Introduction
Purpose: To analyze Nora’s hidden personality through her doll-like existence.
Thesis: Torvald Helmer takes pleasure in his position as Nora’s husband by constantly teasing her to financial straits, playfully reprimanding her when he feels she is spending too much, or acting against his will. Ironically, Nora seems affectionately happy despite her husband’s lack of ethics towards her. However, Nora depicts bravery, intelligence, and an understanding of business when Torvald becomes sick. Nora obscures her authentic personality and abilities from her husband. He treats her like a baby, pampering her yet articulating his masculine superiority by belittling her.
Nora’s Commitment to Family
Nora is a hardworking woman who values her family and, most importantly, is submissive to her condescending husband. She takes time to shop for Christmas gifts when she gets financial support from her husband (Ibsen 68). On the other hand, when she lacks financial support, she takes weeks to make Christmas gifts. Nora depends on her husband entirely for financial support. Nora takes it happily because she does not have a job, even when her husband belittles her when he gives her money. Nora does not have financial freedom, as is the norm and culture that women are not allowed to venture into financial endeavors. Nora lives most of her life attending to people’s needs and trying to help them. When her friend requests her to ask her husband Torvald for a job opportunity, Norah does so without hesitance. However, Nora would have asked her husband for that opportunity, yet she does not because her husband dolls her up. Nora takes care of her children and even plays with them, even though they have servants responsible for raising them. She also attends to her husband’s needs as often as he requires her to attend to him. Nora is obedient, a typical submissive model wife (Ibsen 68). She seems happy to the public even though she is limited financially and in making personal decisions, otherwise would not wish for this kind of family.
Nora’s Secretive Persona
Nora is very secretive as she stealthily takes up a loan when her husband becomes ill without his knowledge. Nora forges her late father’s signature with the help of a man named Krogard, who blackmails her (Ibsen 68). Norah took the loan as soon as her husband got sick, and she did not say a word about having the money until her husband’s illness reached its peak, and he had to travel to a different place to recover. The doctor treating Nora’s husband tells her that her husband’s death is nearing, and Norah does not speak to her husband about death (Ibsen 68). Norah tells her husband that her father gave her the money for free. Nora feels compelled to hide that she worked for the money for years to repay it. She acts as the doled-up and spoilt woman her husband Torvald expects her to be.
Nora is deceitful and manipulates her husband through her beauty when he asks her about her deceitful acts. For example, her husband forbade her from eating macaroons, and she defied those instructions and ate it (Ibsen 68). Torvald asks her about the macaroons and denies being or eating them, manipulating him to believe her through the ‘little squirrel’ guise (Ibsen 68). She uses the little squirrel persona to manipulate her husband into hiring one of her friends and stopping him from firing Krogstad. Nora’s actions of deceit and manipulation are not intentional. She does these things out of a lack of power in her marriage. She cannot be open and straightforward with her husband as he would not meet most of her pleas due to her limited power (Ibsen 68). She goes on with her malicious acts as she feels she has to lie to her husband for him to accept to do her favors. Nora’s fears show her husband that she is intelligent and competent, for she does not want him to treat her differently.
Nora’s Ignorance and Self-Doubt
Nora plays her role in her marriage ignorantly and lacks confidence. She deceitfully takes up a loan and thinks her husband would feel obligated to face the consequences of her actions after the blackmail. Nora’s husband acts as noble and actively seems involved in her endeavors (Ibsen 68). She thinks that her husband would take responsibility for her actions just as she encourages her childish and charming wife character. When Nora is blackmailed, and her husband believes Krogstad s allegations against her, Nora feels that she does not know her husband’s true personality and that her husband does not know her deeply too (Ibsen 68). Norah expects her husband to take responsibility for the consequences because her husband consequently stands there for her and expects nothing from her than just being a wife. The persona of Nora expecting her husband to take responsibility was also adopted by her father (Ibsen 68). Nora’s father underestimated her capabilities and subjected her to a submissive role in life. Nora’s reliance on her husband arises from her commitment to conform to society’s expectation of a perfect wife, which causes the illusions she develops about her husband ignorantly.
Nora’s Naïve Personality
Nora is desperate and naive and is willing to sacrifice for her husband. She constantly fears her husband’s actions against her once she finds out about the issue of forgery. Nora expects him to take responsibility on his behalf, yet thinks it is shameful for her husband to take responsibility for her actions. Out of the shameful thoughts, Nora contemplates suicide but then changes her mind when she realizes that her husband is not as willing to sacrifice himself for her as she is (Ibsen 68). Norah thought that her husband would do a wonderful thing after finding out about her forgery issue, a concept that changes when she realizes that he is not willing to sacrifice himself. In contrast, Nora’s husband thinks that Norah is not a good mother and he cannot allow her to raise their children in deceit (Ibsen 68). Norah expects her husband to be willing to sacrifice himself for her because she thinks that in wedlock, sacrifice is mutual. She thinks her husband would be amused by her decision to take up a loan so he can get treated and be willing to sacrifice for him, which does not happen.
Conclusion
Nora hides her true personality of being competent and intelligent from her husband s she feels that he would treat her differently if he knew her true personality. She covers her true persona in manipulation, deceit, tameness, false happiness, and submissiveness. Nora does not mind her defenseless nature derived from her husband’s belittling nicknames; such as the squirrel and skylark. However, her true persona is competence, boldness, independence, maturity, and intelligence, which she expresses through deceit, and manipulation. The deeper reason for her deceit and manipulation is that society expects her to be a perfect wife, a character she tries to put up. Her husband’s nature of dominance and patronizing contributes to Nora’s hidden personality.
Work Cited
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House. Google Books, Lindhardt og Ringhof, 2022, p. 68, Web.