European society, during the nineteenth century, was entirely male–dominated where

women were considered to be subordinates, poor decision-makers and weaker sex. They
were confined to very narrow roles and were given very less rights and opportunities.
They were puppets in the hands of male members of their family, having no will and
opinion of their own. Despite that, most of the women easily accepted their role and
position in the society without raising any questions since they believed that it was what
the society had determined for them and they had to follow them whether or not they liked
it. However, there were some women, who after realizing their devalued status in the
society and the importance of their individuality, dared to challenge the patriarchal
societal rules in order to search their self- identity and to live the life of their own. This
seems to be the theme of Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll House” which he has conveyed through
characterization, symbolism and settings.

Nora, in the play, represents the women of her era. Although she seems to be superficial,
carefree, spendthrift and frivolous in the beginning of the play, she is actually a very
responsible, intelligent, skillful and courageous woman. She is a real devoted
homemaker, a wife and a mother who showers unconditional love to her family including
her husband and three children. Her husband, Torvald Helmer, calls her with the
demeaning names like “little lark”, “squirrel” and worst of all “a scatterbrain” (Ibsen 1106).
He has a notion that she is an incompetent, incapable and helpless woman who always
needs his care and guidance in whatever she does and thinks. He never treats her like an
equal entity rather he treats her like a child, a doll and a plaything w...

... middle of paper ...

...lf and the world: “I have to stand completely alone, if I’m ever going to discover myself
and the world out there. So I can’t go living with you” (1150). In addition to that, most of
the actions of Nora take place in the living room: talking with other characters, playing
“hide-and-seek” and performing other feminine tasks (1118). This shows Nora’s
insignificant role in her house and limited scope of her life.

In this way, through the use of characterization, symbolism and settings, Ibsen has
portrayed the clear picture of the nineteenth century European society which was entirely
based on gender discrimination. The women were totally dependent on men and lived
their lives according to their desires and expectations. To live a self-dependent life and
seek their right, they often had to break the rules of the society and go against the
existing societal convention.
From the minute we are conceived we are put into one of two classes, male or female.
We are never asked or viewed as anything besides. Furthermore, as a result of the
society we made, we connect broad generalizations to every one of those sexual
orientations. This is known as the roles we were “born” to fill. This incorporates a wide
range of generalizations, similar to, that women should remain at home, cook, and be
“girly”, and that men should be solid, the sole supplier of the house, and “masculine”.
Not to state you can’t be those things, but those roles can be exceptionally choking for
a large portion of the populace.  Ibsen demonstrates the roles of society within the play
and that eventually this idea of division between male and female simply leads Nora to
seek individuality and break free from society’s expectations which only suppressed her.

 In A Doll’s House, Ibsen portrays the conciliatory job held by women of various
monetary benchmarks in his society. When all is said in done, the play’s female
characters show Nora’s declaration, the fact that men decline to forfeit their
trustworthiness. So as to help her mom and two siblings, Mrs. Linde thought that it was
important to forsake Krogstad, her actual however poor love, and wed a more
extravagant man. These are a portion of the penances that ladies need to experience.
The babysitter needed to relinquish her own youngster to help herself by filling in as
Nora’s babysitter. “A girl who’s poor and who’s gotten in trouble is glad enough for
that” (Mays 1675). As she tells Nora, the caretaker sees herself as blessed to have
discovered the job, since she was a poor young woman who had been driven off track.
Ibsen’s worries about the situation of women in the public eye are lit up in A Doll’s
House. He trusted that ladies had a privilege to build up their own uniqueness, however
in all actuality, their job was reliably self-conciliatory. Women were not considered
equivalent with men, either in connection to their spouses or in society.

Ibsen, in the play A Doll’s House, establishes a few connections about the impression of
society and how female jobs are characterized around then. From the play one can see
what Ibsen accepted about the jobs of sexual orientation and relating balance among
guys and females. This is really a play where one can see how the sexual orientation
status was at the time, and Ibsen’s conviction about this issue. Ibsen showed the job of
females unmistakably in this play. As the play starts, Nora’s conduct resembles that of
most women of the time: they surrendered to anything her significant other said and
took in all requests issued to her by the spouse. In the first place she was the perfect
lady and spouse as indicated by society and the husband. Her significant other would
affront her multiple occasions and even blamed her for having excessive desserts and
putting on weight. When all is said in done we see the job of Nora being totally the
inverse of Torvald.
 In spite of the fact that Nora is monetarily advantaged in connection to the play’s other
female characters, she then again has a convoluted existence since society directs that
Torvald be the marriage’s administering accomplice. Torvald issues proclamations to
Nora, and Nora must conceal her advance from him since she knows Torvald would
never acknowledge the possibility that his better half a lady, had helped spare his life.
Moreover, she should work in mystery to satisfy her credit since it is unlawful for a lady
to get an advance without her better half’s consent. By persuading Nora’s double
dealing, the dispositions of Torvald and society leave Nora vulnerable to Krogstad’s
extortion. “Ah, I was tired so often, dead tired. But still it was wonderful fun, sitting and
working like that, earning money. It was almost like being a man” (Mays 1663). Women
couldn’t direct business or control their own cash, for which they required the approval
of the man who was depicted as the proprietor of females. Moreover, they were not
instructed for duty as it might be seen. Nora falls foul of the two disparities, by applying
for a line of credit from the bank without the expert of Torvald, the spouse, or the dad,
and by accepting, out of obliviousness of the world, that she could escape with
falsification of a signature. The job of women is that of obedience to men. Financial
reliance adds to this job.

 In the play, money symbolizes the power that the characters have over each other. In
the main scene, Torvald’s capacity to manage the amount Nora spends on Christmas
presents demonstrates his control over her. “No, but seriously, Nora, you know what I
think about that. No debts! Never borrow! Something of freedom’s lost—and something
of beauty, too—from a home that’s founded on borrowing and debt” (Mays 1656). Then,
the obligation that Nora owes Krogstad enables him to have control over her and
Torvald. Katharine M. Rogers paints a clear picture representing the idea of females
being dependent on men. “For example, as long as wives remain economically
dependent on their husbands, Ibsen’s revelation of the connection between this
dependency and a subject status remains relevant. Earning power tends to equal worth
in bourgeois society, and the knowledge that one’s work is worth money does increase
respect in others’ eys and even in one’s own” (Rogers). Both Nora and Mrs. Linde can’t
procure substantial livelihoods since they are ladies; their failure to get to noteworthy
measures of cash is one way that they are persecuted by the sexism of the time. The
play additionally demonstrates that, while procuring cash prompts control, it can
likewise be risky. In the start of the play, Nora is glad for the way that she “raised” the
money for her and Torvald’s trip to Italy herself— the obligation she owes before long,
turns into a wellspring of fear and disgrace. The excite of acquiring cash is in this way,
appeared to have a drawback.

 One might say, single ladies like Mrs. Linde appeared to be more liberated than the
hitched ones. They earned their cash and did not have to hand it to anybody and could
do whatever they wished with it with no impact or control. In spite of this opportunity to
procure and spent their cash, the work that ladies could get was constrained and not
well paying, as we find in Mrs. Linde’s case. “Yes, so I had to scrape up a living with a
little shop and a little teaching and whatever else I could find. The last three years have
been like one endless workday without a rest for me. Now it’s over, Nora”(Mays 1660-
1661). The suitable occupations were administrative work, instructing and residential
work. The work that women could do were basically all the jobs that no one else wanted.
It was not satisfying, and this is the reason keen ladies like Mrs. Linde were left ‘vacant’
inside. This is another approach to express the conciliatory job of females in this society.
Along these lines, marriage was seen as a device in another view. Despite the fact that
being single was a reality, it conveyed such a noteworthy social disgrace for the woman
as well as for the spouse and family. This is the reason Torvald would preferably have an
affectionate marriage, for the public picture, than a separation or detachment. “The
thing has to be hushed up at any cost. And as for you and me, it’s got to seem like
everything between us is just as it was—to the outside world, that is. You’ll go right on
living in this house, of course. But you can’t be allowed to bring up the children” (Mays
1698).

This is a presentation of the conciliatory job of women.

 Ladies had an explicit job they needed to fill. They needed to look simply like that and
demonstration just like that. This was to bring the kids up in a specific manner and keep
up the house impeccably. Numerous females attempted to fill this situation of the
“flawless housewife”. Ladies adjusted their bustling family lives and additionally their
public activities. They remained home to deal with the children, while the spouses
enjoyed a reprieve to meet companions over for tea or espresso. Women must be the
image of flawlessness. The pet names utilized on Nora like “little skylark” and
“featherbrain” meant that he takes Nora to be a lower individual than himself. This isn’t
the perspective of Torvald, however, one that implies the brain of society to the extent
the job of females is concerned. As per Torvald, Nora isn’t sufficiently astute to reason
like him. This is a similar position that Nora accepts when she flirters the spouse so as to
get what she needs. Notwithstanding the way that she’s simply imagining so as to fit in
Torvald’s façade, it appears to meet Torvald desires on her. He treats Nora like a
youngster to make her vibe agreeable in her job as a powerless lady who needs a man
to incline toward. At the point when Nora needs to settle on her own choice, she does
this in mystery as we find in the credit falsification. Egil Tornqvist, shares the same
general view of the suppression that Nora felt by society thus, choosing to leave
everything behind to better herself. “The ruling idea behind the production was Nora’s
emancipatory conviction that she has a right -nay, and obligation- to leave her husband
and the consequences this has for him and him alone” (Tornqvist). The discussions
among Nora and the spouse are about basic things that don’t have much effect
throughout everyday life.

 This picture appears as a consistently acknowledged philosophy of this network. The

lady’s place is at home to seek after the job of complying with the spouse and
performing different responsibilities that he discovers fit for her. This is a model of a
man centric culture, where men rule the ladies. Lisa A. Marovich makes the comparison
of women to “dolls” in the sense that women were like dolls to men, they were there to
simply look pretty and be a housewife. “Businesswomen used dolls to promote their
various social agendas and political goals. While men created the dolls they marketed as
idealized symbols of feminine domesticity, women produced dolls that suggested more
flexible representation of girlhood and boyhood” (Marovich). It is an instance of a lady in
a man’s reality. “Be nice now, Dr. Rank. Tomorrow you’ll see how beautifully I’ll dance;
and you can imagine then that I’m dancing only for you—yes, and of course for Torvald,
too—that’s understood” (Mays 1681). Society accepts this situation as a regulating
activity. We discover how hard it is for the ladies in A Doll’s House to escape this issue
or even express their case. Ladies act in jobs they don’t get the opportunity to decide for
themselves or impact in any way.

 In summation, the women in ‘A Doll’s House’ have an explicit task to carry out in
society. One of the principle jobs that is well brought out in the play is the one of giving
up for the relatives. This is the thing that makes Mrs. Linde inspired to wed a wealthy
man: to deal with her siblings and the debilitated mother. This was extremely a forfeit.
Getting hitched to a man she didn’t love was making a special effort. Nora’s takeoff
from her marriage is a forfeit since she needed to abandon her kids. We can tell that
Nora cherished her youngsters yet she needed to forfeit and abandon them. The other
significant job is the familial obligation. This is soundly a desire for society. Nora’s flight
is viewed with a bizarre eye from society since she isn’t relied upon to leave. Ladies are
taken to be second rate and are subsequently given the jobs taken to be substandard.

UKEssays. (November 2018). A Doll's House: Gender Inequality and Application to Society. Retrieved
from https://www.ukessays.com/essays/literature/a-dolls-house-gender-inequality-and-application-to-
society.php?vref=1

 Marovich, Lisa A. “Made to Play House: Dolls and the Commercialization of American
Girlhood, 1830-1930 (Review).” Oral History Review, Oxford University Press, 1 Jan. 2000,
muse.jhu.edu/article/33486.
  Mays, Kelly J. The Norton Introduction to Literature, Shorter, 12th Edition. W. W. Norton
& Company, 05/2016. VitalBook file.

 Rogers, Katharine M. “A WOMAN APPRECIATES IBSEN.” The Centennial Review, vol. 18,

no. 1, 1974, pp. 91–108. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23738068.
 TÖRNQVIST, EGIL. “Ibsen, A Doll’s House (1989).” Between Stage and Screen: Ingmar
Bergman Directs, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 1995, pp. 69–80. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46mtnz.9.

FEMININISM AND MASCULINITY IN HENRIK IBSEN’S “A DOLL’S

HOUSE”
For a considerable amount of the literature in English language, sex and gender are shown to be
equitable with certain human traits. Strength is defined as a predominantly male trait while
weakness is shown as the female one. Men are depicted as stable while women are shown as
impulsive and unpredictable. Logic is shown as masculine while imagination is equated with
femininity. It is often possible to identify a character as female or male by simply judging the
behavior of the character in the story or how other characters respond to that certain character.
Henrik Ibsen explored the issues of gender and how certain emotions can be thought of as
feminine and masculine in his play “A Doll’s House”. “One of the most obvious issues that Ibsen
brings to his audience is that of late nineteenth-century gender roles” (Parker). Ibsen makes use
of characterization of two most important characters in the story: Torvald and Nora to explore
the stereotypical view of two genders in the society. He portrays Nora and Torvald as
stereotypical Victorian female and male characters and then suddenly reverses those stereotypes
towards the end of the play in order to show that weakness and strength are not gendered
emotions and can be found in any gender.

“A Doll’s House” was a very popular play and it created a lot of controversy when it was
debuted (Westgate 502). The domestic life portrayed in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House revolves around
the supposed stability that was found in gender roles in the society during Victorian era. Since
the play is set in the 19th century, it explores the gender roles that were accepted for men and
women at that time. In the story, men are depicted as the stereotypical Victorian men who are
commanding their households and running their business. They are in command of all finances
and other decisions of theirs and their wives’ lives. On the other hand, women can be seen to be
yielding to male authority they have and are seen busy raising children and taking care of their
homes. Nora and Torvald are shown as the typical Victorian men and women, at least on the
surfaces, throughout the whole play. “In many cases, ‘manly ideals’ (courage, dignity,
seriousness) were elevated to ‘human ideals’ and female ideals (gentleness, kindness, active
sympathy) were desirable only in the home ‘and certainly not in literature'” (Nash 561). This
paper discusses how Nora and Torvald fit into stereotypical Victorian gender roles for the most
story through their daily conduct and marriage while also exploring the reversal of these gender
roles towards the end of the play.
The traits that are most dominantly associated with Victorian women include weakness in terms
of physique, morals, and mental strength. Women are considered to be imaginative and fanciful
in addition to being illogical and having a hint of emotional instability in them. There are many
sides of a Victorian women that were deemed as undesirable in a woman outside of her home.
Nora depicts all of these traits throughout the play as she plays the role of a perfect Victorian
woman all too well, except for the final moments in the play when she breaks away from these
stereotypes. “Ibsen conceived of Nora as a woman trapped in a patriarchal society” (Otten 512).
Nora is depicted as imaginative, unstable, and weak throughout the play.

It is obvious that Torvald also views Nora as a perfect Victorian woman and acknowledges and
establishes his dominance over her from the start. He does not view her as a partner who is equal
to him in the marriage but rather as a possession or an amusement (Parker). Torvald establishes
this dynamic of the relationship from the very start of the play when he shows his ownership and
possession of Nora by calling her his squirrel. He says, “Is that my squirrel rummaging around?
… When did my squirrel get in?” (Mays 1654). It does not stop here. He keeps using similar
nicknames that may seem like they are out of love but are actually demeaning towards Nora such
as spendthrift and a lark (Mays 1654). Not only that, he also establishes his physical authority on
Nora when he “takes her by the ear” (Mays 1654). Since Nora accepts all of these pet names and
Torvald’s physical control over her, it is clear that she plays the role of that of a submissive
feminine Victorian woman well.

Apart from accepting physical control and demeaning attitude of Torvald towards her, she also
expresses another important trait of a Victorian women: financial dependency on her husband.
Nora is completely dependent upon her husband for the finances. She cannot make any financial
decisions herself. She cannot even borrow money without her husband’s permission. This was a
condition of the Victorian society on the women that they had to be financially dependent upon
their husbands. “Nora could not borrow any money without her husband’s consent. On the other
hand, a husband could do whatever he pleased with property that was his wife’s before the
marriage” (Parker). This financial dependence forced another form of weakness on Nora. This
sort of habitual weakness could lead women into accepting and believing that their gender is
inherently weak as it is easy to forget that this weakness is forced upon them by the society.

Victorian society makes an assumption that women are emotionally and mentally unstable and
that they are more prone to impulsive behavior than men. It is visible from the fact that Nora was
perceived as impulsive when “she tipped the delivery boy generously” (Mays 1654). If a man
had done the same, he would have been thought of as philanthropic and generous instead. Thus,
the trait of impulsivity is also attributed to Nora.

While the Victorian women are appreciated for creatively running a household, they are not
appreciated for having an imaginative mind or having flights of fancy otherwise. Nora is shown
as an imaginative woman who thinks about committing a suicide at one point (Mays 1654). She
also thinks about seducing Dr. Rank (Mays 1654). Her imaginative mind is a proof of her
instability as a female in Victorian society. “Feminists and others have pointed out that Nora
plays the role of coquette throughout to gain empowerment in a male-dominated world” (Otten
515). Emotional and moral instability is obvious in Nora’s character through her habits of
deceptions and lies. There are many instances where she uses lies to get her way such as
“smuggling macaroons into the house and telling him that she did not eat”(Mays 1654). These
minor lies and deceptions are used as background of the larger lies on Nora’s behalf later in the
play.

There are some traits that are attributed to men in the story such as logic, stability, and strength.
A Victorian man can be considered as someone who embodies those traits. When these traits are
present in women they are often frowned upon or completely ignored. Torvald is shown to be a
typical example of a stereotypical Victorian male. “Torvald is in charge, society’s darling and the
male head of the household” (Johnston). As mentioned before, he shows to embody these
strengths of logic, strength, and stability as opposed to Nora’s weaknesses. Torvald is the one
who is completely in charge of their whole family, home, and life. He controls the decisions in
the house and commands all the finances. He weakens Nora with demeaning pet names too. He
establishes his authority by making use of such names. “These [pet names] all go to show how he
views Nora’s relationship to him. He never consults her on matters of any importance and leaves
almost no responsibility to her” (Parker).

It is important to note here that Nora is aware of the fact that she is supposedly undermining his
authority over him when she borrows money. She tells Mrs. Linde not to tell Torvald about it
because she fears that this would upset the balance of their relationship. It does not seem likely
that Torvald is aware of what is going on and how Nora is manipulating him. If he was aware of
it, he would not have that perfect view of Nora that he had. Since the society ignores logic and
strength in women, it is likely that he ignored those traits in Nora for the same reasons.

Torvald’s strength is also obvious from the image that he has in the society about how he
conducts his financial and domestic affairs. “[A]n important component in these feelings is the
social satisfaction [Torvald] derives from having a beautiful young wife all to himself, someone
he can parade around in front of other men as his trophy, arousing their jealously when he takes
her away from the party to gratify the sexual stimulation he has gained by her public dance”
(Johnston). This is obvious from the text when Torvald tells Mrs. Linde to take a look at Nora
because he feels proud of her successes in the party. He deems her successes to be a direct
reflection on himself. He determines her worth from the image she creates for him.

After establishing that Nora and Torvald are stereotypical Victorian male and female, Ibsen
suddenly reverses the qualities he established for gender throughout the story. He does this in
order to show that the qualities of weakness, strength, impulsivity, stability, logic, and fancy are
not gendered traits but very human in nature. Ibsen shows that these traits can be present equally
in both genders. He shows that men do not have monopoly on strength and women are not the
only ones who feel despair, love, and anger. When Torvald reads finds out about Nora’s
deception, he experiences a fit of rage and starts blaming Nora for ruining his reputation and life
(Mays 1654). However, when he finds out that Krogstad will not make Nora’s actions public, he
goes towards Nora and forgives her (Mays 1654). Towards the end of the play, Torvald realizes
that Nora no long wants to be with him, he sits with his “face buried in his hands” (Mays 1654).
At that moment, he is not the stable and logical man he was throughout the play. He was deeply
broken and emotional.
Nora realizes at the end that her gender role was keeping her from having personal fulfillment
(Urban). At this point, Nora talks calmly to her husband about their life and marriage. She tells
Torvald the truth in simple plain sentences in a serious manner without getting emotional. She
says, “You don’t understand me. And I’ve never understood you either “until tonight” (Mays
1654). She is calm throughout and takes the decision to leave her house and her husband in a
rational manner. This shows that Nora is not defined by her gender but is deeply human who can
have strength attributed only to men in that society.

Conclusion
Torvald and Nora are epitomes of the Victorian male and female throughout the play until the
end. Towards the end of the play, these gender roles get reversed and it is obvious to the
audience that genders do not have monopoly over emotions. They both show their weakness and
strength, impulsivity and stability, and their imagination and logic at one point or the other in the
play. Ibsen makes a very important point through this story by portraying why their family fell
apart within a few days. He emphasizes that it is possible for both women and men to be logical
or illogical. It is possible for them to be fanciful and reasonable. He makes it clear that the
gender roles that the society forces on two genders are not right. There is no guarantee that a man
will always be stable, logical, and rational and no reason that every woman should be perceived
as imaginative, fanciful, weak, and impulsive. These are very human traits and they should be
treated as such.

Femininism and Masculinity in Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House". (2019, Jun 12). Retrieved from
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Gender Roles
Gender Roles

And besides – he’s so proud of being a man – it’d be so painful and humiliating for him to know that he
owed anything to me. It’d completely wreck our relationship.

Nora explains to Mrs. Linde why she didn’t tell Torvald about the money she borrowed. Such an
explanation reveals that Nora and Torvald’s relationship is based on him playing the traditional
male role in a household as provider. Nora knows that not only does Torvald feel he must
provide for his family, but also her act of helping the family will cause him to feel threatened.
The fact that her secret would “wreck” their relationship shows its fragile structure based on
traditional gender roles.

Oh, I often got so tired, so tired. But it was great fun, though, sitting there working and earning money. It
was almost like being a man.
Nora explains to Mrs. Linde that she accepted some copying work in order to make money to
pay back a loan she took on without Torvald’s knowledge. Nora makes it clear that she had no
previous employment experience, as that is the man’s realm. In spite of the fact that she found
the novelty of earning money stimulating, she could not share the excitement with her husband
as working and making money is not considered her domain.

Nice – to give in to your husband? All right, little silly, I know you didn’t mean it like that.

Torvald takes exception when Nora indicates that she reluctantly agreed to Torvald’s idea for her
Christmas party costume. According to Torvald, a wife doesn’t have the liberty of her own
opinion as the husband has the authority to control whatever she does. This belief that the
husband is the master of the household, and that the household includes his wife, is challenged at
the end of the play, when Torvald realizes that there is nothing he can do to stop Nora from
leaving.

I would not be a true man if your feminine helplessness did not make you doubly attractive in my eyes.

Torvald is exuberant over the resolution of the threat posed by the fraudulent loan Nora obtained
to help him recover his health. Krogstad had threatened Nora with blackmail before returning the
contract and Nora has expressed to Torvald what a hard time it has been. Torvald attempts to
comfort Nora by minimizing her responsibility. When Torvald initially found out about Nora’s
loan, he was furious with her and only thought of how he could keep his reputation intact. He
came to view what she did for him as an act of love, though misguided and ignorant. The fact
that Torvald sees a wife’s complete dependence on her husband as attractive reveals that his love
for Nora depends on her being ranked beneath him in both power and intellect.

Torvald: Nora, I would gladly work for you night and day, and endure sorrow and hardship for
your sake. But no man can be expected to sacrifice his honour, even for the person he loves.
Nora: Millions of women have done it.
At the end of Act Three, Torvald defines the limits of his love for Nora during their final
interaction. Nora explains that she expected Torvald to take the blame for the forged signature
she used to get the loan. He claims that such a sacrifice would be too great for him as it would
damage his honor. Nora points out how often throughout history women have made sacrifices for
their families. Over the course of the play we learn Nora sacrificed her own father, her education,
and, by forging the signature, her good name for Torvald. The fact that he is unwilling to do the
same for her reveals a significant imbalance in their relationship.

Full book summary

A Doll’s House  explores the ways that societal expectations restrict individuals,
especially women, as the young housewife Nora Helmer comes to the realization that
she has spent her eight-year marriage, and indeed most of her life, pretending to be the
person that Torvald, her father, and society at large expect her to be. At the beginning
of the play, Nora believes that all she wants is to be happy, which she defines as
“keep[ing] the house beautifully and hav[ing] everything just as [her husband] Torvald
likes.” She further defines freedom as having more than enough money in order to
create a life free from care. Yet her self-sacrificing actions—illegally obtaining a loan to
save her husband’s life and then keeping this loan a secret in order to placate his manly
pride—prevent her from attaining this freedom. As Nora realizes that her selfless
actions are now the source of her sorrow, she begins to question whether the life she
leads is capable of providing her with happiness. 
The play begins with Nora cheerily returning home from Christmas shopping, but
Torvald, emerging from his office, quickly creates an oppressive atmosphere with the
diminutive titles he bestows on Nora and the ways he controls her life, from her
spending to the food she consumes. Nora appears cheerful and childlike, her
enthusiasm about Torvald’s raise and promotion unbridled even in the face of a
downtrodden childhood friend, Mrs. Linde, arriving for a visit. However, as Nora speaks
with Mrs. Linde, she hints at the fact that she is not as childlike as she may appear, for
she saved Torvald’s life by raising the money to take him to Italy to recuperate from an
illness. When Mr. Krogstad, an employee at Torvald’s bank, arrives, the main action of
the play begins. Krogstad lent the money to Nora, and in order to secure his position at
the bank, he will blackmail Nora with the fact that she illegally signed the contract for her
dying father. 

The play comes to a climax when Torvald reads Krogstad’s letter. Nora, convinced of
Torvald’s utter love for her, believes that a “wonderful thing” will happen, showing once
and for all that Torvald would sacrifice anything for her well-being. She believes that
Torvald will take the blame for the forgery himself, sacrificing his own reputation for hers
and balancing out the sacrifice she made to save Torvald’s life. But when Torvald reads
the letter, he never considers sacrificing his reputation, as “no man would sacrifice his
honor for the one he loves.” As Torvald rages at her, Nora’s delusions about her
marriage and her life suddenly shatter, and she realizes that Torvald has always viewed
and treated her as a doll to be shaped any way he pleases. In order to understand
herself and engage with the world on her own terms, Nora leaves Torvald and her
children to start a new life, where she knows herself as a human being above all. 

Nora craves freedom and happiness, but up until the very end of the play, her
definitions of these things are skewed by the conventional society she grew up in.
Though the lie around the forgery initially threatens Nora’s marriage, its actual
destruction comes via the revelation of the truth. In the face of Torvald’s rage, Nora
sees that the real lie is the one she has been living. Her decision to leave Torvald
represents her first chance to find true freedom, which she now defines as the ability to
make her own choices. Nora’s entire outlook on life shifts by the end of the play, and
she now understands that marriage needs equality to work. Whether Nora ever returns
to Torvald and the children remains ambiguous, leaving the audience to wonder
whether true, fulfilling matrimony is possible in a society that holds one gender in
greater esteem than the other. 
A Doll’s House Quotes: Gender Roles | SparkNotes. (2022). SparkNotes.

https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/dollhouse/quotes/theme/gender-roles/