An Analysis of A Doll House
Nora Helmer is a strong yet stupid woman. She thinks that money can buy her out of anything. What she doesn’t realize until the end is that her debt doesn’t enslave her, but her husband’s treatment of her does. Nora Helmer’s character starts off by being a submissive little lark by her husband’s side. They have a rather cheerful, fun-loving relationship that isn’t the least bit serious until the end. She answers to a myriad of pet names and lies to her husband about things like buying treaties from the confectioners shop.
In other words, she acts just like a child.She was passed on from her father to her husband, who acts more like her father than a husband. Between father and husband, Nora is never treated like a woman. Feminists would have a hay day with this play. The time period is that of which when women were not allowed to own property, borrow money, or vote. Women play highly subservient roles and society maims them.
Nora loves her husband so much that she would be willing to commit a crime in order to save him. Although she forges her father’s name on the loan, Nora doesn’t realize the graveness of her actions until Krogstad brings it to her attention.Then, and only then, does Nora understand that what she has done is morally wrong. To her, breaking a little law to save her husband is trivial. Nora has led a charmed life. First her father spoiled her and then her husband took up where her father left off.
All her life Nora has been yoked and tethered. This loan she took out was to save her husband’s life, but he doesn’t see things that way. Rather then thanking her for risking her reputation to save his life, he yells at her and bellows at her to the fullest. This is when Nora realizes that all the money in the world won’t save her.She realizes that her husband and father have both encased her in glass and played the role of the puppet master while she marionettes as the puppet. The debt was never the chain, Torvald was.
No matter how much money she showered about, nothing could buy her husband’s respect. It was at this moment when Nora decided to leave. A woman should never leave her children to go and find herself. It is understandable to leave a husband when the love isn’t there anymore, but to leave your children? Nora Helmer is a strong yet stupid woman.
