Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House (1879) aroused fierce debate and controversy at the time of its debut for its uncompromising depiction of the plight of the married woman. In it, the central character Nora is blackmailed by an employee of her husband's for a forgery she committed to secure a loan to help her family. Ibsen was inspired by the belief that "a woman cannot be herself in modern society," since it is "an exclusively male...