Krogstad In A Doll's House

Krogstad is not a merely villainous character; he is sympathetic in some ways. He is trying to protect his children from harm, due to a bad choice in his past, and he is still hurting from loving Kristine Linde; who married someone else. He is determined, like Nora Helmer, to do what he must keep some moments in his past hidden. Both Nora and Nils have committed the same crime of forgery, and both of them know the response of Torvald Helmer is important to their future. Krogstad knows that his job is now controlled and threatened by Torvald, and he is threatening to expose the secret forgery that Nora committed in the past; he is the one who holds the loan papers. Krostad tells Nora, in Act II, “it’s your husband himself who’s forced me back …show more content…
In Act I, Nora is the happy bird and Kristine is the one who is tired and desperate for work. By Act III, Kristine is going into a future with a husband and children; Nora will leave the house without a husband or children. Krogstad has a change of heart and all is better for Kristine and himself. Nora is left with a broken dream. This change or transformation, according to Lorraine Markotic, faces Nora to deal with reality, and she is now free from the illusion: “Nora 's hopes are transformed into something beyond childish dreams. They are born as ideals, indeed, first come into being as such. And these newly formed ideals are ones for which she is willing to struggle” (Markotic, 425). Nora must struggle into a future that is no longer based on the childish doll house illusions, she is a woman going on her own discovery. In this man’s world, Krogstad can simply change his mind; the love he wanted is now his own. Nora has to have her dreams broken by Torvald, before she will make her own choice. As Act III closes, she tells Torvald, “I’ve been living here with a stranger” (Ibsen 1774). Nora is also a stranger now to herself, her new and unknown life is just