Nora: I can’t dance …pg46. It was also a way that Hermer gets deduced, Helmer wanted to perform to increase her attractiveness to him, Helmer: I see you still have the tarantella in your blood it makes you more enchanting than ever …. When I watched you swaying and beckoning in the tarantella it set my blood on fire till I couldn’t bear it any longer. ACT3
Nora, however also sees the dance as a symbol of the suicide she plans to commit. A trapped tarantella a will sting it self to death rather than die slowly, Nora: seven hours till midnight, the 24 hour till midnight tomorrow then the tarantella, will be over.
Letter and letterbox, symbol that Nora is trapped and the cause of her death. At the end of the play she takes off the ring meaning that the marriage has end.
This play is centred upon two characters Nora and Helmer.
The play explores commitment and how Helmer sees Nora as an innocent helpless creature and a housewife. Helmer in particular has a very clear and narrow definition of a woman’s role. He believes that it is the sacred duty of a woman to be a good wife and mother.
Moreover, he tells Nora that women are responsible for the morality of their children. In essence, he sees women as both –like helpless creatures.
ACT2 Helmer: that is like a woman!
Nora: its was like being a man
Helmer: almost everyone who has gone to the bad early in life has had a deceitful mother
Helmer: its seems most commonly to be the mothers influence…
Helmer tends to call Nora by a number of different names all diminutives in nature, however they are often animals and innocent in nature. He calls her his ‘little rogue’, ‘little skylark’, ‘helpless little mortal’ and ‘child’. By the end of the play Helmer seems confused as what to think of Nora is she a woman a creature, or a small child?
Nora sees her self as a doll trapped in an endless fantasise towards her husband, so her speeches are like a child talking to her father.
Helmer chosen names for Nora reveal that he does not see her as an equal by any means, rather Nora is at times an exotic pet or an animal. Helmer is a hypocrite who speaks nobly but is shown to act on petty or personal motives.
Helmer plays with Nora, he used terms which may be meant to be friendly but which are insulting. Helmer tends to fell superior towards other characters however his inward felling of insecurity are shown many times.
He humiliates Nora and attempts to make her see him, as superior, Helmer desires social respect. He dismisses Krogstad for petty reasons of pride.
Helmer shows to be coward when Krogstad threatens to expose Noras forgery.
Because of Helmer’s lack of openness Nora must do what she thinks necessary by subterfuge, hiding her actions and thoughts for him.
Nora talks to Helmer like a helpless child however at the end of the play she blossoms from a helpless child to a woman, she tends to accumulate short phases and repeat her words more than once
Nora: “Never see him again. Never. never .never.
Never see the children again .them too.
Never. Never. She also tends to talk with no pauses her sentences just seem to go on, she always talks most in the dialogues (e.g. act1 pg. 38 conversation with Mrs Linde):
Nora is character who her tone keeps changing depending on who she is talking to.
Although Nora talks like a child with Helmer as he makes her fell like a helpless doll, however towards others she tends to fell superior: Nora tends to flirt while talking to DR Rank: Nara: look here! Look!
Rank: silk stocking!
Nora: flesh-coloured. Aren’t they beautiful? ……
Nara: (look sat him for a moment) shame on you (flicks him on the ear with the stocking) (pg66-67)
Nora is excited and cheerful most of the time so her body language is also quite childish just like her, she is always jumping clapping or fiddling.
Nora:(walks around the room) She also acts like a creature to please Helmer, she acts like a ‘skylark and squirrel as she keeps humming and parcels. Nora: yes,(starts humming again as she goes over to him) pg24 Nora:(hums and smiles, quietly, cheerfully.) Hmm… pg26 Noras actions are governed by her relationship to Helmer. She will do any thing to avoid trouble, sulk, and lie, act childishly or use her feminine allure to gain what she wants. She cannot understand that the word outside her house is often ruthless and that does not submit to tears, Nora: that’d be filthy trick!(almost in tears).pg. 49.
Where as with Mrs Linde she talks like a spoilt little child who is trying to show off her imaginary happiness but then again she has a change of tone in act 3 when she confesses to Mrs Linde that she borrowed the money from Krogstad. With Krogstad her tone never seems to change however in act2 at first she him not to mention a word to any one but then she plays with him trying to say that he will be responsible for her actions.Nora just like a desperate child with no one to trust so she talks to herself.
There are seven monologues present in the play however they where also a way that Ibsen used to show the audience Nora’s feelings and thoughts, each of Nora’s speech is lively and excitable but on Act3, when Nora decides to leave Helmer her speech retain its form. Characteristic of accumulative phases are no longer exclaims or use of childish expression such as “pooh” or “oh yes Helmer please, please”(pg26).She uses simple declarative sentences and assertions,
“Nora: that’s just the point you have never understood me.
A great wrong has been done to me, Torvald.
First by papa and then by you (pg97)”
Mrs Linde speaks freely and directly however her words often sound cold and empty. She speaks directly to the point, she uses ready-made phases but with more direct and obvious meaning than Rank. Her speeches reveals a collected resolved mind, certain of its own opinions. She uses simple declaratives sentences, sometimes stringing several remarks together with conjunctions such as ‘but’ and ‘and’. When she speaks of her personal life her sureness falters and she speaks in broken phases.
Mrs Linde fells superior to Nora as she had more experience and responsibilities. On the contrary to Mrs Linde Dr Rank who is both physically and morally tainted. He speaks indirectly and uses figures of speech. His speech contain figures from financial and moral realms of experience:
“Rank: well there we have it, it’s that attitude that’s turning human society into a hospital”
His feelings of loneliness parallel those of Mrs Linde and contrast with the out warmly comfortable Helmer family. He does not express his felling though his body language all he seems to do is sit as he has the illness. Although he is in love with Nora, he never seems to show it or express it though his body language (there is never a scene where it says, “he touches her” or “looks deep into Noras eye”) Rank shows no sign of love. At the begging he gives the expression that he sees Nora as a daughter. Nora is the one who keeps approaching and seducing him.
Krogstad who is an important character to the play his dialogues only include him and Nora which he warns her and frightening her though most of their conversations using out of place amidst dialogue designed out of place to sound like on every day speech. (Only at act 3 Mrs Linde talks to him about their relationship)He speaks of himself in ironically humble fashion that shows self-contempt. He can be treating and openly disrespectful: “Krogstand: Does your husband love you so little?”
He is bitter, his mind and speech are legal and precise, and he protects himself by speaking somewhat contemptuously of himself and others.Though the play only Nora and Mrs Linde (the women) have monologues, Nora 7 and Mrs Linde two perhaps Ibsen was trying to say that women have more feelings and are better at expressing it.
This concludes that Ibsen was trying to send a message to people whom whose marriages where particular built and based on lies.I believe he was trying to show that women should have equal opportunities as man and be able to stand up for them selves and know who they are, become individual partners in marriages.
