While the word setting suggests a study of place, (be it through its development of character or the symbols it projects), it also holds the notion of time and the way in which things are placed throughout it’s passing. Importantly, the two intertwine not only to be a vehicle for the events of the texts, but also a reflection of the themes and ideas going on within them. So, “Wuthering Heights” and “A Doll’s House” can be compared through objects, physical and emotional boundaries, and situation- as well as through their use of time spans and the significance of when certain events occur prefab house . The house in “A Doll’s House” is situated in what seems like the middle of a large set of apartments; people come up the stairs to get to the Helmer’s and the ballroom of Counsel Stenborg is further up the house. Their physical situation then places them in a sort of limbo between everyday normality and the high-class world of above. So perhaps this is a symbol of aspiration, of where certain characters would like to be but cannot.

An obvious example is Nora. She is a complete fantasist, constantly living in a dreamlike state where the normality of the real world passes her by. She yearns for the ball, for all its glamour and dressing up and movable house has a limited grasp on the idea of the struggle for money. Therefore she aspires to the top of the building, where Counsel Stenborg resides. He is a man who would have been less aware of the everyday struggles for normal people and so is somewhat detached from the harsher realities of life.

This love for dressing up and going to parties is an appropriate representation of Nora’s idealistic view of love and marriage, and her obliviousness to the aspects that they should entail. Her view is a fantasy version where everything is fun, perfect and glamorous. Where the balls and parties may be these things marriage is not, so the way Nora acts around Torvald can not be her true self- it is all part of the fantasized life she leads in the house, which clearly is very much like a doll’s house. Her longing for the “miracle” to happen encapsulates this fantasy. In Act 1 she believes that this freedom will come if she is able to repay her debt and go back to the normality of life, the same life of falsity that she has always led and is all she has ever known. Indeed just as she dresses up physically for the glamorous life of upstairs, so Ibsen dresses her up with the idiosyncrasies that create a character that is isolated from the realities of life.