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Dr Rank In A Doll's House

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Doll House The characters in A Doll House are complex but rather easy to rank in terms of virtue and integrity. Nora is a sweet and innocent victim of society that cares and sacrifices for her husband, clearly the most virtuous of them all. Dr. Rank could be seen as a bad friend to Torvald, but loves deeply for Nora as a person and not as an object. 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 that …show more content…

Rank is one of the only people in this play that appreciates Nora for who she is, and does not simply want her to be a housewife that conforms to the social norms of society. An friend of Torvald from youth, Dr. Rank should have been one of the people that Torvald could trust the most. And he does, throughout the play Torvald believes that Dr. Rank is his most trusted friend. However, Dr. Rank is in love with Nora, Torvald’s wife. “I swore to myself that you should know this before I’m gone. I’ll never find a better chance. Yes, Nora, now you know. And also you know now that you can trust me beyond anyone else” (Ibsen 909)And although this is a natural thing to happen to a human, Dr. Rank should have either come clean with Torvald, or not been such close friends with Nora. That being said, Dr. Rank does show virtue in the fact that he loves Nora for who she is and how she acts, not just for how she looks. Dr. Rank is the only person Nora opens up with, “When I sit here together with you like this, completely at ease and open” (Ibsen 908). So perhaps he was wrong to keep such a thing from his friends, but then again perhaps he was more right for Nora than Torvald ever

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