A Doll's House Analytical Essay

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In the play “A Doll’s House” by Henry Ibsen, the protagonist Nora progresses throughout the course of the play. She goes from being submissive and dependent on her husband to woman who realizes her self worth and strives to become independent and self-sufficient. Nora is treated as a child, being belittled and patronized first by her father and later by her husband. Nora first appears as silly and selfish however, along the play one comes to discover her true strength and intelligence when she saves Torvald’s life by negotiating a loan with Krogstad and when she decides that she must break from the role of a child and a doll to educate herself in order for her to establish her own identity. As the play begins, Nora seems passive and content …show more content…
Through this act Nora seems to awaken to the reality of what her life is. Now that Nora knows her where her husband actually stands, she decides to leave home. She finds no point in continuing to live with a person who always places his status above his love and care for his wife. Nora’s decision to leave Torvald does not seem to be because she wants to abandon her role as a mother and wife, more importantly, she makes this decision in order to find herself as an individual. All her life she has depended on her father and later on her husband due to lack education and first hand knowledge of the world. She feels her duty to herself comes before her duties as a wife and a mother.
Nora’s decision at the end is intended to show her husband how women are not a piece of property one can control. A woman has a mind of her own, and an individuality of her own. Nora expresses how she needs to be in a place where she doesn’t feel restricted, where she can think for herself and do as she pleases. Nora, with her bold actions at the end, proves that she has been the conformist type of wife for too long and that has led her to unhappiness, which is why she is will not continue that
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