[Professor]
A woman is always considered less and is demeaned in this male dominating world. The play A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen is a good portrayal of feeling of a woman. Nora, whom the author depicts as a doll in his play, is an innocent and patient character. She lives with her husband Torvald Helmer, who recently has a job as a manager in a bank. Torvald treats her as a child and does not give her proper care as a wife needs. The entire story gets a new turn when Nora encounters Krogstad, who start blackmailing her. The author in his play A Doll’s House portrays Nora’s character as a wife that strives all the time to make her husband feel that she needs love, but Torvald never understands her value. Finally, Nora decides to leave her house and make him free from all obligations.
Analysis
Starting from a scene where Nora seeks Torvald’s attention by indicating see what she has bought. At first instance, Torvald asks her not to disturb, but as he senses the word buying, he quickly moves his attention toward her. “Has my little spendthrift been wasting money again?” says Torvald (I.4). It clearly shows that Torvald gives more attention to money, not his wife. He always calls her wife with different demeaning names such as my little skylark, my little squirrel, and extravagant little person. Despite that, Nora never minds such a talk by him and always tries to be happy with whatever is given to her.
It seems that Nora always tries to meet others expectations rather than advancing herself. She lives in a world of dreams, where she thinks that one wonderful day will come when all of her dreams will come true. The way Nora plans for the Christmas and wearing the dress as her husband likes is the love of Nora for Torvald. On the contrary, Torvald always makes her feel that whatever is she doing, it is for herself because she likes that. Torvald never pays attention to such a lovely behavior that her wife keeps showing Torvald her feelings.
Nora borrows money because her husband needs that. She forges the signature of her father and gets a loan from Krogstad. The money is needed for a trip to Italy because doctors suggest Nora to get her husband for a trip. When Torvald fires Krogstad, he pressurizes Nora to peruse her husband, as he does not fire him. Nora fears that her husband does not like getting loans and living under the pressure of debt; therefore, she does not tell him. She only requests him not to fire Krogstad.
Torvald, along with careless husband, is an arrogant person too. When Nora insists Torvald to change his thought, then he says, "It is already known to Bank that I mean to dismiss Krogstad. Is it to get about now that the new manager has changed his mind at his wife's bidding." (II, 74) Torvald just thinks of his repute in the office and does not give value to request of the wife (Siddall, N.p).
Nora has no way out, she just thinks to make Torvald agree, but he is not going to listen to her in any way. As he thinks that, he is the only person having the sense to deal with things. If he agrees with the idea of his wife, he may be considered dumb before his office staff. A number of incidents happen around the world where managers or even CEOs change their decisions, but an arrogant man would never listen to his wife. A man who thinks that she is just a child, why would give her so much attention that he changes his decision on wife’s bidding.
Krogstad blackmails Nora in various ways, such as he may tell to others about her forgery and pressurizing her to repay the loan, while she does not have enough money to repay it. Nora is helpless, in this case, she can neither tell her husband and nor refuse Krogstad to favor him. Nora also tries to flirt with Dr. Rank in order to get some money from him to pay off the loan. All that Nora does is for a happier life of her family. She always tries to give her husband and children’s best moments, but Torvald does not understand her feelings (Tornqvist, N.p).
Torvald tells Nora that forgery is one of the reasons that he does not want Krogstad in his office. A person who does such crime may corrupt his children. Nora recalls that she has also done forgery; therefore, she starts to stay away from her children just to make them safe from her as she may also corrupt them. She is such an innocent person that just listening to the thought of her husband she obeys it automatically. (I, 60) On the other hand, Torvald, despite her hard insistence is not ready to take his words back.
At the end when Torvald reads the letter of Krogstad, he becomes angry with Nora and orders to stay away from children. He calls her a terrible person and disgraces her. After that, Torvald receives another letter of apology from Krogstad and then he forgives Nora. A woman who did everything for her family, her husband when faces such reaction, what would she feel? It is really a point to think for all people that they must understand the situation first and then react accordingly.
Conclusion
Works Cited
Siddall, S. H. Henrik Ibsen: A Doll’s House. Humanities-Ebooks, 2008. Print.
Tornqvist, Egil. Ibsen: A Doll’s House. Cambridge University Press, 1995. Print.
