Torvald, however; only lusts after Nora and does not truly love her for who she is. Torvald treats Nora as an object and although he is just is a man of his time, it is still a vile and not virtuous thing to do to another human being. This play has characters that are complex, but their virtues are clearly seen. Every fault that Nora has in this play can be linked back to her being a victim of the time she was born in and the people
As metaphor is used by Ibsen, Nora is depicted as a doll kept for recreation both in her father and her husband’s houses. Nora’s father calls her as “his little doll baby” and plays with her as the way she plays with her dolls. After Nora gets married, she becomes the “doll wife” of her husband. Torvald plays the role of a traditionalist, who regards Nora not as an individual with independent thoughts but a part of his own possession, while Nora has also accepted her position—“I wouldn’t do anything to displease you”. Before marriage, Nora was dependent on her father’s affording of life.
Similarly to Edna’s character in The Awakening, Nora (the female lead), undergoes a rebellion against the patriarchy as well. Like Edna, Nora was conditioned to live a life characterized by focusing on others, rather than herself. She was to obey her husband and mother her children. Throughout the play, Nora’s demise due to her self-neglect becomes apparent. However, rather than cheating on her husband, Nora decides to be upfront with Torvald and leave him.
Torvald loves me beyond words, and, as he puts it, he’d like to keep me all to himself” (Ibsen 810). While Nora is aware that Torvald is controlling she does not seem to mind. She even stopped talking to her friends from back home, because Torvald did not like her speaking about them. Nora comes across as a damsel in distress in the first half of the play, who relied on her husband before transitioning to a feminist
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
A Doll’s House is a study of a marriage in crisis. The Helmers have been married for eight years and have three young children. Despite this, there is no real understanding or meaningful communication between husband and wife. The first dialougue between Nora and Helmer in Act I is quite revealing. He teases and scolds her for being a spendthrift while she placates and humours him; massaging his male ego and playing the role of coquettish young girl.
Torvald becomes even angrier and says something that would tear Nora to her breaking point. He comments, “” But you will not be allowed to raise the children. I could not trust you with them.”” (Isben, 382). He does this in spite to take away her most cherished thing which is motherhood.
This initiated an argument that brought reralization to Nora that was a just a facade, “You have never loved me. You have only thought of it pleasant to be be in love with me” (1388). She the becomes aware that she was merely a doll, filling in the role of a mother and a wife, “ our home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I was papa’s doll-child” (1389). Nora realizes that Torvald will never put himself before her to protect her, it was her who was protecting him from judgement, “ Nora imagines that once Helmer learns about her crime, he will generously and heroically offer to rescue her by sacrificing himself”
By the end of the play, she sees that freedom entails independence from societal constraints and being told what she has to do for people to accept her, versus being able to establish her own confident decisions, having the ability to explore her own personality, goals, and beliefs. She recognizes that her life has been largely a performance, pretending to be happy to please others such as her father or husband. Nora speaks these words to Torvald at the end of Act Three. “I have been performing tricks for you, Torvald. That’s how I’ve survived.
As seen in this statement by Nora, Nora would give up her opinions in order to please her father and remain the dutiful daughter her father expects her to be. By having to conform to the roles other expects her to play from a young age, Nora grows more expectantly to conform, instead this time it was to conform to the role of a child-like wife to Helmer, Nora’s
Because of her being part of one of the highest upper social classes, she was expected to have a nurse that takes care of the housework; but that did not mean that she had to stop acting as a mother with them. For example, “Nora takes off the children’s things and throws them about (…)” . This is not a decent mother’s anticipated behavior, which would have instead been to accommodate the coats in a proper manner for Anny, the maid, to put them in the right place. The standards of society represent women as housekeepers which have to complete the role of taking care of their children . As Nora does not satisfy any of these roles, we can conclude that she is rebelling against these expectations of society, because she is not taking care of her three children as she ought to.
One way he exhibits this idea is through Christine Linde. Christine Linde is a widow who has to independently work to make ends meet. This juxtaposes with the setting, since Linde defies the social norms of 1879 Norway. She would be seen as immoral back then, as ‘a woman of that time would surely need a man to support her’. Especially since this text takes place in a rural, norwegian town, rendering the anonymity of cities impossible.
Nora is being blackmailed by Krogstad because he feels his job in the bank is being threatened, and decides she will protect herself by not letting her husband find out. Mrs.Helmer plans to kill herself so when her husband does find out, he can forget about it because she is dead. Freud’s theory says that personality is based on your attempts to resolve conflict between your unconscientious sexual and aggressive impulses and societies demands to restrain these lustful urges. Nora at first only pays attention to her identity and desires. Throughout the play she learns to use her ego and superego properly.
Mrs. Linde is a minor character in the play “A Doll’s House”, by Henrik Ibsen, which reflects a down-to-earth woman and possesses a sensible worldview towards life. Nora, on the other hand, has a childish outlook on life. Mrs. Linde plays a very important role in this issue by polishing Nora’s attitude towards society. She seems obliged to be Nora’s teacher and guide on her journey to maturity.
Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” is a critique of an unequal society with its structured hierarchy of male dominance. The play seems to be a serious social commentary of the time period when it was written. The characters in the play bring four issues of power and control, ignorance and innocence, rebirth and social status. Ibsen created Nora’s character in doll’s house to represent that women of that time period was unaware of their situation in society but in play women were also taught to overcome their unawareness. As their was nurse to take care of their children so Nora was not taking care of her children so whenever she like to meet her children she meets them so Nora realizes at the end of the play that she is totally controlled by