In examining Nora more closely, the reader comes to realize that she is a fascinating and multifaceted character who swings between extremes; she is either very happy or suicidally depressed, comfortable or desperate, wise or naïve, helpless or purposeful. One can understand this range in Nora because she wavers between the person she pretends to be and the one she may someday become. Ibsen felt strongly that society should reflect people’s needs and not work against them. In “A Dolls House”, society’s rules prevent the characters from seeing and expressing their true nature, which is prevalent in Nora, and can be seen as a cause behind her pursuit as a tragic heroine. When Krogstad, a man who Nora has borrowed money from tells her that the law takes no account of good motives, she cries, “Then they must be very bad laws!” At the end of the play she realizes that she has existed in two households ruled by men and has accepted the church and society, without ever questioning these two institutions. This provides further impetus to her cause of escape and gives light to why she is a tragic heroine. In the third act, Nora separates herself from the “majority” and the books that support them. “But”, she says, “ I can’t go on believing what the majority says, or what’s written in books. I have to think these things over and try to understand them myself.” At the end of the novel, we see that the individual has triumphed over society, but at a heavy price that includes her children and filial ties. When Nora walks out of the house she becomes a social outcast. The tragic heroine, who has set out on her destructive path, has achieved her goal. Through this, Ibsen seems to be saying that your greatest duty is to understand yourself.
At the beginning of the play, Nora does not realize she has a self. Nora is still a child in many ways, listening at doors and guiltily eating forbidden sweets behind her husband’s back. She has gone straight from her father’s house to her husband’s, bringing along her nursemaid to underline the fact that she’s never grown up. She is simply playing a role. The purpose of her life now is to please Torvald and raise the children. By the end of the play, she discovers that her “most sacred duty” is to herself. She leaves to find out who she is and what she thinks. Ibsen refused to be called a feminist, preferring to be known as a humanist. He had little patience with people, male or female, who did not stand up for their rights and opinions. He even argued that society’s rules came from the traditionally male way of thinking. He saw the woman’s world as one of human values, feelings, and personal relationships, all of which Nora severed en route to freedom with her destructive cause. In “A Dolls House” Nora can’t really see how it is wrong to forge a name in order to save a life, whereas her husband Torvald, would rather die than break the law or borrow money. Nora even seems to be under the impression that her father was perfect, and she tried to replace him- first with Torvald, then with Dr. Rank. When she realizes her father wasn’t looking out for her best interests, sad to say, it’s only a short step to discovering that Torvald isn’t either. This difference in thinking is what traps Nora and makes her yearn for freedom. However for Ibsen, the triumph of the individual embraces the right of women to express themselves. In the end, Nora’s duty to know herself is more important than the roles she continues to juggle to meet society’s expectations of her as the ideal wife, mother, daughter, etcetera.
With regard to appearance & reality, at the beginning of the play, everything seems “picture perfect”. Nora is Torvald’s “little squirrel”. They appear to have a perfect marriage and their home is guilt & debt free. Everyone concerned wants to keep up appearances. Soon enough as the play progresses, reality replaces the deceiving appearance at the beginning. It is only when the characters give up their own deceptions and cast off their elaborately constructed secrets can they be whole. Nora by the end of the play has accomplished her goal. It is after Torvald’s severe and selfish reaction after learning of Nora’s deception and forgery that serves as the final catalyst for the tragic heroine’s awakening. As the drama unfolds, the readers notice that Nora’s awareness of the truth about her life grows, and her need for rebellion escalates.
In “A Dolls House”, Ibsen paints a black picture of the sacrificial role held by women in this society, especially the middle class wife. The play’s female characters exemplify Nora’s assertion that even though men refuse to sacrifice their integrity, “hundreds of thousands of women have”. In the play alone, the sacrifices made by Nora, Mrs. Linde, and the nanny support this notion. Nora’s definition of freedom on the other hand, changes as the play evolves. In the first act, she believes that she will be totally free when she has repaid her debt and can devote herself to her domestic duties. After Krogstad blackmail’s her though, she questions whether she is really free in Torvald’s home, living under all his rules and edicts. By the end of the play, Nora seeks a new kind of freedom. She decides to be free from her familial obligations, to be able to pursue her own ambition, beliefs, and most importantly, identity.
“I have been performing tricks for you Torvald, that is how I have survived. You wanted it like that. You and Papa have done me a great wrong. It’s because of you I’ve made nothing of my life!”
The tragic heroine really comes out when Nora speaks these lines because she is directly telling Torvald that she has realized that their entire marriage has been a performance, a sham. She has acted like the “child wife” for Torvald, the “doll daughter” for her father and because of these men, her growth to become a mature adult, a mature human being, has been completely stunted. Nora comes to realize that her whole life has been based on illusion rather than reality.
Ibsen through this play is clearly describing the increasingly selfish society being spawned in this world, and he shows through Nora, the tragic heroine, the struggle to break free from society’s moors, values, and binding dogmas.
At the end of the play the readers are enlightened with an epiphany that shows how Nora’s duty to know herself, is more important than her female role was, is, or ever will be. Nora’s unfulfilled and under appreciated potential is what fuels her destructive cause and clearly depicts her as a genuine tragic heroine.
Nora as a Tragic Heroine – Edward Beyer (The Man & His Work, 1980)
‘The modern tragedy’ does not end in ruin, as Ibsen originally had intended, but in a new start. However, values are destroyed as the whole of Nora’s world collapses. This happens precisely because she is true to the best in herself. She grows in stature, and is purged by suffering. In defeat she is victorious. In the majority of theories about ‘the tragic’ these are significant factors. When everything lies in ruins round her, Nora emerges strong and independent as never before, and takes the consequences of her newly gained understanding she is in the process of becoming ‘herself;’ at the same time she points to a freer and more honest humanity in a healthier society. It is in this sense that she is a modern, tragic heroine, and the play precisely what it claims to be, a ‘modern tragedy’.