A Doll House By Henrik Ibsen

Character Growth and The Discovery of Absent or Corrupt Paternal Issues

Character development is a huge part of keeping the reader interested in any story. When writers create interesting and unique characters, which the reader can relate with, the characters becomes more lifelike and are better able to draw the reader further into the story. In both Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll House”, and William Faulkner’s “A Rose For Emily”, the characters drastically change from the beginning of the story to the end. Readers are lead through a series of clues and plot twists in order to see all the underlying causes for the characters actions. Every character in Ibsen’s story starts off having certain traits and characterizations, but as the story progresses

In the beginning Helmer is perceived as a loving, devoted father, but in the end “Torvald Helmer is another example of a failed father” (Rosefeldt 85). In the story, Nora is excited to see her children come home, and begins to show them off to her friend. Helmer’s reply to his children’s entrance is “Come, Mrs. Linde-this place is unbearable now for anyone but mothers” (Ibsen 799). This sentence proves that he has his children for show, and not because her cares anything about being an actual father to them. In the middle of the play, Helmer decides that he has every right to judge another father for his actions without a second thought to his own. “Just imagine how a man with that sort of guilt in him has to lie and cheat and deceive on all sides, has to wear a mask even with the nearest and dearest he has, even with his own wife and children. And with the children, Nora-that’s where it’s most horrible” (Ibsen 807). Helmer sees no wrong in how he treats his own children, but doesn’t hesitate to condone Krogstad who, even though he made a terrible mistake, is still trying to raise his boys. By the end of the story, Helmer proves that he is no better than Krogstad. “While Krogstad is demeaned as a “moral invalid,” Torvald also, it is alluded, has a past rife with acts of moral cowardice” (Plung 140). Helmer proves he is a father who is more

“Plenty of men have redeemed themselves by openly confessing their crimes and taking their punishment” (Ibsen 806). Helmer reveals that Krogstad hid his forgery and tried to get away with it instead of coming out and confessing to his sins. “Fatherhood is connected with a moral disease that will infect and destroy the lives of the children” (Rosefeldt 85). Ibsen writes about how Krogstad’s choices and bad judgement infects the home and fills the children with germs of something corrupt and wrong (Ibsen 807). Krogstad tries desperately to make amends for his past crime, but life has a way of not allowing him too. Krogstad tries to blackmail Nora in order to keep his job at the bank so he is able to put food on the table and keep a roof over the head of his boys. By the end of the play Mrs. Linde is the one who helps Krogstad redeem himself and start on a path to