Love and Marriage Illustrated in Raisin in the Sun, A Doll's House and Is Love an Art

Nora is married to Torvald for over 6 years and they have a comfortable routine that they follow. One day Torvald takes ill and Nora takes action. In the 1870’s the man was the provider for the household. Though, with Torvald sick, Nora needs to find a way to help her husband no matter the cost. They take off to Italy and “Torvald couldn't have lived if he hadn't managed to get down there.” (180) Nora feels a sense of pride knowing that she is the one that saves her husband. Nora wishes she could tell her husband what she had done but she understands the repercussions it would have on their relationship. Torvald would feel the humiliating effect of having his wife being his protector. To Torvald, Nora is just an object that is to serve his every need. She is his entertainer, his squanderbird. Torvald believes that Nora is just his “....poor, helpless, bewildered little creature.” (226) Their marriage is only real on paper, there is no equality in their household. This is something that Nora comes to terms with. She understands that “I must stand on my own feet if I am to find out the truth about myself and about life.” (228) Nora is a person of strong will. She knows how to put on a mask when the time comes, and she plays her cards just right. Because Torvald treats her as more of a trophy wife, she does not tell him about how she was able to take him to Italy.

Marriage is a lot of work for two individuals who do not have the qualifications mastered. A marriage must be full of steady communication and cannot contain a spouse to be selfish. The attitudes portrayed among the couple determines a lot in their relationship. Throughout A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen, readers can see how the lack of communication and honesty tore a marriage apart. Throughout the entire play, Torvald is treating Nora as if she is a child. He viewed her as nothing more than a beautiful yet fragile women. Torvald saw himself as the “king leader” of the household resulting in him not having much communication with his dear wife. The story gradually shows the fate in their marriage as Nora begins to

Nora is treated like a child by Torvald, but she is accustomed to it and believes he loves her dearly. However, an important component of a successful and true marriage is trust, which is lacking in the Helmers’ marriage. Nora keeps a secret from Torvald while he is reluctant to trust her with money, let alone his reputation (Ibsen 2, 3, 13). When Torvald discovers that Nora has kept a secret from him, he is furious and takes away her right to raise the children without a second thought (Ibsen 83). However, while Torvald was throwing a fit, Nora comprehends that he has never loved her and that she was forcing herself to believe she loved him (Ibsen 87). Like Nora, Edna knew that she and her husband, Leonce, never loved each other; she thought he was her ticket out of her old life while he thought of her as his possession (Chopin 8, 29). Both Edna and Nora were raised to be obedient wives, but Edna, after her awakening, felt like marriage was “one of the most lamentable spectacles on earth” and did not try to save her marriage (Chopin 100). Love was sometimes not a factor that determined marriage; money and image was usually more preferred.

Nora and Torvald have been married for a long time and they do their best to make sure they are happy. Nora loves Torvald very much and would do anything to

Marriage today has become somewhat of a common goal for people all around the world and the same can be said for the 1300s. In both time periods two people would come together and be united, usually by the church. However, though modern marriage is not entirely different from the Middle Ages, it has definitely had a huge makeover. Marriage has changed a lot in the past seven-hundred years—and in some interesting ways. Today people marry for widely different reasons, have very different roles and expectations that come along with engagement, and it is more acceptable for gay people to marry.

The key to a happy marriage is communication. If there is no communication, then there's no happiness or love. Torvald and Nora haven’t sat down and had a real conversation over the past 8 years, according to Nora. That’s when she finally realizes she’s made a mistake. Nora has been living a lie and she braces herself and breaks it to Torvald. Nora says “I have waited so patiently for eight years; for goodness knows, I knew very well those wonderful things don’t happen every day. Then this horrible misfortune came upon me, and then I felt quite certain that the wonderful thing was going to happen at last. When Krogstad’s letter was lying out there, never for a moment did I imagine that you would consent this man’s conditions? I was

Nora is treated like “[Helmer’s] doll-wife…” (Ibsen 76) because she has become accustomed to being controlled by the men in her life. She tells her husband that throughout her marriage, she was unable to express her own thoughts and opinions and “so [she] got the same tastes as [Helmer]” (Ibsen 76). In this statement, Nora is describing an archetypical conflict of Innate Wisdom vs. Educated Stupidity because while she argues about the necessity of learning who she is and being equal to her husband, he use invalid arguments based on societies expectations. Furthermore, Nora has had an epiphany in which she realizes that her marriage is not

In the play “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen, Nora goes through a lot of miserable times living with Torvald. Nora’s decision for leaving Torvald was a very wise and right decision. Nora made a wise and right decision because one, she has a hard time with Torvald. Two, she is not treated right and with equality and all Torvald does is use her. Lastly, she made a right choice because Torvald is selfish and now that she figures that out, she can live for herself with freedom.

In the beginning of the book one could tell that Nora has a frivolous personality and likes to have fun and that Torvald takes everything very seriously and doesn't want to do anything that would be a “waste” of his time. Since the two have bipolar personalities, it is quite obvious that they do not have a typical nor traditional marriage. Because of Nora’s youthful personality it makes it harder on Torvald to treat her as an equal. “You always find some new way of wheedling money out of me, and, as soon as you have got it, it seems to melt in your hands ‘Torvald’” (Ibsen 14). In that line spoken by Torvald it is taken notice how he feels about Nora and that he only trusts her with the little and simple tasks.

Over the years men build themselves up to last in the real world of work or family related ways. In order to survive they have practiced different skills from childhood to adulthood in order to amount to a certain maturity level. The first step is the power of knowledge men are permitted to learn which a woman is not. As Nora learns about the struggles of life through hiding her secret from her husband her ignorance lessens. The development Nora is encountering shows how much of a man she is becoming in the relationship. Her maturity level is shown by how she handled the situation when Torvald forgave her after he has just proven how little he cared for her compared to how highly he cares the way others perceive him. She feels that doesn’t anyone “…think that we have a right to be happy simply, naturally” (Fauset 83)? However Torvald only considers his reputation as a highly respected man. Finally, Nora sees the clear lining between the difference of love and reality. For example, when children are first born they are classified into colors; boys are blue and girls are pink. At a young age boys think of the color pink as a girly color and will not wear it because they are a boy not a girl; and vice versa with girls. As kids grow older they understand there are more colors to the world than just blue and pink that can be their signature color. Before, children insisted on wearing certain colors because of the ignorance they

In A Doll's house, there are many characters with a wide variety of different personalities and objectives. Even though there are many similarities between characters, there are just as many differences. Out of all the characters Torvald and Nora are the ones with the biggest differences in personality and opinions. Even though they are married and most of the time seem to have the perfect home life, it becomes easier to deduce throughout the drama that they are two completely different people that want different things out of their lives. Some main differences that Nora and Torvald have are the way that they perceive their self-image, what they want out of life, and the actions that they will take to overcome problems. (1)

Beginning at the level of courtship, every step in the process of married life was strictly regimented and dictated by both tradition and law. Courtship was “highly controlled, almost ritualized, collective and highly public,” consisting of systematic meeting times and central parental involvement to select spouses. Worth within these was placed on forming unions with well respected families who would be of economic benefit, disregarding the concerns of a daughter altogether. In sequence with the courting process, there appeared an “increase in nuptiality and a lowering of the age at first marriage” that meant marriages happened at younger ages. Younger women were sought for marriage and couples married earlier altogether in order to achieve the goal of having a large family and developing an economic and social foundation for life. The standard

Torvald and Nora have distinct differences in personality inside and outside their home. To the public, Torvald seems to be a strong, family man with good morals. In his home life, though, he needs to feel power over Nora at all times.

Had Torvald not been so restrictive toward his wife she more than likely would not have left the house at the end. Also had Torvald not try to enforce his gender role ideology upon Nora and allowed her to have more rights she would not have developed the mental instabilities that she did. In a way Torvald was somewhat of a hypocrite throughout the play as he tasked his wife to be the housewife with no freedoms but does something progressive when he gives Linde a job at the bank and fires a man to open up the position. That goes to show that even Torvald wasn’t fully dedicated to his Masculine Identity rather he used it whenever convenient to him. The fact that Nora was also a compulsive liar cannot be overlooked. It would go further to factor in why she left him as it happens to people who develop that symptom through the restrictiveness of their family

Torvald’s wife Nora is the center of several of the traits that classify him as a morally ambiguous character. Nora is more like a possession to Torvald than a soul mate or wife. She is like a doll to him, something that he can control and shape into what he wants. Nora is treated like a child and as if she can not function a second without him to be there to tell her what to do. Her dependency on him is extremely important to him because that is