Nora Needed to Get Out of Her Doll House

It has been said that in order to love others, you must first love yourself. Nora does not love herself; she does not even know herself. Her whole identity is dependent upon her husband and children. She is a wife and a mother but nothing else. Nora was right in her decision to leave her husband and children and her doll house. She is right in leaving because she must go out and find out who she is, and then maybe she can be fit to take care of her family.

Torvald, Nora's husband, treats her as a child, calling her pet names such as "squirrel" and "lark". He also teases her (about the Christmas ornaments) and shows her little respect (saying "Don't disturb me.") All in all, he doesn't treat Nora as his equal and this is one of the reasons she is right in leaving. Why should she stay in a house where she is regarded as a pretty object of amusement instead of a family head? In Act 2, Nora distracts Torvald from reading his mail by dancing the Tarantella. She gets her way by promising to dance and sing and fill Torvald's life with happiness.

Once Nora realizes that she has been treated as a child by both her husband and her father, she knows that she has been treating her own children in the same fashion. She plays with them, calls them "angels", loves them, but nonetheless treats them like dolls. In Act 3, Nora says to Torvald: "I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I was papa's doll-child; and here the children have been my dolls. I thought it great fun when you played with me, just as they thought it great fun when I played with them." She then declares to Torvald that this playtime shall end and lessons shall begin. Nora will leave, as she is not educated enough to be a mother. Torvald will learn to treat a wife with more respect.

The scandal of borrowing money when Torvald was sick started this whole "wonderful, but awful" situation. In the very beginning (Act 1), Torvald scolds Nora for mentioning borrowing money to buy Christmas gifts. His statement foreshadows the play's end: "Nora, you know what I think about that. No debt, no borrowing. There can be no freedom or beauty about a home life that depends on borrowing and debt." And right Torvald is. Nora realizes this in the end of Act 3 and decides to leave. She can not stay in the house once her husband finds out about her scandal. Nora is right in leaving because she and her husband cannot live in peace not that the scandal is out in the open. Even if Torvald forgave her completely, Nora now knows that she is not capable of being a fit mother and wife. She must learn how to be independent. She must live out on her own instead of in her "doll's house".

Isben, Henrik. A Doll's House. In Four Major Plays. Trans. James McFarlane and Jens Arup. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.