Preview

In a doll's house summary

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1058 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
In a doll's house summary
“In A Doll’s House” has a few different themes that are shown throughout the movie. It has a lot to do with the sacrificial role held by women of all economic classes in society, the low position that women have in their society and how men always have to control their women, and the life of what is known as a “trophy wife”.
The theme that shows the sacrificial role of women in their society can be seen throughout the movie. In general, the play’s female characters exemplify Nora’s assertion that even though men refuse to sacrifice their integrity, “hundreds of thousands of women have.” In order to support her mother and two brothers, Mrs. Linde found it necessary to abandon Krogstad, her true but penniless love, and married a richer man. The nanny had to abandon her own child to support herself by working as Nora’s (and then as Nora’s children’s) caretaker. As she tells Nora, the nanny considers herself lucky to have found the job, since she was “a poor girl who’d been led astray”. We can also see that Nora goes through a great deal of sacrifice during the play. Towards the beginning of the play, we learn that Nora makes a loan with a fake signature all to help her husband to get the treatment he needs. On top of that, Nora’s abandonment of her children can also be interpreted as an act of self-sacrifice. In spite of her tremendous love for her children, which can clearly be seen by the way she interacts with them and her great fear of corrupting them, she leaves them. Nora truly believes that the nanny will be a better mother and that leaving her children is in their best interest.
The theme that women have a low status in society is one of the main aspects of the play. Though Nora is economically advantaged in comparison to the play’s other female characters, she still lives a difficult life because society dictates that Torvald be the marriage’s dominant partner. Torvald issues decrees and condescends to Nora, and Nora must hide her loan from him because she

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    A Doll's House Act 1

    • 290 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The exposition is setup in Act 1 where the characters are introduced and Nora getting a loan to help with his illness that he is not aware of. The inciting incident is when Torvald talks of becoming the bank president and the raise he will receive has Nora thinking she will be able to pay the loan off early. The rising action starts when Korgstad tries to blackmail Nora to help him keep his job at the bank by saying he would not let her husband know about the loan she had if she would help him to keep his job. When this does not work, Korgstad writes a letter to Torvald to explain to him about Nora's loan. Mrs. Linde tells Nora she should tell her husband about the note before he finds out some other way. Korgstad drops the letter in the mailbox and Nora tries to keep Torvald from reading it. The climax is when Torvald reads the letter, becomes outraged at Nora and tells her how she has ruin his life and reputation and she is just like her father. The maid brings another note addressed to Nora from Krogstad and Torvald reads this and sees that he has dropped the note so she would not have to worry about repaying the rest of it. Torvald ask for Nora's forgiveness but it is too late and she is going to leave him. She told him that he never loved her and after what he said, she did not love him either. She tells him she must find herself and become independent because she had been sheltered all her life by her father and Torvald. She walks out the door and never looks…

    • 290 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nora and Torvald are a married couple and been taking on many challenges in their relationship.Torvald basically takes care of and provides for Nova and their children. During their conversation in Act 3 it talks about how she was been transferred from her father’s hands to torvald hands. Nora feels like torvald is treating her like a poor women from hand to mouth. This means that he is treating her like she can’t do for herself. Torvald is taking over her life and when her father was alive he did the same that’s why her life consist of nothing. Torvald is very physically controlling, treats Nora like she’s a child and doesn't trust her with money. The expression Nora used as “ doll child” and “doll wife” is that her life was controlled by her husband and father. By expression her feelings she tells torvald how she feels. She says, “You and Papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life.”. She doesn’t have anything to fall back on besides what her husband gives her. She can’t do anything on her own without getting an approval from Torvald.…

    • 592 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A woman sheltered by an awful man, turning into a woman breaking free from a helpless man. Ibsen’s A Doll’s House shows evidence that it is written with a feminist agenda. Nora is treated like border line trash the whole play in comparison to her husband. She is called weak, unintelligent, and needy. She is called terrible names the whole time, demeaning her role as a woman. Even the title of the play supports it being themed on feminism. A Doll’s House may have reason to be seen as a play about humanism, but the main theme is indeed…

    • 582 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There appears to be yet another theme within this story line, and that is how women fit in in society. The entire story is focused around a certain women, who is not happy with her place in society, so therefore she decides to change her role in society. Within the story it is easy to see that women are automatically placed in a certain role in society, simply because of their gender. Women are not given the option, but rather forced to settle for the only role society feels women are capable of. So therefore when Nora decides that she does not want to be a part of this role that society has forced on her, she showed other women that they too could in fact go above and beyond what society expects from them. Which in the 18th century things…

    • 252 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Her life was ruled and controlled by her husband Torvald. Her husband especially did not respect or treat Nora with equality. Nora spent eight years of her life with Torvald, and that is where she had made a huge mistake. Nora found out her husband’s true colours when it was too late, if she had found out who her husband really was and how the love he was showing to Nora was nothing but false she could have left her husband before the eight years and lived her life with freedom. Nora can find someone that actually treats her with respects, equality, and with…

    • 449 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This oral presentation helped me deepen my understanding of the role of women during the time period that the play takes place in. Compared to our current society, women are extremely limited in terms of what they are allowed to do overall. Most women are subjects of their husband, and must conform to their demands and requests. Nora is a great example of this, as Torvald controls most aspects of her life. He forbids Nora from doing basic things, such as checking the mail. This raised the question discussed in the oral: Is Nora a coward or brave for leaving Torvald and her family? One could argue that it was a cowardly move because she is leaving Torvald to support his children by himself, therefore taking away any influence a mother figure…

    • 365 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The play also shows how Mrs. Linde has matured and Nora has not. Nora initially appears flighty and excitable, her main concern seems to be charming her husband and being the perfect wife. It is Christmas eve and she is excited about showing Torvald what she has bought for gifts and decorating the Christmas tree. Mrs. Linde, on the other hand, has arrived in town looking for a job (and Mr. Krogstad)and makes no mention of Christmas. She and Nora reminisce about their days as school girls and she is very interested when she hears the news that Torvald is going to be manager of a bank, hoping that he will give her a position there.…

    • 874 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Yet as the plays progresses, Nora has a major growth development. Her development allows the audience to notice how she has become a strong-willed, independent woman rather than the childish woman who is crazy about her husband. Nora’s portrayal in Act I is that of a stereotypical woman, one who spends and wants money.…

    • 996 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nora is the protagonist in “A Doll’s House”, and the audience has a constant view of how the patriarchy impacts her throughout the play, as she is on almost always during the play. The impact the patriarchy has on Nora progresses more and more until it is clear that Nora is deeply unsatisfied with life and that she cannot bare her married life anymore. She even considers suicide, shown by the lines “Never, never. Oh, the freezing black water! The depths—down— Oh, I wish it were over” . This alone shows the watcher of the play the desperation that Nora feels, and sheds light onto the context of the play, set in the 19th century. Women were forbidden to borrow money without a signature of a husband or father, and a forged signature by a women…

    • 541 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen, portrays a young married woman, Nora, who plays a dramatic role of deception and self-indulgence. The author creates a good understanding of a woman’s role by assuming Nora is an average housewife who does not work; her only job is to maintain the house and raise the children like a stereotypical woman that cannot work or help society. In reality, she is not an average housewife in that she has a hired maid who deals with the house and children. Although Ibsen focuses on these “housewife” attributes, Nora’s character is ambitious, naive, and somewhat cunning. She hides a dark secret from her husband that not only includes borrowing money, but also forgery. Nora’s choices were irrational; she handled the situations very poorly in this play by keeping everything a secret. The way that women were viewed in this time period created a barrier that she could not overcome. The decisions that had the potential to be good were otherwise molded into appalling ones. Women should have just as many rights as men and should not be discriminated by gender; but they should also accept consequences in the same way without a lesser or harsher punishment.…

    • 3445 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Doll's House

    • 368 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In A Dolls’ House the stories’ two main protagonists Nora and Torvald Helmer which is a married couple experiences many things while being married. And in most cases money brought forth the bulk of their problems, which eventually caused the relationship to split apart. However many people looked at the couples’ relationship from the exterior and thought it was legit. Another character in the play, Nora’s close friend Ms. Linde views the Helmers as a married couple who lives comfortable enough to afford things that she usually cannot. Even though the Helmers’ household is taken care of financially, it is in disarray due to lies, and deceit. On the outside it looks fine as Nora could be compared to a doll; looking nice and well kept together. In reality Nora has hid from her husband that she have been repaying a debt for years from when her and her husband took a trip to Italy. The reader also learns that Nora secretly forged the signature of her deceased father. Out of all the things that happened within the story Torvald eventually finds out about what’s been going on and is outraged. He calls Nora a hypocrite and a liar and complains that she has ruined his happiness. He declares that she will not be allowed to raise their children. And as a result the married couple are separated. The symbol “doll house” really help functions in the work of revealing the characters because it shows Nora as a doll who you would think is squeaky clean and flawless, but deep down inside is…

    • 368 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Doll S House Symbol

    • 647 Words
    • 2 Pages

    For Nora, the young beautiful wife of Torvald, money is her addiction. It serves as the driving force for her to break the law when her husband becomes ill. Her whole life is turns upside down when what she seeks most is money and can't get it without taking illegal actions. Without a signature from her father she can't take out money because she is a woman. In this situation, money helps bring up an important theme in this play which is woman’s roles. Nora, as well as other characters, use money to fulfill their needs and we as readers are able to see the relationships between men and women in the household when it is involved. So again the play is brought back to money and a man named Krogstad, who is shunned by sociaty, helps Nora out but this puts her in his debt. Through her constant begging for money from her husband, Nora's life also becomes a constant lying game. Even though Nora had taken odd jobs and worked part time as a copier, it was not enough. When Krogstad threatens to blackmail her by telling Torvald what she had done, Nora begins to panic. Nora is then forced to pay back Krogstad and we can see and feel her desperation to find common ground. She is torn between paying her dues for relief and letting Torvald find out what she has done so he can fix it and become furious with her.…

    • 647 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In assessing the relationship which Torvald and Nora share, it is most significant that we consider the Victorian gender roles at the time. In a time such as that one, both Torvald and Nora would be pressured and bred to mold themselves according to these gender rules. When you’re raised a certain way and it is ingrained in you that you are expected to be a certain way, you will. Additionally, they would also expect their spouse to do the same. In Victorian times, there were two clear roles that a man and woman were supposed to play in a marriage. Essentially, the man was responsible for protecting, guarding and most of all, ensuring financial security for his wife. This can be observed in A Dollshouse several times. A blatant example is how Nora receives all her spending money from Torvald. Like a child, she receives allowances and sums of money to take care of the household expenses as well as for herself. To exemplify, I extracted an interaction between the couple that takes place when Torvald presents Nora with a sum of money.…

    • 2148 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Doll's House Essay

    • 605 Words
    • 3 Pages

    I can never really trust my eyes to tell me the unguarded truth if someone wishes for the truth to be concealed. The line between what is real or not real is often misconceived, especially in a society such as the one in A Doll’s House. Henrik Ibsen, the writer of this enthralling play, intended to show just how obscure the lines were in Victorian society. A Doll’s House is a story about how a young woman is so dazed by her society’s expectations that she doesn’t even realize the role deception plays in her life to help her appear as the perfect wife, when in reality she aspires to become her own person.…

    • 605 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Doll's House Women

    • 686 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Since men and women were unequal in that time, she had trouble identifying herself. Nora had to sacrifice her identity to live an unhappy marriage and life. Throughout her whole life, she was being completely controlled by her father and husband. She tried to do her own things in the marriage, but her husband wanted to be more dominant. In the end, she gave up everything in the fake marriage to find her…

    • 686 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays