A Doll's House Belonging Analysis

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Nora, seemingly, has a strong male that fulfils her needs for belongingness and love throughout the novel. Torvald and Nora have a very affectionate relationship, with Torvald referring to Nora with names such as ‘little skylark’ and ‘squirrel’. Nora also seems to feel this love, as she frequently acknowledges how her husband loves her, even stating that the ‘time will never come’ when Torvald will stop loving her. Through this relationship, it is easy to see that Nora’s psychological needs for love and belongingness are fulfilled through her marriage. However, Nora does not wish to share the news of the loan with Torvald as she believes it would ‘completely wreck their relationship’; she needs someone else to become her confidante. This role …show more content…

Nora’s character development is colossal between acts one and three, epitomised by her telling the nurse ‘I have everything I need’ in act one, and telling Torvald she ‘has never been happy’ in Act 3. It is in Act three Nora realises she has no true sense of self, that although indeed, she has been provided with her survival and psychological needs, she ‘has done nothing with her life’, as she has never had any chance for self-actualisation. As she says, she has felt like ‘a pauper’ in her home, as her husband is the only provider. Significantly, she suggests her ‘home has never been anything but a playroom’, suggesting that her life does not have any true meaning. Perhaps this is implying that although from an outside point of view, Nora’s life and marriage seems perfect, from the inside, it is hollow due to Nora’s inability to achieve self-actualization. Ibsen stages the entire play in one room: the living room. This means the audience can not only highlights how seemingly one-dimensional Nora’s life is, but gives only one perspective for her to see Nora’s life. This staging choice also gives the play quite a still, almost sterile feel, as it makes it clear to the audience how Nora is trapped in her life. Due to this, when ‘the street door is slammed shut downstairs’ it is all the more poignant, as it is really the first time Nora has truly overpowered her husband. This revelation is extremely important in shaping the audiences opinion of Nora, as before this moment, she could come across quite helpless, but her acknowledgement that she ‘passed from papa’s hand to [Torvalds]’ makes her finally self – aware of how reliant she has been, and how her entire personality has been shaped by the men who have ruled her. From this realisation, we see how, in terms of Nora’s self-actualization needs, she must ‘do by myself’, implying that it is only in the

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