Ibsen’s Nora: A Character Analysis

Nora in A Dolls House (1888) represents the oppressed woman of all ages. She begins as a conventional housewife dominated by her conserve Torvald Helmer. From the role of a docile housewife she gradually emerges as a rebel with a cause. In the last decade of nineteenth century she got worldwide attention as a uncontrollable protagonist who fought against patriarchy. However, she begins as a conventional housewife of nineteenth century and it is the force of circumstances that brings rough a sudden awakening in her.She stormed the complacent society, and the play became the subject of debates and discussions. She challenges the male domination by slamming the door on her puritan husband and leaving his three small children. She refuses to live with a outlander who treats her as a doll wife, imposes all his restrictions on her, but does not support her at the superlative crisis of her life. In Pillars of Society Ibsen also created a liberated woman named Lona Hessel, the protagoni st who surpassed the male characters and thereby introduced a new dimension to drama.The most striking thing about Noras character is her mental growth. In the first and second Acts Nora dutifully plays the roles of a devoted mother preparing for Christmas and a wife who dares to forge her returns signature to defray the expenses of a trip to Italy for the restoration of her husbands health. As a member of patriarchal society she accepts the affectionate pet names given by her condescending husband such as little squirrel , little skylark little featherbrain and little scatterbrain.(Ibsen.148).Her delight at her husbands promotion as bank manager with promise of heaps and heaps of notes(p.155) is eclipsed by the emergence of a Machiavellian blackmailer named Krogstad. Nora makes a desperate attempt to live merrily and peacefully by reinstating Krogstad, who is also implicated in forgery, but gets involved in more lying. yet Helmer refuses to be seen influenced by his wife. Helme rs vanity is hurt by Christian name calling by his classmate which Nora thinks as petty.Throughout the play her innocence is interpreted by Helmer and Mrs.Linde as immaturity. She tells Nora You are unless baby, Nora(p.158) To Helmer she at times appears to be extremely obstinate and irresponsible(p.187).Without this trait, her desertion of her husband and children for going on a solo journey of self-education and self-discovery would not be dramatically convincing. At the climax she waits for the miracle to cede her from the blackmailer but it never happens.A letter from Krogstad shatters their eight-year-old conjugal life. She charges her husband You and Papa have committed a grievous sin against me Its your fault that Ive made nothing of my life.(p.226) But Helmer was alike much of a prig to regard her anything more than a spendthrift wife. Her responsible act of borrow money on her own is so much frowned upon by him that he calls her a liar, a hypocrite even worse a crim inal (p.221) He considers her unfit to bring up the children, and later laments that he is brought so pitifully low all because of a shiftless woman. (p.221) Yet after the critical stead is saved by Mrs.Linde, Nora emphatically rejects the proposal of perpetuating the faade of marital life only in the eyeball of the world of course.(p.221)Nora is not simply the protagonist of A Dolls House, she has become the symbol of womens protest against the dead laws, conventions and the religions of all society. Her awakening is every womans awakening. Her assertion for individual license has a universal appeal I must stand on my own feet if Im to get to know myself and the world outside. (p.227)Work CitedWatts, Peter (Trnsl.). Ibsen Plays. Harmondsworth. Penguin. 1965All quotations are from this edition.November 19, 2007Youll see Im man enough to take it all on myself.p.190Nora is affected vy Helmers be finessef that an atmosphere of lie and hypocrisy of a mother vitiates the atmosphere of a home Nora is pale with fear and says in regret Corrupt my little children poison my home? Thats not true It could never, never be true. P.181 ..Nora is awefully fightened to befog the truth