In Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Ibsen portrays growth in almost every character in the play. One of the most dynamic characters of the story is Nora. Nora exhibits many different character traits that develop her into the character she becomes by the end of the play, but one describes her development much more than the others. Throughout the play, Nora can be seen acting childish in her interactions with other characters and her dealings with inconveniences. Nora can easily be described as childish and immature through the way she handles adult situations, interacts with her husband, and the way she acts as a selfish mother and wife. One may say that Nora is not childish, but afraid to stick up for herself. Torvald and Nora’s relationship …show more content…
The way that Nora responds to Torvald and his many rules show again Nora’s childish nature. This is evident in how Torvald controls Nora and does not want her to eat macaroons. After realizing that Nora had in fact had some, he questions her to which she responds “No; what makes you think that?” (Ibsen 1361). Nora hides the truth from Torvald as if he is her father and is unable to stand up to him because she fears what may happen to her even though they should be equals. Although it may be frowned upon for the wife to make such decisions in this period, Nora knows that this is no way to live, and instead of making that known she buries the idea. When discussing the purpose of Nora and the way she acted during the escalation of her decision to forge documents, David B Drake describes it as “under board”. He then goes on to explain that this “under board” signifies “secretiveness or deceptiveness” (Drake). Nora deceives Torvald countless times throughout the story whether it be her choice to eat macaroons, her faulty deal, or spending large amounts of money behind his back. Nora’s choice to deceive her husband is irresponsible and childish. Nora makes the decision at the end of the play to leave Torvald after their altercation upon Torvald finding out about Nora’s forged documents. This sudden change of heart could have been avoided had Nora only spoken to her husband and been honest with him. …show more content…
When dealing with the burden of hiding the truth from Torvald, Nora begins to contemplate suicide. At the beginning of act two, Nora is speaking to the nurse and says, “Do you think they would forget their mother if she went away all together?” (Ibsen 1378). This is about her children and her taking her own life, which is incredibly outlandish. The nurse speaks to Nora saying how they need their mother at such a young age and would be damaged by her absence. Nora again is choosing to run and hide from her problems only this time it is affecting her family. Had Nora chosen to cower from the difficulties presented to her, she would have traumatized her family as well as left her children motherless. Nora is incredibly selfish in the way she treats her children. Multiple times Nora promises her children that she will play with them but continues to push them away. When talking to Krogstad she makes the Nurse take them away, and even after he has left she refuses to play with them because she is unable to focus on anything else but her own inconveniences. In the end, Nora inevitably chooses to leave her family. In this decision to as stated “educate” herself, she leaves her children motherless, and runs from a substantial household. Some may say that she was unhappy, but Nora never brought it to Torvald’s attention that she was unhappy and chooses to leave him behind without ever giving
In the play Trifles, written by Susan Glaspell, and the play A Doll’s House, written by Henrik Ibsen, there are two ladies who undergo two different situations. Mrs. Wright is someone who is assumed as the murderer of her husband Mr. Wright. On the other hand, Nora manipulates her husband by taking out a loan without his approval. These two ladies both face isolation in their relationships and eventually end up without their husbands. These two characters differ in their personalities, their actions in their marriages, and their overall marriage.
Kristine knows that Nora’s problems are petty compared to her own, she decides to listen to Nora and comfort her. She is there for Nora and helps Nora when she needs her. Despite this fact, Nora isn’t truly there for Kristine. Nora’s selfish side comes into play when Kristine attempts to tell Nora her struggles, but Nora tries to one up Kristine by telling her that she’s been through tough things as well and then brags to Kristine about what she’s done. This is seen when Nora says, “I agree.
A single family income has always made budgets tight and being a wife and mother leaves little opportunity for earnings, in fact Nora did tricks and begged her husband for what little money he gave her. While many critics condemn Torvald’s treatment of Nora, in reality he was no different from any other man during this time period. When their finances were minimal he did whatever it took to take care of his family, working day and night almost to the point of death. For that reason, Nora showed her love for Torvald by securing a loan in order to take a trip to Italy for his treatment and recovery. In doing so, Nora needed to work odd jobs to repay the loan while keeping it a secret from her husband.
Torvald tells her that Nora has a duty as a mother and a wife but Nora tells him that “she is an individual”, showing that she is finally putting herself on par with Torvald, and no longer allowing Torvald to control her, but instead she is trying to gain independence and liberation from social norms in order to break free from the “Doll’s House.” She tells him that she must leave him, because “for eight years [she’d] been living with a stranger”, emphasising how there was never any proper communication and mutual understanding between them, and hence no proper marriage, as she didn’t actually know what his true character was like up until that night, as she was convinced all along that Torvald would be the man to take everything upon
However, we now see Nora showing a more adult attitude by stating “I’m a human being” in order to get across the fact that she wants to be treated as an equal and that she is done being an object and in particular a doll. Towards the end of the play we see another sense of irony which is the fact that once Nora brings out her true self and sits Torvald down to tell him the truth, he is completely new to this side of Nora and as a result is shocked. However, with Torvald still wearing his costume from the party, this is a reprsentation of the artificial world he lives in whereby `Nora is his doll, but by confronting him, he realizes that she is not the Nora he thought she was, making him realise that his world is a facade, and that just like Nora, he too, is nothing more than a doll in a pretend
Nora is a married woman and has children to take care of. She really has little freedom because of the way Torvald treats her. She is not even I feel as if deep down she knows she is not free and wants something more in her life then to be a entertaining puppet for Torvald. She realizes at the end of the story that Torvald is not good to her because of the way he acted when she told him about forging the signature. When Torvald called her a criminal and other harsh words she realized that she had no true love from Torvald and wanted to be free from him.
He rather expects her to be more compliant, loyal and wants her to follow the social and moral rules strictly, like he does. Torvald’s assertion that Nora’s lack of understanding of money matters is the result of her gender (“Nora, my Nora, that is just like a woman”) reveals his prejudiced viewpoint on gender roles. Torvald believes a wife’s role is to beautify the home, not only through proper management of domestic life but also through proper behavior and appearance. He quickly makes it known that appearances are very important to him, and that Nora is like an ornament or trophy that serves to beautify his home and his reputation. He tells Nora that he loves her so much that he has wished in the past that Nora’s life were threatened so that he could risk everything to save her.
Nora expected Torvald to take the blame for her mistakes “When he’d done that, I was so utterly sure that you’d step forward, take the blame on yourself and say: I am the guilty one” (592). While Nora does say that she would defend her husband if he were to do so, Nora wanted Torvald to attempt to take the blame for her illegally borrowing money. She was so used to Torvald consistently taking care of her, Nora expected him to swoop in and take save her in her time of need. A husband and wife should be able to defend each other and ensure the other’s safety but even more importantly, Nora should have been able to be honest with Torvald from the
During act III, Nora asked to speak to Torvald after her performance of the tarantella dance. The following conversation demonstrated her quest for autonomy and freedom, as well as Torvald’s inadequate responses to her arguments and demands; it also showed how deeply connected her unhappy situation is with society’s regulation of the relationship between the sexes. She asserts that she is “...first and foremost a human being”, and her strong conviction that her womanhood, and the expectations associated with it, are secondary, strengthens her resolve to make a radical choice: A break with both husband and, with necessity due to her legal position, her children (Ibsen, 184). During her conversation with Torvald, she proclaims, “I have other sacred duties... The duties to myself (Ibsen, 184).”
Nora is depicted as a dependant, childish and unexperienced woman (as said by mrs.Linde p.34). Torvald sees Nora as a dimwitted person as can be seen on p.89 where Torvald finds it impressive when ‘little Nora’ used to word ‘Scientific experiment’. Evidently Torvald
Torvald exhibits patriarchy in his relationship with Nora as he calls her pet names and controls her eating. Nora’s demeanor is ditzy, carefree
Nora takes pride in thinking of herself as the perfect housewife and mother. She, just as every other wife, plays often with her children and attends formal parties on her husband’s arm. She is told
In the modern world divorce is not something that is considered overly strange or obtuse regardless of whether the person to instigate the divorce is the husband or wife. For many people, marriage is both a legal contract between two individuals who decide building their life together but also the divine union of two separate spirits. In A “Doll House” by Henrik Ibsen, the character of Nora leaves her husband of several years in order to pursue her own goals in life and find herself. While many people might still see this as a controversial decision as the woman had children with her husband, others instead point out the ways in which Nora acts as a kind of precursor to the women's rights movement as she decides to make a change for her own betterment instead of for the betterment of her family. It is in this light that Nora’s perspective on her life, the changes that she needs to make, and the overall way she is treated by her husband that allows her to make her decision as one that is not only understandable but preferential to the alternative of staying with Torvald.
Nora is a character that will do everything that somebody tells her, she is kind of submissive regarding what Torvald says. She has to mention him at least once while she’s talking about anything, but she does have some petty forms of rebellion, like the macaroons. A larger way of her rebelling would be when she pays for the trip so that Torvald can get better. She is viewed as a child by Mrs. Linde, Christine, and is treated like one by Torvald and it seems almost like they look down on her because she is a woman and she is completely dependent on her husband. Her character, at this point, has no backbone; she is completely captivated by this life in which she perceives as
Towards the end of the play, Nora herself comes to the realisation that she has in fact been nothing more than a ‘doll’, made to humour the men in her life. She states ‘I have been your doll wife, just as at home I was daddy’s doll child.’ This statement concluded the fact that Torvald has never truly seen Nora as his equal, whether that’s by objectifying her or infantilising her. Torvald has many nicknames for Nora such as ‘skylark’ or ‘squirrel’, which while on the surface seem like terms of endearment, are actually ways in which Torvald belittles her, as it allows Torvald to further view