Nora's Ceases to be a Doll

In A Doll's House, a play by Henrik Ibsen; Nora, is a passive character with little personality of her own. Her life itself reflects of society's norms and expectations of women. Her whole life is a joke and she lives in a fantasy, until she finally realizes it. One overshadowing trait about Nora is that she is irresponsible with money, which leaders to conflict in the play and also leads her to stray from the norms of her society.

In the beginning, Nora is childlike and lackadaisical. The first act starts with Nora and the delivery body. His service costs 50-p., but she gives him a hundred. An additional 50-p. may not seem like a significant amount of money, but the way in which she is not patient enough to wait for change shows that she is careless with money. Later in the first act, Torvald, Nora's husband forbids her from purchasing candy and chastises her for being a "spendthrift". This clearly shows that Nora's husband thinks she irresponsibly spends money and must rule over her to make sure she does not spend excessively.

When Nora is first introduced, she is seen more like a child than a grown woman. this reflects Nora's attitude towards her place in society and shows hat she is living in a fantasy. For example, Nora is always trying to make herself happy by spending money. She buys dresses, toys, candy etc., instead of working on her relationship with Torvald or her children. She never spend serious time with her husband, and always leaves her children to their nurse. Throughout her fantasy life, Nora is passive and becomes an object of her husband, rather than doing anything meaningful. As a result, Torvald is possessive of her and treats her like a "doll" instead of a human being. This is reflected in the pet names ...

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...ids her to leave, since it would look badly upon both of them. In her last act of defiance against Torvald and the society she lives in, Nora lets Torvald know that she is independent and can dictate her own actions, then leaves.

Nora and Torvald both conform to their society's norms throughout the play, until Nora's irresponsibility with money shatters the illusion of their lives. Nora starts off as a passive and typical housewife of her time, but as the play advances, her conflict with Krogstad shows how she is slowly straying away from what would be her place in society. By the end of the play when Torvald find out about the blackmail and refuses to defend her, her perceived reality is completely shattered. She then realizes the sham she's been living and take the bold step of breaking away from Torvald and her traditional role in society as a wife and mother.