The play A Doll’s House is an important symbol in That Summer, as the marital dynamics that it depicts help Daisy to reevaluate her own life and her marriage from an objective perspective. The play therefore becomes the vehicle through which she begins to achieve her own independence.

A Doll’s House was written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen and first performed in 1879. It depicts a married woman named Nora and her husband, Torvald. The play was sensational at the time in its depiction of the unhappiness of married life for women who are diminished and controlled by their husbands. The play also emphasizes the lack of opportunities such women have under a patriarchal system. Beatrice, Daisy’s politically engaged daughter, has studied the play at school and recognizes Hal’s pet name for Daisy of “Little Bird” as being a reference to the play—and one that does not portray Daisy in a complimentary light. When Daisy learns that this pet name is in fact an allusion, she reads the play directly and begins to recognize herself in Nora, who is transferred straight from her father’s authority to her husband’s and lives under his complete control.