The play “A Doll House” by Henrik Ibsen focuses on late nineteenth century life in a middle-class Scandinavian household, in which the wife is expected to be contentedly passive and the husband paternally protective. Nora Helmer, however, has subverted this model. At that time, a woman could not sign a legal contract alone, thus, when her beloved husband, Torvald, became ill, Nora secretly obtained a loan by forging her father’s signature so that they could travel to a warmer climate. A wife was not legally permitted to borrow money without her husband's consent, so Nora must resort to deception to borrow the money she so desperately needs. The play takes place during Christmas and New Year time. These times both stand for rebirth and renewal, …show more content…
Tragedies recount an individual’s downfall: they usually begin high and end low.” Nora was put in an extraordinary position, even though some of severe circumstance was self-imposed. She also lived and suffered through a moral dilemma, again self-imposed. She was put in a subordinated position initially by her father as he gave her away in marriage to Torvald. She was passed from a situation where she was protected and controlled by her father to her husband where he also severely controlled her life. Even though Torvald did not perceive he was doing anything detrimental to Nora, she suffered from her lack of freedom nonetheless. He felt he was protecting her, and she needed his protection and nothing else, such as being free to be her own person, with her own interests in life. She was being emotionally suffocated. She could no longer live in the role that her husband put her in and society expected her to stay in. She felt that there was nothing to their marriage late in the story and she had to decide whether to live a superficially happy marriage or leave and gain her identity. The tragedy came at the end of the story when Nora had an awakening and started a move to a new life without Torvald. Nora states, “But you neither think nor talk like the man I could join myself to.” (Ibsen 113) She saw there was no way to grow emotionally in the family and social situation she was in. She was so set on a new beginning that she was willing to leave their children with her