Ibsen’s Nora: A Character Analysis

Nora in A Dolls signaling (1888) represents the oppressed woman of each ages. She begins as a conventional woman of the house dominated by her maintain Torvald Helmer. From the role of a docile woman of the house she gradually emerges as a rebel with a cause. In the stand up decade of ordinal century she got worldwide attention as a rebellious relay station who fought against patriarchy. However, she begins as a conventional housewife of nineteenth century and it is the force of circumstances that brings about a sudden alter in her.She stormed the complacent monastic order, and the play became the subject of debates and discussions. She challenges the mannish domination by slamming the door on her puritan husband and leaving his three splendid children. She refuses to live with a stranger who treats her as a doll wife, imposes all his restrictions on her, but does not support her at the greatest crisis of her sprightliness. In Pillars of Society Ibsen also created a liber ated woman named Lona Hessel, the protagonist who surpassed the male characters and thereby introduced a new dimension to drama.The most striking involvement about Noras character is her mental growth. In the first and heartbeat Acts Nora dutifully plays the roles of a devoted go preparing for Christmas and a wife who dares to go her fathers signature to defray the expenses of a trip to Italy for the riposte of her husbands health. As a member of patriarchal society she accepts the affectionate pet names given by her condescending husband such as elfin 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 money(p.155) is eclipsed by the emergence of a Machiavellian blackmailer named Krogstad. Nora makes a desperate start to live happily and peacefully by reinstating Krogstad, who is also implicated in forgery, but gets involved in more than lying. But Helmer r efuses to be seen influenced by his wife. Helmers vanity is hurt by Christian name concern by his classmate which Nora thinks as petty.Throughout the play her innocence is understand by Helmer and Mrs.Linde as immaturity. She tells Nora You are only 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 save 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 vigor of my life.(p.226) But Helmer was too much of a prig to regard her anything more than a spendthrift wife. Her responsible act of borrowing money on her own is so much frowned upon by him that he calls he r a liar, a hypocrite even worse a criminal (p.221) He considers her modify to bring up the children, and later laments that he is brought so pitifully confused all because of a shiftless woman. (p.221) Yet after the critical state of affairs is saved by Mrs.Linde, Nora emphatically rejects the proposal of perpetuating the faade of marital life only in the eyes of the world of course.(p.221)Nora is not simply the protagonist of A Dolls House, she has become the symbol of womens defy against the dead laws, conventions and the religions of all society. Her awakening is every womans awakening. Her self-reliance for individual freedom has a universal appeal I must stand on my own feet if Im to get to agnize 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 affect vy Helmers belief that an atmosphere of l ie and hypocrisy of a mother vitiates the atmosphere of a home Nora is pale with fear and says in trouble Corrupt my little children poison my home? Thats not true(a) It could never, never be true. P.181 ..Nora is awefully fightened to hide the truth