The story A Doll’s House presents different scenes, in which the main character Nora questions her identity, and is confronted to the realization of living under her husband’s identity. These conflicts can be analyzed and explained utilizing psychological and sociological theories. The approach of using these different schools of thought helps to understand the struggles of the main character Nora, in her search of individuality. An important occasion in which Nora questions her personality, and comes to the realization that there needs to be a change in her life is when Krogstad confronts her knowledge of a dirty business she had done in the past with Mr. Krogstad. She forged her father’s signature, in order to obtain access to money he had in the bank. She is worried about what Mr. Krogstad would do to affect her family, as he was warning her that if he …show more content…
Nora contemplates the possibility to be away from her children, and asks the person who raised her, Mrs. Ann Marie, what she thought could happen if a mother is away from her children. Ann Marie answers a comforting statement, that she would be there for Nora’s children, the way she was present to raise Nora. Nora asks Ann Marie this question, as she wanted to go away and prove society that she was capable of living a life without needing a husband. She was looking to be an individual who is not fused to the will of her husband. Furthermore, I could say that her fear is to stay in the subordinate position she has always lived in. She does not realize it, but been dependent and fused to the needs of her family, and forgetting about her own needs could lead to metapathologies, which are “the sickness of the soul” (Maslow, 110). Therefore, Nora needs to find her identity, and the two ways she thinks it could happen are if her husband sees her as an equal, or if she leaves her
Nora’s need to please her father and later her husband made her lose her true self and it is through the flow of events that she realizes that she needs to go and find her true self
Nora is motivated throughout the story to be according to her "free," however, she does not only want to be free of the loan she is owning to Krogstad, she wants to be free from her father and husband's control. Throughout the story, Nora feels as if she has always been treated like a doll child first by her father and then by her husband and is never given the opportunity to evolve as an individual and become a woman who has the potential to be independent and forceful (Yuehua 83). The perfect example her attempt to fulfill her potential as a woman is when she first borrows the loan from Krogstad by forging her dying father's signature. Although she knows her act is wrong and against the law, she still goes on with a naïve challenge to Krogstad during their encounter about the forged signature
Nora’s character development and maturity begins after Nora has been confronted by Krogstad and Torvald for being a “lying mother.” In
Nora is, and has always been a pampered woman who has never had to provide for herself. She has no knowledge of the real world, no job, no income, and no place to live after she leaves. Nora left in search of her "identity" and to make something of her name. Leaving and going somewhere else does not make her strong and will not give her individualism. One who is strong preserves their identity and shows their true colors in even the most trying of circumstances. For Nora to show true strength and individuality, she must show who she really is and stick to that, rather than being stubborn and acting like a child and trying to run away from her problems. I do not believe Nora knows what she will have to face when she enters the real
Her whole life she has been treated like a princess, and has had everything handed to her. Her father started this lifestyle for her, and this lifestyle continued when she married Torvald, a lawyer with a promising future. Nora defies two things in this story, the law and her family in the search to find herself. She defies the law by forging her father’s signature on a check to help her family, “I can’t get it through my head that the law is fair. A woman hasn’t a right to protect her dying father and save her husband’s life!
When Torvald finds her hairpin stuck in the keyhole of the letter box, Nora tells him it must have been their children trying to get into it, not willing to admit that she had tried to break into his things. Although the truth about her is about to be discovered, Nora wants to preserve the last bits of dignity that she has left, finally worrying about herself before anyone else. This last lie however, leads up to her finally speaking the truth and expressing that she no longer feels that she loves Torvald. Her husband is furious at her, insulting her, and fails to see that every lie that she told was for his sake. Realizing that Torvald can’t see her side of things and will only find fault in what she did, she comes to her decision to leave her family. Nora states that she is not happy and never really was, her marriage to Torvald was as fakes as a doll house according to her. Rather than lie, she is completely honest now and states that she wants to become her own person and learn that which she doesn’t know despite what society might think.
Nora does not at first realize that the rules outside the household apply to her. This is evident in Nora's meeting with Krogstad regarding her borrowed money. In her opinion it was no crime for a woman to do everything possible to save her husband's life. She also believes that her act will be overlooked because of her desperate situation. She fails to see that the law does not take into account the motivation behind her forgery. Marianne Sturman submits that this meeting with Krogstad was her first confrontation with the reality of a "lawful society" and she deals with it by attempting to distract herself with her Christmas decorations (Sturman 16). Thus her first encounter with rules outside of her "doll's house" results in the realization of her naivety and inexperience with the real world due to her subordinate role in society.
Each time Nora finds herself unable to help herself the problem is easily directly traced back to her husband, her father, and to the overbearing dominance of the male society. She tries to save the life of the man she thinks she loves and in doing so sees how she has become a victim of her own ignorance which has been brought upon her by the men in her life.
As he took over the role as bank director his first motion was to fire a man who had been seen as a disgrace for forging a signature. This “disgraceful” man is known as Krogstad. Krogstad is the person that allowed Nora to borrow money. Krogstad comes to find out that Nora had forged her father’s signature on the loan that allowed her to receive the money. When Krogstad finds out that Torvald is planning to relive him from the company, he notifies Nora that he will be blackmailing her if she does not sacrifices for his loss. In other words, Krogstad threatens Nora, in which he will reveal the crime Nora had committed to Torvald. If Nora cannot convince Torval to keep Krogstad at the Bank, Krogstad states that there will be consequences. Day after day, Nora continues to influence and change the perspective of Torvald. In result of Torvald seeing Nora as a “Doll” who entitles, nevertheless childlike activities, he does not take her advice to keep Krogstad. He values Nora as someone who simply means nothing in the world of knowledge. When Nora does not succeed to complete Krogstads request, he sends Torvald a letter describing Nora’s
After Torvald discovers that Nora has forged her father’s signature in order to take out a loan through Krogstad’s letter, Nora explains how she’s felt all these year in not just their marriage together, but in the relationship with her father as well: “‘When I was at home with papa, he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions; and if I differed from him I concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it… And when I came to live with you… I was simply transferred from papa’s hands into yours’” (66). By expressing that because Nora’s father had an opinion and that therefore she had “the same opinions”, but “concealed the fact” if she disagreed with him, exhibits how she is aware that she has had to hide her own opinions because of her societal inferiority towards men. Nora’s whole life has been under the influence of another man, as she puts it: “from papa’s hands into yours”, further exhibiting how she has not been able to have her own thoughts and desires, or even personal identity. In addition, when Torvald claims that he would do anything for Nora, except give up his pride, Nora highlights the struggle women face daily in
After having used Krogstad to get what she needed, yet another issue arose. Krogstad turned on Nora once his position at the bank was on the line, and used her borrowing against her for his own good. “Niles Krogstad is also Mrs. Linde’s former crush, and he tries to redeem himself of his crimes of forgery by raising his children” (Rosefeldt).
On the individual level, both Nora are victims of modernization since both of their happiness and rights are deprived by their husbands and they have to take much more responsibilities under the effect of other’s pursuit of individualism. In the movie named ‘A doll’s house’, Nora’s husband, Torvald reckons Nora as his possession and he has full-control of the family. For example, only the husband can have a key to the mailbox at the door and Nora must obey orders from him. Therefore, it represents that the extreme of individualism is selfishness, where Nora cannot make important decisions instead of Torvald or say anything whatever she desires under his excessive individualism. Furthermore, Torvald’s pursuit of individualism is at an expense
However, Nora does eventually realize that she has been treated like a child all her life and has been denied the right to think and act the way she wishes. When Torvald does not immediately offer to help Nora after Krogstad threatens to expose her, Nora realizes that there is a problem. By waiting until after he discovers that his social status will suffer no harm, Torvald reveals his true
Nora gets blackmailed for forging a signature, and for this she gets disowned by her husband. But, when her husband finds that the blackmail will be dropped, and will no longer affect their lives, he tells Nora that everything is okay and they both can presume living like normal. This opens Nora’s eyes fully for the first time, before she had only glimpses of the wrongness in her identity, but now she knew. Nora had been living a false identity, she had been a ‘toy doll’, and at the end of the play she decides to want so much more than to be what others thought she should be. In the end of Act three, Nora states ”I must think things out for myself and try to get clear about them” (Ibsen 199). Nora is now going to decided who she is and what she really believes, she is going to discover her own identity. In an article on women working in World War II, it states, “While patriotism did influence women, ultimately it was the economic incentives that convinced them to work. Once at work, they discovered the nonmaterial benefits of working like... contributing to the public good, and proving themselves in jobs once thought of as only men’s work” (“Rosie Riveter: Women”). Women before World War II were thought of as simply housewifes for the most part, similar to Nora. The circumstances of World War II brought about need for women in the workplace, this started a domino effect of women taking up an identity similar to males the sense that they could now
Her final goal was so important to her, protecting her family, she knew she had to do whatever was necessary, even if that meant not being true to her husband or society. In the end, she realizes that it was more important to her husband his reputation, than what it had meant to Nora, all she had done for the love of her family, concluding to the raw truth that her husband didn´t really love her: he loved what she represented before society, a loving, faithful wife that compelled to all his expectations. She knew that to love her children, she needed first to understand and love herself, a thought way beyond and ahead of time, for a woman in the late 1800´s.