Nora didn’t marry for love she married for money. There is no love between the two. This is shown in the beginning of the play when Torvald asks Nora what she wants for Christmas and she say she wants money. Nora is like a child, a doll if you will. She had the same role when she was with her father and remains in this role with Torvald. To quote Emma Goldman, “Who, indeed, would expect depth of a doll, a “squirrel,” a song-bird?” (Goldman, Emma. "The Emma Goldman Papers”)
The search for identity is another element of A Doll’s House. Nora is searching for herself. At the beginning of the play she seems to be very happy with her life. When she tells Mrs. Linden at the beginning of the play, and reveals her secret to her, Nora’s true character comes out which “forecasts the inevitable disaster of her doll’s house.” (Goldman, Emma. "The Emma Goldman Papers.") When Torvald finds out what has happened Nora doesn’t fear for her, she fears for Torvald. His love is so devoted that he takes the blame for what she has done.
Emma says that Nora begins a fight for life, for her husband’s and children. Torvald says, at one point in the play, that Krogstad’s criminal presence will poison the children. Is she not a criminal for what she has done? Will her presence, this criminal act, poison the children and corrupt them? It appears that Torvald thinks early corruption comes from the mother’s side but the father’s influence could be felt as well. Nora realizes that Torvald would take the blame for anything that she has done. She would never have to worry about anything, just like how her father treated her before she married Torvald. In act three of the play Torvald, after finding out Nora’s secret, asks her if she realizes what she did? Nora says, looking squarely at Torvald, with her face hardening, “Yes. I’m beginning to understand everything now.” (Worthen. 434)
He says that she can still live there but she can’t take care of the children. He says happiness doesn’t matter anymore but when did it ever? She was treated like a doll all her life, that’s what her identity was to her father and Torvald, a doll. Nora feels that Torvald, as well as her own father, never understood her. These two individuals just thought it was fun to be in love with Nora. She never worked in her life. Basically everything was handed to her and now that she has worked a little in her life, trying to pay off this debt, it made her realize what kind of life she was missing. By her working, it made her independent and it made her feel good that she didn’t have to rely on Torvald to bail her out of trouble. She tried to take care of this on her own, with no help from anybody.
They have never had a serious talk in their eight years of marriage as well, until that very end of the play in which she says that she is leaving. She knows that she can make it on her own and “shed” this doll’s dress she has on. The house is her doll’s house, where the doll can live and can play in whichever manner the person playing with her wants her to live. Everything was arranged for her, her opinions and the way she lives, by first her father then Torvald.
So with that said, she leaves Torvald; the stranger she has been living with for these eight years. The person that she considers has just been playing with her, with no love at all. She feels that she lived as a beggar in their house, somebody that was there to do tricks for Torvald and the kids. She feels Torvald isn’t the person to teach her how to be a good wife and how to raise children. She feels she first needs to leave this life that has been handed to her and go educate herself. She wants to make something of herself and not be a doll for the rest of her life. She can’t go on thinking what the majority says. She has to think what is right for her and for her leaving her husband and children; this is what’s right for her.
Torvald, obviously, is against Nora leaving. He says that she speaks like a child and doesn’t know anything of the world she lives in. He is right in a way. She doesn’t know this life she lives. She’s been living in this doll’s bubble all her life, never knowing what the outside world has to offer. She wants to go outside her little bubble and see what the world has to offer, instead of living the life she has been accustomed to all her life. She realizes that there is more to life than just being a “doll”, having your opinions thought for you and having everything just handed to you and being treated like a child all of your life.
Emma Goldman’s discussion of A Doll’s House is accurate. She talks about all the main points of the play as well as some of the major studies of the play as well. She talks about how Nora, at first, seems happy but by the end she realizes she needs to grow up and “shed” the doll’s clothing. She is pinpoint on her character as well. Emma says she worships and believes in her husband and that if she ever were in trouble Torvald, her knight and shinning armor, would come and save her.
She also talks about how Krogstad seems like a shady person. She mentions Krogstad had a shady past in the eyes of the community and how he is threatened by Torvald to be fired. One of the reason’s Emma mentions is that Krogstad calls Torvald by his Christian name and how miserable he would make Torvald’s position at the bank. She mentions that Torvald calls Krogstad “morally ruined because he’s been poisoning his own children for years past by a life of lies and hypocrisy.” (Goldman, Emma. "The Emma Goldman Papers.")
She, in the end, is very accurate on every major detail of the play and how the characters are throughout the play. Her criticism of the play makes it fun to read. It also makes one, in a way, want to read the play because of how the characters are and what happens at the end. One that is interested in this time period that read Emma’s words on A Doll’s House would enjoy it and possibly want to pick up a copy of the play and read it and form their own opinion of the play or agree with Emma’s words.
Works Cited Page
Goldman, Emma. "The Emma Goldman Papers." The Gorham Press, Boston U.S.A. 12 Feb. 2007 <http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Writings/Drama/doll.html>.
Worthen, W. B. The Wadsworth Anthology of Drama. 5th ed. Boston, MA: Thomson Corporation, 2007. 434.
