Deception In A Doll's House

“A Doll House”: The Righteous Deception

Henrik Ibsen, the writer of the play “A Doll House,” provides insight on self-righteousness when the character Nora is faced with assisting a loved one and the deception that arose from it. Nora has the most extenuating circumstances for her reasons of dishonesty within the play. Her deceitfulness is created through criminal applications, social expectations, and fear of her husband. Unfortunately, the biggest fabrication, revealed at the end, was the falsehood she said to herself. All of Nora’s deception begins as an act of love for her husband, Torvald. The doctor informs her, “it [is] necessary he should have no idea what a dangerous condition he [is] in” (p. 1357) and that a warmer climate is what he needs to get better. But Torvald refuses to get a loan even when Nora’s request she would like to “travel abroad like other young wives” (p. 1357), Nora has no choice but to lie to get the money herself. Since “hundreds and of thousands of women have done” it in the name of love (p. 1401). Nora has no second thoughts of borrowing money to save her husband. During the period (1887) in which this play was written was ruled by a patriarchal society. The social expectations for women were controlled by men and women’s rights were virtually non-existent. In essence, this provides

1358). It even made him angry when Nora “hint [s] that he might raise a loan” (p. 1357). Nora is accurate in hiding a loan due to Torvald’s tremendously protective attitude towards their perfect image. As an illustration of Torvald reaction, he tells Nora that she is “destroy [ing] all [his] happiness [and] ruin [ing] all [his] future” (p. 1395). He even resorts to calling Nora a “miserable creature, a hypocrite, a liar, a criminal, and a thoughtless woman” (p.