Nora's House Deception Essay

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.

She gains her independence and saves her husband. However, her reputation is nearly destroyed after Torvald finds out she forged the letter. Nora asking, “It is indiscreet, to save your husband’s life,” knows that she sacrificed a lot to save Torvald (Ibsen 1029). Nora believes she saved Torvald’s life, she also believes that if he knew then their lives would never be the same. If Torvald knew Nora had taken out a loan, he would feel indebted to her and that would be humiliating to his masculinity, while disrupting their “happy” home life. However, Nora relinquished many of the things that meant a lot to her. Nora forged her father’s signature risking her and Torvald’s reputation. She also takes on all the debt herself, paying it off with her spending money. Nora will not be able to buy as much for herself with the debt revealing her willingness to sacrifice wealth for Torvald’s wellbeing. Just as Cyrano sacrifices his life to send letters to Roxane, Nora sacrifices her happiness and reputation to save Torvald. This shows Nora’s devotion and unconditional love towards Torvald. Both Cyrano and Nora are risking their lives for someone they love. As Cyrano repeatedly risks his life for Roxane, Nora feels as though her “duties to herself” are more valuable than her devotion to anyone else as she states, “aren’t they your duties to your husband and children?... Duties to myself…” (1076). Nora has gone through a kind

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

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.

Krogstad’s selfish visions for himself lead to the blackmailing of Nora. He had once made the same offense and was not convicted guilty but however doing it again had affected his whole career from then on and lead to a lack of trust from his previous job which caused him to be fired and made getting any eligible job not possible. It’s noticed that Krogstad had claimed to have made these choices in hope to be able to protect his children from feeling scorn, however, didn’t approach it in an honest way. He believed if he’d blackmail Nora his dilemma of being unemployed would be solved and give him a feeling of redemption in the society that he’s known to have wronged

Also in Act II, Nora begins to question the law. When Krogstad comes to Nora, they speak of why she used the money. Nora says, “Hasn’t a daughter the right to shield her father from worry and anxiety when he’s old and dying? Hasn’t a wife the right to save her husband’s life? I don’t know much about the law, but there must be something somewhere that says that such things are allowed”(2,1). Nora doesn’t seem to question much, but her concern that she could not sign for a loan to take care of her family as a man could shows that she is now questioning the rights of a woman.

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

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's second, and strongest, break from society's rules was shown by her decision to leave Torvald and her children.  Society demanded that she take a place under her husband.  This is shown in the way Torvald spoke down to her saying things like "worries that you couldn't possibly help me with" (Ibsen Page #), and "Nora, Nora, just like a woman" (Ibsen page #).  She is almost considered to be property of his: "Mayn't I look at my dearest treasure?  At all the beauty that belongs to no one but me - that's all my very own" (Ibsen page #)?  By walking out she takes a position equal to her husband and destroys the very foundation of society's expectations of a wife and mother.  Nora also breaks society's expectations of staying in a marriage since divorce was frowned upon during that era.  Her decision represented a break from all expectations placed upon a woman by society. Throughout the play Nora is looked down upon and treated as a possession by her husband. She is

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).

Here, Nora pulls together the tragic circumstances. She sees that she was never truly happy in the house, just content. Her father kept her as a child would a doll, and Torvald continued this when they were married. They formed her opinions for her, set expectations to which she was supposed to adhere, and wrote a vague script of how she was supposed to act. She was like a puppet, with no thoughts or actions of her own. When she finally realizes the injustice being done to her, she decides to free herself.

In the end, Nora makes the decision to end her marriage, leave her children, and run away from her problems, showing only self-interest. She forfeits her family for that of her happiness believing what Torvald previously says, "an atmosphere of lies contaminates and poisons...breath...children draw...contains the germs of evil" (1509). Even though she is aware of his dishonesty, "I must try to buy him off" (1534), she still leaves her children with their father. Her decision is selfish, and her selfishness is backed up with the fact

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.

Now that Krogstad is fired from the bank, He is blackmailing Nora for her getting a loan through signing her dying father’s signature. When Torvald finds out about Nora’s crime, She expect sympathy from Torvald about her dilemma because he said to her that he fantasizes about risking his life to save Nora’s. “Do you know, Nora, I have often wished that you might be threatened by some great danger, so that I might risk my life’s blood, and everything, for your sake” (Ibsen, 833). Once given the opportunity, however; Torvald shows no intention of sacrificing his life or anything for Nora, thinking only about his appearances. His selfishness becomes