Hello! Noelle here. What I like the most about English class this year is the seminars.  I find the different opinions and the ways of thinking fascinating.  Discussing a reading with the class and along with the teacher betters my understanding of whatever we are reading at the time.  It also lets me see other people's perspective of the story.  The seminars give me the chance to agree or disagree with everyone's opinions.

Henrik Ibsen was born on March 20, 1828 in Skien, Norway.  Ibsen was the oldest sibling to five other children and his parents’ names were Knud and Marichen Isben.  Henrik’s parents were very experienced in the field of the arts, so he took part in them as well.  At the age of 8, the Ibsen had to move to a rundown farm because the father's business experienced problems; therefore the family was thrown into poverty.  At the age of 15, Henrik stopped going to school and went to work for six years as an apprentice in an apothecary in Grimstad.  His first play Catilina was paid for by his friend named Ole Schulerud to be published but was not noticed.  Ibsen was later discovered by Ole Bull and was offered a job as a writer and manager of the Norwegian Theatre in Bergen.  After being judged for how he ran the theater by multiple people, he continued to write plays.  He returned back home to Norway as a literary hero and tourist attraction.  In his later years he had multiple strokes which gave him the inability to write.  Henrik Ibsen died May 23, 1906.

I think the title A Doll's House relates to the story's main idea of the traditional roles of a wife because in a doll house, everything is set up perfectly and is supposed to go in specific spaces.  Doll houses are supposed to be the image of what a perfect home looks like.  I remember being younger and seeing Barbie doll houses and wanting them so much because of how nice the house looked.  In a doll house everything has a place and women are put in the place in home life of keeping the house clean and being a stay at home mother for the children.  Doll houses represent what a traditional home should look like and this is a symbol for what women's places are in the home.  I can predict that the play will focus on the theme of gender equality and the question of whether women can do more than just stay at home and have children.

http://www.biography.com/people/henrik-ibsen-37014#childhood
http://www.shmoop.com/dolls-house/themes.html