Nora and Her Environment
            
             In A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen presents Nora as a product of her environment. When she lived with her father she allowed him to shape her life, her opinions and her thoughts. Then, when she married Torvald, nothing changed. She simply passed from her father's hands into her husband's hands. She describes it as:
             [W]hen I lived at home with Papa, he told me all his opinions, so I had the same ones too; or if they were different I hid them, since he wouldn't have care for that. He used to call me his doll-child, and he played with me the way I played with my dolls. Then I came into your house – I mean, then I went from Papa's hand into yours. You arranged everything to your own taste, and so on I got the same taste as you – or I pretend to; I can't remember.... It's a great sin what you and Papa did to me. You're to blame that nothing's become of me (1623).
             Nora realizes that her life has not amounted to anything consequently blaming her father and her husband as the main reason of her failure. While Nora's father and her husband have her best interest in mind, they harm her by over protecting her and by not allowing her to form any opinions on her own. Even when she does not agree with her father, she never let him know. She is afraid to offend him. Then when she married Torvald, she was so conditioned to taking her fathers ideas that she accepted those of her husband, not knowing if she approved of them or only pretended to approve them (1623).
             Children cannot develop into confident adults when they are not encouraged to from opinions and make decisions for themselves. Nora's father called her his doll child and played with her as she played with her dolls (1623). His idea of a good parent was one that petted, spoiled and treated the child like a toy and not like an individual. Torvald, however, measures his love for Nora by his abil...