Dolls House By Henrik Ibsen Essay

Often in life we find ourselves torn between doing the morally right thing and the legally right thing. What is legal sometimes is not morally right. On the other hand, defying the law to fulfill a moral obligation might see one sent to jail. This paper discusses the conflict between moral and legal choices in the play Dollhouse. How do the characters find their moral issues in conflict with legal choices?
In act one, we hear Nora tell her friend Mrs. Linde how she illegally obtained money so that her husband and her could travel to Italy. Her husband was very sick during their first year of marriage, and they had no money. Nora thus took it upon her to forge her father’s signature to borrow the money. She violated the law to save her husband’s life. She put her love for her husband before doing the legally right thing. Nora knew that her husband would not agree her wishes thus she was forced to forge her father’s signature to secure a loan from Krogstad. The loan was illegally obtained without Torvald’s permission. For years, she struggles to pay back the debt before her deceit comes into the light. Nora and her husband were poor in their first year of marriage. When they were confronted with a situation where Torvald faced death if they did not travel to Italy for his treatment, she forges her father’s signature to borrow the money. She knew that her ailing husband would not have agreed to borrow a loan in his name due to his financial status and would rather have died. She then took it upon her to break the law to ensure that her husband did not die.
Krogstad is a lawyer who went to school with Torvald and holds a subordinate position at the bank. He is perfectly willing to use unethical tactics to achieve his goals. He like Nora is guilty of forgery of signatures. He has been wronged by society and his past will not let him move on with his life. Krogstad is threatened that he will lose his job at the bank and thus he threatens Nora that he will reveal her secret. Krogstad is not doing so because he is a law abiding citizen, but he does so to save his job and prevent his children from scorn. Though Krogstad’s crime was relatively small, society has burdened him with the stigma of being a criminal and banned him from moving beyond his past. He tries to insinuate that his immorality began when Mrs. Linde’s left him for a wealthy man. In his defense, society forced Mrs. Linde away from him and thus prompted his crime. This is, however, no excuse of doing the wrong thing. In revealing Nora’s secret, Krogstad is doing the legally right thing to spare his children hardships that come with a spoiled reputation. It is morally right for a father to protect his children from scorn and it is this moral obligation that prompts him to do the legally right thing
Krogstad, however, has a soft spot for Mrs. Linde; she convinces him not to reveal Nora’s secret. Mrs. Linde goes on behalf of her friend seeks out Krogstad to prevent him from doing the legally right thing. She tells him that she is now free of her own familial obligations and wishes to be with Krogstad and look after his children. This over joys Krogstad, and he promises not to report Nora’s crime. Krogstad chooses his chance to have his children raised in a proper family over reporting a crime. Mrs. Linde on the other has aided a crime by asking her long lost love to cover it up. Mrs. Linde’s and Krogstad are just as guilty as Nora of covering the crime. Mrs. Linde covers Nora’s crime so that she can do the right thing and marry the man whose heart she ones broke.
Torvald, on the other hand, is a man concerned with the status in society and allows his intuition to be swayed heavily by the prospect of society’s respect and fear of scorn from the society. He fires Krogstad at the bank for his immoral ways, even though he and Krogstad went to school together. Torvald is busy upholding his duty that he has forgotten he is a human being. It is unlawful to fire someone because they do not pay their respect to you at the work place, but Torvald does this to avoid losing face at the office and in the society.