What Does A Doll's House Symbolize Nora

Superior Essays
Henrik Ibsen’s depiction of financial issues in A Doll’s House symbolizes Nora’s desires to obtain a matriarchal family with her at the center. In the 19th century setting of A Doll’s House, men control society and the flow of money through positions of superiority and dominance. The Helmers benefit from the historical economic boom that occurred in the 1940s, which provides for more income and allows Nora and Torvald to climb closer to the top of the social ladder. Nora’s desire to obtain high social status accompanied with her willingness to go to extreme measures to achieve this status wreak havoc upon her marriage and family, and ultimately display her thirst for control.
Due to her desperation to have authority, Nora takes extreme measures to achieve a sense of superiority. Ibsen portrays this through issues regarding employment, forgery, wealth and materialism. Regarding employment, Ibsen maneuvers the cutthroat nature of securing a job with the uncertainty of the family structure. In Nora’s desperation to secure a job, she morally and legally sins in her fraudery, all in an attempt to obtain employment. Ibsen depicts Nora’s irrational reasoning through her committing of fraud. Nora’s obsession with the aristocratic lifestyle also leads her to develop an unhealthy ideology of what is meaningful and assists her in abandoning her family in favor of money. Her fascination with the wealthy also leads her to focus on physical objects rather than relationships with her family, causing them to view her as materialistic. The over-awareness of finances also creates an obsession over the manipulation of money and causes deceit and dishonesty within Nora and Torvald’s marriage. Ibsen interconnects these ideas through Nora’s noticeable attitude change when money is mentioned and her rash decision-making when money is involved. Ibsen depicts employment in a desirable light to highlight Nora’s craving to hold an occupational position of significance in order to authenticate her worth. When Torvald receives a promotion at the bank, Nora envies his power because she believes that with high income comes high self-worth. Nora associate's employment with worth, causing her self esteem to lower because she is unemployed, making her view herself as worthless. She validates her worth through how high of an occupational position her husband holds, but intrinsically desires to hold that position herself. Torvald is oblivious of this fact and to him, Nora’s “most sacred duties” in life are to be a “wife and mother” (Ibsen, 111). Nora views these jobs as worthless, and craves a title to accredit her worth to herself and society. She views being a wife and mother as an obligation rather than a privilege, and this causes slight resentment towards her family. To her, being a mother and wife hold no value in society, so they are of no worth to Nora; she only desires occupations that place her in a position of power. Nora directly relates employment to worth and due to this, wants to be employed. Nora yearns for the power that comes along with employment. As she sees Torvald climbing the occupational ladder, she longs more and more for the power that accompanies occupation. This causes an inner battle between wanting
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Nora’s fascination with material objects develops a barrier in her personal relationship with Torvald. As her obsession with money and expensive items increases, her relationship with Torvald grows more distant. Torvald centers his social status around his income, and as Nora spends increasing amounts of money, Torvald grows more frustrated. When Nora deceives Torvald about the macaroons, he states “has the little spendthrift been throwing out money again?” (Ibsen, 44). This demonstrates Torvald’s view of Nora’s spending habits, and how he believes that her money spending is wasteful. Torvald’s irritation towards Nora’s materialism only drives their marriage further apart. In addition, because Nora knows that Torvald will succumb to the pressure of her begging for money and ultimately give her whatever she asks for, she thrives in her position of control. Her knowledge of Torvald’s weakness for her allows her to manipulate him into giving her more money, which only furthers Torvald’s anger. Nora’s need to have material items creates the wedge that drives Nora and Torvald

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