Nora Helmer, wife of Torvald Helmer is
the protagonist of the celebrated realistic play 'A Doll House' (1879) by Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906). The change in her
personality from a submissive wife to an assertive woman is taken as the most
important move of the plot in this play. In this development, Nora's final
meeting with her husband Helmer (whom she is going to leave) is the climax. Understanding
this very episode provides the audience with the central controversy associated
with Nora's role: is she right in leaving home. In deed, the scene of her
meeting with Helmer is essentially crux of the play as it includes the landmark
move in the plot, that is Nora's daring defiance against her doll position.
In this meeting, Nora begins to claim
her value of self along with independence and dignity. She eloquently expresses
how important it is to live as a self, rather than wife or a mother of someone.
Thus the meeting marks Nora's journey from innocence to knowledge of her
position in Helmer family in particular, and position of women in then
patriarchal society in general.
As soon as Kristine suggests Nora that
it is better to tell Helmer everything regarding forgery, Nora begins to
realize her position in the family. Earlier, she had expected Kristine to help
negotiate with Krogstad to withdraw the letter that he has put in Helmer's
mailbox. But though Kristine comes back with the green signal that he will
withdraw the letter, Nora can not be happy. She has now realized that so far
she has been just a doll wife for Helmer, and thus is determined not to
continue the position. So, she tells Kristine, "I know now what's to be
done".
Before he opens the mailbox and finds
the letter from Krogstad, Helmer is completely unaware of the change that Nora
is undergoing that night. Thus, he addresses Nora as in the dominating way as
he does normally, "Oh, you bewitchingly lovely young woman" .
But, Nora begins to show her knowledge of self position here, "Torvald,
don't look at me like that!...You mustn't talk to me that way tonight" . Torvald doesn't understand all these at this moment so continues to
lower her position in the form of "love". But as he reads the letter
from Krogstad later, he hurls his masculine rage over Nora quite explicitly.
It is Nora who asks Helmer to open the
mailbox and lets him know the truth. She had a great fear of this exposition
earlier, but now she herself is motivating him to read the letter. This event
can also represent change in her perception of self that she now thinks she can
hide any truth no more. In other words, she has begun preparing herself
confident and brave to face any truth. Thus, before Helmer calls her, she prepares
herself to face the situation and starts for the hall and then open door toward
Helmer's study room.
"I'm beginning to understand
everything now" is one of the important first sentences that Nora
speaks with Helmer that night. After that, she goes on proving how she is
beginning to understand everything. She, for the first time in eight year long
marriage life, requests her husband to sit and talk seriously together,
"Tonight I'm not sleeping… Sit down, Torvald; we have a lot to talk over". When Torvald answers that he doesn't understand what she is doing, Nora
again assertively claims that it is not only today that he fails to understand
her, but it always has been so between them, "…that's exactly it. You
don't understand me. And I've never understood you either - until tonight" . Later, she perceives this
understanding as the greatest knowledge that she got throughout her life. When
Torvald accuses her that she is senseless - "out of your head" - she
claims, "I've never felt more clearheaded and sure in my life" (than
this night). In deed, recognition of self is the most important knowledge
in one's life; thus Nora has proper rights to claim that.
In this very conversation, Nora speaks
of how she has been a doll and the house has been a doll house (and this
revelation gives the title for the play). She explicitly expresses that she is
never loved in this house, but Torvald only "thought it fun to be in love
with" her. As a submissive wife,
she has been suppressing her wills and emotions but confirming her husband's
feelings and desires as her own. In other words, she couldn't live the life on
her own from the very beginning; but it took her so long time up to this point
to understand it so that she is now able to defy. Before marriage, she has been
a doll child for her father and after marriage a doll wife for the husband. She
is treated as inanimate doll, who doesn't have own feelings, emotions, desires,
wishes, values, opinions; but only can support those of her "masters"
(the father and the husband). She tells
Torvald, "You arranged everything to your own taste, and so I got the same
taste as you - or I pretended to… it seems as if I'd lived here like a beggar -
just from hand to mouth". She also reveals that she is never happy
in this place and never felt that she has been loved, but "only
lighthearted."
Torvald tries to stop her defiance with
the means of morality and religion. But, Nora here questions values of both
morality and religion. "…You are not the man to teach me to be a good wife
to you", says Nora as the daring step to detach herself from bond
with Helmer (and by extension with children). Torvald in response persuades her
that she has duties toward her husband and children, as assigned by the "most
sacred vows" of religion and culture. But Nora answers, "I believe
that before all else, I'm a human being, no less than you - or anyway, I ought
to try to become one". She has already told him that duties to self
are equally (or even more) important than duties to family; and she also has to
educate herself. Thus her leaving home has been justified as an initiative to
"discover herself and the world out there." Critic Muriel C Bradbrook
in her review 'A Doll's House: Ibsen the
Moralist' (1948) analyses it: "In leaving her husband Nora is seeking
a fuller life as a human being. She is emancipating herself".
Nora questions lack of mutuality in
their marital relationship and states it as a reason why Torvald is denied of
her love. Nora explains that she has sacrificed her whole "self" for
Torvald and the family for eight years. But, she is not happy now that Torvald
didn't help her in the point of crisis; he didn't return her the sacrifice that
she had offered and had expected the same from him. She uses the metaphor of
"miracle" here. The word "miracle" in a sense seems
satiric, as it happens only in imagination, but not in real life. With this,
Nora tries to assert her voice that in her traditional family life, husband's
support to wife as equal as she supports him is really impossible; it is only
"miracle" and she herself was wrong in expecting it.
Torvald has already become helpless and
tries to defend him with arguments. He explains that he too has been working
for the wife and the family "day and night". But, he must not have
expected such answer from Nora that "millions of women have done just
that".
As the final step of defiance of her
doll position and detachment from him and the family, she calls him "a
stranger." After she explains her position that Helmer takes so far -
"I was exactly the same, your little lark, your doll, that you'd have to
handle with double care" - she "gets up" to defy that position
and claims, "…for eight years I've been living here with a stranger". Though they have been living together, Nora's independent identity has
never been recognized by Torvald, she has just been taken as an entertainer, a
"doll" for him. Perhaps, this is why the critic Muriel C Bradbrook
writes, "Nora's marriage becomes eight years' prostitution, as she
gradually learns the true nature of her relations with Torvald and the true
nature of Torvald's feelings for her". Thus, she instantly goes on
to leave the home, despite it is night time; because she "can't spend a
night in strange man's room". She tells him that it takes "the
greatest miracle of all" for Helmer to become more than a stranger. But,
she adds, "I have stopped believing in miracles", suggesting
that she will not return to her submissive position once she bravely defies it.
Finally, Torvald seems to realize his
past mistakes; and is very unhappy that Nora is leaving him. He wants to be in
contact. But Nora in this stage is so persistent on her own that she wants
equal freedom for both of them from each other - "Don't feel yourself
bound, anymore than I will. There has to be absolute freedom for us both". She returns him the marriage ring so as to culturally end their eight-year
long marriage. Finally she goes down the hall and slams the door leaving
Torvald alone in emptiness - "Empty. She's gone" - and confusion -
"The greatest miracle - ?"
The meeting of that night happens to be
the first and last true, serious communication between Nora and Helmer. Though
this is the final scene, it exposes a lot of their past life and stands as a
point of climax of the plot. The meeting has received and has to receive the
greatest attention from its audience among the entire events in the plot
movement because Nora's position and opinions in this scene are what the play
intends to communicate the audience with.
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