A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

In Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House the protagonist Nora Helmer struggles with a conflict that jeopardized her marriage. The conflict dealt with an agreement in which she forged her father's signature in order to obtain the loan to save her husband's life. Thanks to the loaner Nils Krogstad she was able to save her husbands life by moving to Italy.

Torvald was the manager of a bank so Krogstad brided Nora in order to save his job at the bank. Nora struggled with trying to uphold the secret. However, Nora was also dealing with an internal conflict of her own, which was finding her own individuality, as well as the stature of her marriage. In the end, she learned she really didnt know who she was and decided to leave her husband and their three children because she wanted to grow and develop her own independence. Nora needed to fulfill her own dreams and desires.

Throughout the play, Nora's major roles was that of a doll's. She had been living under pretense throughout her whole life and marriage, first as her father's "doll-child" and then as Torvald's "doll-wife." She understands that her husband sees her as an innocent, child-like persona, and she struggles to maintain the facade. According to Nora in her confrontation with Torvald in Act III , she had been "greatly wronged" by both her father and Helmer claiming that instead of making her own decisions and opinions, she had based them off of theirs. Everything in their marriage had been arranged "according to Torvald's tastes" and she had pretended to like them as well.

Being treated like a "doll" is further evidenced by Torvald's many petnames for her that signify his view of her as being fragile, such as "skylark," "squirrel," and "spendrift" indicating his role as the dominant husband. Nora was his doll, who must be cared for and protected. Being Torvald also treated her like a child which is another role she took on. That brought her self confidence down giving Nora low self esteem. He viewed her as though she had less potential than he had, which made their marriage unequal in partnership. As a child, he treated her like she was reckless and irresponsible and needed his direction and guidance. Helmer also had the idea that she was also unintelligent and ignorant and thought she wouldn't be able to understand his business matters. However, this was not true because she had demonstrated her capabilities of understanding what was right and what was wrong, including the consequences of forging her father's signature for that loan. Not only does Nora stand up for her belief but she also lies to cover up her misdeeds.

Torvald had demonstrated his ignorance of her feelings when he lashed out in anger at her for committing the crime that saved his life. He was more concerned about what people would think, instead of trying to

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