Macaroons In A Doll House

In the play ‘A Doll’s House’ by Henrik Ibsen, the role of macaroons play a major role as they represent Nora’s dishonest behavior towards Torvald. Nora is completely a different person in front of Torvald; however, she tries to shield things that she does which Torvald doesn’t like. In reality, their marriage seems to be falling apart as she is not happy being with her husband as he tells her not to have macaroons, as the macaroons will damage her teeth and destroy her beauty. The macaroons present image of Nora’s longing to be liberated. She wants to have her own personality and will to live a life where no one stops her from doing what she gets pleasure from.

During the conversation between Nora and Torvald at the start of ‘A Doll’s House’

The sneaking of macaroons put up with a result of Nora’s role as a child within the marriage. The macaroons show that Nora is not the perfect doll that Torvald tries to mold her into; nevertheless, she is not able to think of any other way where she can prove herself like her husband’s doll. Still, she tries to disguise her real personality and is constantly lying about many things. She hasn’t been taken seriously and treated with very less respect by her husband. Her lies are less a thought of her own character and more a reflection of her husband’s surroundings .She does feel the need to keep up her self –respect, while satisfying her own needs. Again, her lies established the fact that how stressed she is by the opinions of her husband. The patriarchal setup of the play and gender roles are being broken as she is destroying the strict rules and by deciding to go out of family. She says that Torvald stops her from eating macaroons as they will destroy her teeth as well as her beauty, she still eats the macaroons. The limitations didn’t stop her from satisfying her own pleasures and she refused to obey through harmless actions showing that she strongly desires independence, but is too afraid to raise her own voice. Therefore, Ibsen uses the macaroons to show Nora’s strength to the reader and also depicts the time of evolution in the 19th century Norwegian society for all we know, a lot of women

For her to keep on eating what she wants, however, shows that she may be intimidated , however she hasn’t broken her spirit completely or destroyed her character entirely . Nora still possesses enough of herself to eventually find her way back to freedom and sense of