Dolls House
In Henrik Ibsen's, A Doll's House, the character of Nora Helmer goes through the dramatic transformation from a kind a loving mother to an empowered woman. Her transformation is the personification of feminism during the nineteenth century. Torvald, her husband, represents society in the way he treats his wife. Nora rebels against this treatment and comes to realize that she is her own person, not a mother, not a wife, but a woman. In Act I Nora is still nothing more than a child, careless in her action and not thinking ahead to the possible consequences. She enters the scene, just returning from her Christmas shopping, planning to have a big holiday party. Her husband, Torvald, tells her that their budget this year won't permit them to have the usual big holiday party they usually have. He speaks to her in a very condescending way, representing the way society viewed women at the time. Her treats her like a child, telling her that she doesn't know better and calling her pet names like "songbird" and saying that she is "scatterbrained". Society at this time viewed woman in the exact same way. Creatures meant to be taken care of because they "did not know better". Torvald's condescending manner serves to slowly push Nor
He works at the bank where Torvald is the manager and he has broken the law, but still wants to keep his job. Toward the end of Act I a man named Krogstad enters onto the scene. She starts acting like a child again, trying to run away from her problems instead of facing them, like a child would do. She realizes that Torvald never really loved her, just used her so that he could look good in society. After the second letter from Krogstad arrives, saying that the debt is off, Torvald tries to go back to the way it was. He has no consideration for what Nora will go through or how her image will be tainted. This act really shows Nora's desperation. After he reads the letter, however, he starts with his verbal onslaught. The anticipation of Krogstad doing something evil and letting her husband know that she had forged her father's signature is too much for her. He also fails to see that Nora only borrowed the money from Krogstad in order to make him happy. a closer and closer to the edge, finally pushing her over in the end. When Krogstad asks this favor of Nora he highlights another role that society demands of women. Nora has just seriously undermined her husband, something a woman must never do, for a man is always right, and women have no place to argue because they don't know anything. Krogstad's last visit with Nora finally does push her over the edge of insanity. But it's too late; Nora has completed the change and now knows she is her own woman.
Common topics in this essay:
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