Assessment Type 1: Shared Study
Single Text: A Doll’s House – Scene Annotation
Act I (Pages 147-149)
A comfortable room, furnished inexpensively, but with taste. In the back wall there are two doors; that to the right leads out to a hall, the other, to the left, leads to Helmer’s study. Between them stands a piano.
In the middle of the left-hand wall is a door, with a window on its nearer side. Near the window is a round table with armchairs and a small sofa. In the wall on the right-hand side, rather to the back, is a door, and farther forward on this wall there is a tiled stove with a couple of easy chairs and a rocking-chair in front of it. Between the door and the stove stands a little table.
There are etchings on the walls, and there is a cabinet with china ornaments and other bric-a-brac, and a small bookcase with handsomely bound books. There is a carpet on the floor, and the stove is lit. It is a winter day.
[A bell rings in the hall outside, and a moment later the door is heard to open. NORA comes into the room, humming happily. She is in outdoor clothes, and is carrying an armful of parcels which she puts down on the table to the right. Through the hall door, which she has left open, can be seen a PORTER; he is holding a Christmas tree and a hamper, and he gives them to the MAID who has opened the front door.]
NORA: Hide the Christmas tree properly, Helena. The children mustn’t see it till this evening, when it’s been decorated. [To the PORTER, taking out her purse] How much is that?
PORTER: Fifty ore.
NORA: There’s a krone. No, keep the change. [The PORTER thanks her and goes. NORA shut the door, and takes off her outdoor clothes, laughing quietly and happily to herself. Taking a bag of macaroons from her pocket, she eats one or two, then goes cautiously to her husband’s door and listens.]
Yes, he’s in. [She starts humming again as she goes over to the table on the right.]
HELMER: [from his study] Is that my little skylark twittering out there? NORA: [busy opening the parcels]: It is.
HELMER: Scampering about like a little squirrel?
NORA: Yes.
HELMER: When did the squirrel get home?
NORA: Just this minute. [She slips the bag of macaroons in her pocket and wipes her mouth.] Come in here, ‘Torvald, and you can see what I’ve bought.
HELMER: I’m busy! [A moment later he opens the door and looks out, pen in hand.] Did you say ‘bought’? What, all that? Has my little featherbrain been out wasting money again?
NORA: But, Torvald, surely this year we can let ourselves go just for a little bit? It’s the first Christmas that we haven’t had to economize.
HELMER: Still, we mustn’t waste money, you know.
NORA: Oh, Torvald, surely we can waste a little now – just the teeniest bit? Now that you’re going to earn a big salary, you’ll have lots and lots of money.
HELMER: After New Year’s Day, yes – but there’ll be a whole quarter before I get paid.
NORA: Pooh, we can always borrow till then.
HELMER: Nora! [He goes to her and takes her playfully by the ear.] The same little scatterbrain. Just suppose I borrowed a thousand kroner today and you went and spent it all by Christmas, and then on New Year’s Eve a tile fell on my head, and there I lay –
NORA [putting a hand over his mouth]: Sh! Don’t say such horrid things!
HELMER: But suppose something of the sort were to happen…
NORA: If anything as horrid as that were to happen, I don’t expect I should care whether I owed money or not.
HELMER: Then what about the people I’d borrowed from?
NORA: Them? Who bothers about them? They’re just strangers.
HELMER: Nora, Nora! Just like a woman! But seriously, Nora, you know what I think about that sort of thing. No debts, no borrowing. There’s something constrained, something ugly even, about a home that’s founded on borrowing and debt. You and I have managed to keep clear up till now, and we shall still do so for a little time that is left.
NORA [going over to the stove]: Very well, Torvald, if you say so.
1000 words (only counting annotations)
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