The Function of Tarantella in the Play A Doll’s House

聶鸞霏

【Abstract】A Dolls House is a play written by Henrik Ibsen, this article is about the analysis of the function of tarantella in the play A dolls House, and also the feminism and the rebellion against the tradition in the play.

【Key words】tarantella; feminism; rebellion; Henrik Ibsen

I. Introduction

A Dolls House (also translated as A Doll House) is a three-act play written by Henrik Ibsen which is significant for the way it deals with the fate of a married woman, who at the time in Norway lacked reasonable opportunities for self-fulfillment in a male dominated world. It aroused a great sensation at the time, and caused a “storm of outraged controversy” that went beyond the theatre to the world newspapers and society.

II. About tarantella

In the Italian province of Taranto,Apulia, the bite of a locally common type of wolf spider, named “tarantula” after the region, was popularly believed to be highly poisonous and to lead to a hysterical condition known as tarantism. This became known as the Tarantella. The people who are bitten by the spider always need to dance for days or even weeks to get recovered. Some people are not sick at all but to pretend to be patients and join the dancing crowd. These people are mostly single women and bachelors who want to find lovers. Sometimes people jokingly call this dancing activity：“the little carnival” of women.

III. Tarantella—the symbol of feminism and rebellion against the tradition in the play

A. The symbol of feminism

As the historical background of tarantella that I have find, not all the people who are doing the dancing are the victim of the disease, there are lot of single women who are not sick at all do the dance because they want to relief themselves and to find a lover. At that time, from this kind of behavior, we can see the awakening of feminism and Ibsen chose to use tarantella in his play to show thoughts of feminism in the play. In the third act of this play, we could see from the words of Helmer:“She danced her tarantella and got a tumultuous hand” and “You think I could let her stay on after that and spoil the effect？Oh no; I took my little Capri girl-my capricious little Capri girl, I should say—took her under my arm” that Noras dancing was appreciated by the people and she loved to dance and loved to be appreciated by people and she refused to leave, which is quite different from her past compliant image. But Helmer still treated her as an accessory to him, which foreshadowed Noras leave at the last. The women of that period of time needed to be released, the dancing represents a kind of attitude of being brave to chase what you want, to have independent personality and live your own life. And he also wants to use tarantella to warn the women of that period not to be controlled by their husband as the dancing women are controlled by the musicians, what we can tell from his play is that women of that period need to have the right to choose how to live their own life and to have independent personality and chase their dream of life.

B. The symbol of rebellion against tradition

The dancing form of tarantella is quite similar to the dancing of some sacrificial ceremonies, so when it was introduced into Apulia, the local people just cant accept it and treat it as a kind of crime because of tradition of Greek. But later on, the spread of the disease makes it becomes legal to do that dance. There is no doubt a rebellion against the tradition of Greek. Ibsen used tarantella in his play to show the rebellion of the tradition that women should be the subordination of the men. Also, I think he used it to emphasize the importance of having mass base during any rebellion process, the individual rebellion against the tradition just cant work out. Just like the rebellion against the tradition of Greek, if there are not so many people who got the disease and need to dance to get recovered, the people who supported the tradition just wouldnt compromise easily, or maybe the disease was also faked by the people at that time as a tool to fight against the tradition.

IV. Conclusion

The tarantella in the play is actually the symbol of feminism and the rebellion against the tradition. And we can also see that women should be brave to chase their own happiness and to be independent. Also, the rebellion of individual that doesnt combine with most of the people will fail at the last. Only the elimination of the class and the overthrow of the corrupt system can realize the real liberation of women.

References:

[1]陳曉雪.淺析易卜生的<玩偶之家>——女性形象之我見[J].文學教育,2012(07).

[1]汪義群.西方現代戲劇流派作品選[M].中國戲劇出版社,2005.