A Doll's House Foreshadowing Analysis

Henrick Ibsen’s, A Doll’s House, is a drama play set in a Norwegian town in 1978. The play follows a woman who leaves her overcontrolling husband behind. We start off with our main character, Nora. She is the wife of Torvald who has just has been promoted at the bank. Krogstad also works at the bank and agrees to let Nora forge her father’s signature to take money. Mrs. Linde has been Nora’s friend since they were young. Dr. Rank is Torvald’s best friend. Through the course of this play, Dr. Rank is slowly dying but does not tell Torvald, because of Torvald’s dislike in death. From Torvald’s actions throughout the play, he begins to realize how he abused his power and drove Nora to the unthinkable in society at the time. Throughout the play, …show more content…
Foreshadowing is using something earlier in the play to let the audience have an idea what the play will lead to. Ibsen does not waste any time to use foreshadowing as we see it in the very first line. “Hide” is the very first of the line. As the play goes on, Nora has taken money out of the bank and hides it from Torvald to keep him from getting mad. The moment Torvald finds, Nora knows that Torvald will be very upset and say some things to hurt her. The macaroons foreshadow Nora’s rebellious side. Torvald forbids her to eat them, but she goes behind his back and eats them anyways. Later in the play, she goes to the bank, without Torvald’s approval, and takes money out of the bank to spend on Torvald. Another we see foreshadowing is when Nora is talking with Anne—Marie and says, “Yes, but Anne-Marie, I can’t be together with them as much as I was” (Ibsen 1270). This depicts the leaving of Nora and it is coming very soon. She does not want to leave the children, but she has no other choice if she wants to find freedom and happiness. She is making the right decision to leave the children with Torvald and the nurse, because she has not really raised them herself. Torvald also has the money to support the three children as well. Torvald would added “little” to when he would talk to Nora, such as, “There, now, little Miss Willful” (Ibsen 1274). Nora does not like to be called little. She feels as if she is being compared to a child …show more content…
This kind of irony is called dramatic irony. Dramatic irony is when the audience and a character, Nora, know that she has a different meaning to what she says to the other characters. The first sign of her leaving is when she is talking to Mrs. Linde, who has been independent since the death of her husband, and says frustratingly, “You’re just like the other. You all think I’m incapable of anything serious…. That I’d never face the raw world” (Ibsen 1257). Nora feels as though everyone thinks she is inadequate to be able to live on her own. She starts to ponder on the idea of maybe leaving and proving everyone wrong. She wants to be able to say that she does not need a man to take care of her. Because when she was young, her father raised her and provided her with everything. Now, Torvald is the new man doing everything for her. When she is talking to the maid, she asks, “You think so? Do you think they’d forget their mother if she was gone for good?” (Ibsen 1270). She is ready to die for Torvald, but she is concerned about the children. She has never really raised them. They have always been in the care of the nurse. If she had a reason at all to stay alive and stay in her personal doll house, was for her children. She knows that if she dies and the children are with Torvald, he will have the money to take care of them. When Torvald finds out that Krogstad has dropped the debt, he is exhilarant. As he