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Historical, Cultural and Social context A Doll's House was published on December 4, 1879, and first performed in Copenhagen on December 21, 1879. Before Ibsen’s controversial play A Doll’s House 19th century theatre was an era of romanticism, in which theatre depicted ‘unreal situations, involving royal characters in heroic tragedies, written in rhymed verse.’ Ibsen broke away from romanticism when he wrote A Doll's House, with realistic portrayals of individual characters, which were highly motivated by instinctual drives from within, and harassed by social an economic pressures from without. A Doll’s House was much different in terms of style, characterization, plot etc. from any type of play people of the time had seen; therefore it was open to extreme criticism. The play was seen as so controversial that Ibsen was forced to write a second ending that he called ''a barbaric outrage'' to be used only when necessary. The controversy was centered around Nora's decision to abandon her children which was critised by critics as unrealistic, since, according to them, no "real" woman would ever make that choice; so in the second ending she decides that the children need her more than she needs her freedom.