Reading of a critic's response to A Doll's House

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This link is to a discussion of one of the major themes appearing in the play A Doll's House. In this article, the critic focuses on the downing effect of failed fathers on the events and decisions the characters make in this play make.

Nora's father and Helmer, both fathers, have put unnecessary pressure on Nora to act and think a certain way, therefore restricting her true needs and emotions. Nora explains how all her life they would "play with [Nora] just a [she] played with [her] dolls."
She continues to use the metaphor of a doll to explain further why she must leave the "play-room" which she has been living in for all these years in order to make something out of herself.

The way Hemler treats Nora directly affects how she treats their children. "I was Papa's doll-child. And the children have been my dolls in their turn." This shows the viewer the butterfly effect of how one bad father can cause a mother to walk out on her children.

This explains the title of this play "A Doll's House" refers to Nora as the doll and the house she desperately needed to escape from as the dollhouse. The title is an extended metaphor of Nora and her home being compared to a doll and it's dollhouse.