In the play A Doll's House, Henrik Isben tells us the life of the loving wife Nora. Controlled like a doll her whole life, Nora must question everything she believes in when her marriage is put to a true test. Having borrowed money from Krogstad, a man with a bad reputation, and by forging her father's signature, she was able to save Trovald, her sick husband by taking him on a yearlong trip to Italy. Trovald was completely unaware of Nora's transaction with Krogstad. She led him to believe the money for the trip came from her father's will. For if he knew the truth she fears her husband would lose his social standings. Since then, she has had to scheme ways to pay Krogstad back the loan without her husband's knowledge. Isben uses symbolism to reveal Nora's changing attitudes about herself in her attempt to become an individual while trapped in a male dominated world. But her wish to become self-reliant is hindered by Torvald's control over her. She comes to understand that she lacks experience of life in the real world and is oblivious to the real world problems.
             "..., Nora comes in, humming gaily...... Nora is not mean with her money: the porter charges 6d, she gives him 1/. She is childish – she still loves macaroons – she is not above concealing the fact from her husband: all this we learn about Nora, in the first few seconds with hardly one important word spoken. Isben obviously means to make us use our imagination to construct his characters from small points in the stage picture and stage action."(Northam, 100) Nora is susceptible. She enters muffled in protection from the outside, portrayed symbolically through her coat, scarf. Ibsen has Nora describe herself as a doll inside a doll house at the end of act three. She tells Helene, the maid to hide the Christmas tree for the children "mustn't see it till tonight"(Act 1, sp 1). Nora's secretiveness in wan...