A Doll's House Comparative Essay

Henrik Ibsen’s, A Doll’s House, acquaints an audience to characters that possess many unique traits which are a basis for the plot. Commonalities are seen between these character’s actions, even though their reasoning and motives may be different. These similarities go beyond just personality and actions, but delve into the underlying parallels that characters like Dr. Rank and Nora endow. One of the parallels that can be attributed to these two characters and happens to be a theme of this book is disease it’s recurring presence in this play. Disease is essentially inherited through family and is almost used as an excuse for people to continue their unhealthy habits. Disease is also seen as diminishing people’s status. One of the many faults that is seen in the …show more content…
Nora resembles her father and that is used against her, degrading her into essentially a frivolous spending, problematic child. Torvald views her this way because he doesn’t understand her on a personal level and chooses not to entertain the idea of bonding with her. She is resigned to the future of deception and selfishness because her family’s actions weren’t the most responsible. This demonstrates a lack of personal responsibility because she does for a majority of the play view herself in this way and a misevaluation of her actions versus her parent’s actions by others. Most of the characters see Nora as being a naive, “sweet little lark”, but those who understand her can see her for what she truly is (16). Nora can only really connect with Dr. Rank because they share some of the same adversities.Nora is essentially destined to the same fortune her mother was as Dr. Rank was to his father’s. If this idea is correct, then Nora will leave her children and husband to be taken care of by the maid while Dr. Rank will succumb to death on the part of his father’s injustices. It is known that Nora leaves the house and her family because of the want of personal freedom and the benefit of her family.