A Doll's House: The Narcissist Household
In Henrik Ibsen's groundbreaking play A Doll's House, the plot revolves around a married couple - Nora and Torvald Helmer. Both of these two exude narcissistic characteristics that ultimately lead to the demise of their marriage. Nora is a very unpredictable character. In the beginning she comes across as being selfish and stupid - she is condescending toward her friend Mrs. Linde, she begs Torvald for more money, and she responds with indifference when Krogstad threatens to blackmail her, as if she were in denial. But in the dramatic confrontation with Torvald she uncharacteristically behaves with far more maturity than we've seen from her. She takes charge of the dialogue and explains her feelings on their relationship. The American Psychiatric Association has a list of criteria for diagnosing narcissism. Nor
Nora is also exhibitionistic - she requires lots of attention. While Nora exhibits four of the five narcissistic traits, Torvald exhibits all five. Torvald is also interpersonally exploitive. Nora is also preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, or ideal love. He uses Nora as an audience to showcase his macho manly breadwinner persona. His final narcissistic flaw is that his relationship with Nora vacillates between the extremes of over-idealization and devaluation. He lacks empathy - he is not able to feel what Nora is going through. This is probably why she has put up with Torvald for so long, because he bombards her with attention as she plays the "little squirrel" for him. Torvald is also drowning in his own narcissism. Both of these two need some time by themselves to better understand their personalities. He feels like he deserves entitlement. But when he finds out about the forgery, he knocks her off of that pedestal and nearly bites her head off. When her fraud accusation is about to be revealed, she hopes that Torvald will step up for her and take the blame.
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