Conventions In A Doll's House

Words: 626
Pages: 3

In A Doll House, Henrik Ibsen conveys the role of social conventions portrayed through Nora. Nora, main character, has the perfect life with the perfect husband, Torvald, and two children. A woman's role in the 1870s was to stay at home and take care of the children. In this play, Nora’s actions went against the role in society by manipulating it. She uses her appearance to manipulate her husband to not see the whole picture. Nora’s action was against the law but was justified to help her husband, can result in jeopardizing her husband’s career. Nora portrays a woman attempting to unfollow her conventional role, while others, like her husband, try to make her conform into her ‘proper’ place.
At the start of A Doll House Nora portrays the perfect wife. As the play progresses, the nicknames Torvald gives to Nora spud cute like “squirrel” and “skylark”. Those nicknames are cute, but very negative demeanor and shows how husbands treated their wives. The nicknames make Nora sound like child. Also, in act one it is described that Torvald handles the money in the household, and gives Nora a daily allowance. Nora wanted more money to spend on Christmas gifts, but had to ask Torvald for money after going
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Women’s roles was to be responsible to take care of the house, children, and maintain their husbands’ image. Torvald’s nicknames for Nora show that Torvald views his wife as a child by giving her pet names instead of term of endearment. Nora being viewed as a child, Torvald never thought she would do anything that would endanger his job. The threat of a wife ruining a husband’s reputation was something that was the unthinkable. When Nora’s actions came to life and threatened Torvald’s reputation, he fired back. Torvald relaeation threatened to remove her from their family. Woman had to stand by these social conventions to arrive in that time period or be left on the