447

story. He ends the lengthy footnote on

sequel to this already too long and perplexing
the Besant affair by saying: "Iwrote a sequel to this sequel. Another sequel was written
by Eleanor, the youngest daughter of Karl Marx. I forget where they appeared."51
in a stage reading of A
On January 15,1886 Shaw appeared in the role of Krogstad
in the house of Eleanor Marx on Great R?ssel Street in London.
Doll's House organized
The part of Nora was read by Eleanor and the part of Torvald by Dr. Edward Aveling,
with whom Eleanor lived in a "free union." Five years later, Eleanor Marx co-authored
a piece entitled
"'A Doll's House'
with
Israel Zangwill
Repaired," which was
inMarch 1891 issue of Time. This was the only work of fiction from the pen
published
and research papers. She
of Eleanor, who wrote a number of critical essays, pamphlets,
also translated Ibsen's plays (An Enemy of the People and The Lady from the Sea) and
Flaubert's novel Madame Bovary. Formally, "'A Doll's House' Repaired"
is a sequel
neither of Ibsen's play nor of Shaw's sequel to Besant's sequel to Ibsen's play. She
a bowdlerization
of A Doll's House, which under the
joined the debate by bowdlerizing
in the spring of 1884. The progressive
title Breaking the Butterfly premiered
press of the
in the journal To
version
of Ibsen's play. In his review published
this
day denounced
Day, Dr. Edward Aveling wrote that Breaking a Butterfly, co-authored by Henry Jones
and Henry Herman,
"sees our lop-sided
of Ibsen, who
represents a "mutilation"
modern
He

from too much man,

society suffering

wants

to aid

in

. . .

and he has been born the woman's

. . . the
marriage

revolutionizing

Eleanor

relationship."52

this "mutilation" towrite a serious parody of the original by simply

in the finale of the play.
roles of Nora and Helmer

used

poet.
Marx

reversing

the

insist that the title of their work should be

Authors of "'A Doll's House' Repaired"
taken literally. Much like Shaw did with Besant's story, they enter Ibsen's structure, his
of
house, and alter it according to the principles of the "sound English commonsense"
and
It
is
not
"to
Herman.53
alter
the
Jones
necessary, they claimed,
seriously
building
to carry

in order

out

these

sanitary

repairs.

We

repeat,

we

have

carried

out

our

work

in accordance with the original plan of the Norwegian

Architect."54 A doll's
absolutely
house is not a haunted house. It is a house that haunts its former dwellers, who are
now homeless. The interior has been driven out, exorcised, and it looms out in the
open. The shattered back wall
sequels

to A Doll's

House

do

permits

not

prove

the onstage
only

Shaw's

and offstage worlds

point

that

to merge.

the performance

The
of

this

than the battle cannons of Waterloo.

play was more momentous
They also prove a
much more disturbing
idea implied by Austin's general theory of performative
speech
acts: language has to be theatricalized,
in order to
subjected to conventionalization
take place visibly. In her argument about inseparability of body and discourse,
Judith
Butler

sees

as

the performative

a "discoursive

production,"

and

performativity

as

the

51
Bernard
52
Edward

Shaw, The Quintessence

(New York: Hill and Wang,
1966), 90.
of Ibsenism
in Chushichi
The Life of Eleanor Marx: A Socialist Tragedy (Oxford:
Tsuzuki,
Aveling
quoted
on Eleanor Marx's
Clarendon
life see also Kapp, Yvonne Mayer,
Eleanor
Press,
1967), 161. For details
Marx
Book, 1977).
(New York: Pantheon
53
"'A Doll's House'
Eleanor Marx
and Israel Zangwill,
Time, New Series (1891): 239.
Repaired,"
54
with
coincided
the publication
of Ibsen's drama The Master
Ibid., 239. The entire
literary debate
Builder, in which
the complexity
space,

dwelling,

he returns
of human
inferiority,

to the problem
of dwelling
The Master
Builder

action,
and,

above

and dolls.

IfA Doll's

House

to think
is an attempt
of return.
all, the impossibility

was

through

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ameditation
the problem

on
of

448

Branislav

Jakovljevic

one opposes"
in that which
and "turning the power
of being implicated
never
Austin
the relation between
the
itself."55 While
against
explicitly
analyzes
utterance and the uttering subject, it is clear that a performative
haunts its speaker:
to loud utterance,
it binds the speaker's body to
from a mental
act, to whisper,
the utterance
retains the same form, but the
discourse.
By the end of this process,
"relation

utterer has been

Laura

Kieler,

irrevocably

Nora

Helmer,

transformed.
Eleanor

Marx.

Laura,

Eleanor.

Eleonora/Nora,

There

are

at least two ways of looking at this constellation

of names and lives that outline the
curve of a single story. One would be a Borgesian tale inwhich two women,
separated
in time and space and unaware
of each other, come together through a literary
literature
character. This reading points to the romantic obsession with short-circuiting
and life. The other reading, more pertinent for this discussion,
that
the two
recognizes
a
men:
are
Laura
and
series
Victor
Kieler
Eleanor
of
women,
Marx,
Kieler,
joined by
Ibsen, the Brandes brothers, Walter Besant, Bernard Shaw, Henry Jones, Henry
are not tied through a simple mechanism
Herman, Edward Aveling. The two women
a
of identification,
of a certain kind of discourse.
This
but through
persistence
and enthusiastic responses, misunderstood
discourse consists of performatives
actions,

Henrik

reversals of performative
force, of interpellations and misrecog
unhappy performatives,
nitions. Ifwe take Victor Kieler and Edward Aveling as the two cardinal points in the
of discourse,
will become
the power of its performatives,
chain, the actual persistence
obvious. At the end of the chain, the story unravels with an almost unbearable certainty.
At home they called her Eleanor Tussy. She was a pet child of an aging father. When
he died she wrote the obituary for secularist monthly Progress edited by another older
and impressive man, Dr. Edward Aveling. She fell in love. He was already married, but
his wife ran away with a priest, or so believed Eleanor's father's best friend, Friedrich
Engels. Eleanor confided in a letter to a friend: "I cannot be his wife legally, but itwill
as much as if a dozen registrars had officiated." They
to me?just
be a truemarriage
shared their political opinions and love for theatre: he was an emerging dramatist, and
a reading of A Doll's
she was an aspiring actress. In the same year they organized
inwhich they commended
House, they co-authored the article "The Woman Question"
and debts. In the future society,
of marriage based on borrowing
Ibsen's denunciation
the
the constant lying, that makes
there will be no "hideous disguise,
they wrote,
life of almost all our English homes an organized hypocrisy."56 They toured
domestic
Great Britain and the United States, giving lectures and organizing political rallies. She
in theatre, and he achieved some recognition as a playwright
performed
occasionally
In June 1897 the playwright Alec Nelson married
Alec Nelson.
under the pseudonym
the actress Eva Frye at the registry office at Chelsea. The political activist and lecturer
Dr. Edward Aveling
continued his "free union" with Eleanor Marx. Two years later
life of her partner. She summoned
Eleanor received a letter that exposed the hidden
him home, and "a stormy interview" followed. He left. Eleanor did not drown: she
had a bath, dressed inwhite, retired to bed, and drank chloroform mixed with prussic
acid. Eleanor, the reversed Nora, left a note: "Dear, itwill soon be all over now. My last
- love."
word to you is the same that I have said during all these long, sad years
55
Butler,
56
Eleanor

Bodies,
Marx

241.
and Edward

Aveling,

The Woman

Question

(London,

1886),

36.

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