A Doll's House Morals

“...With me you could have been another person.” (3.53) In Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Christine remarks on the fact that if she had not left Krogstad, his life would be completely different. The quote reflects the recurring theme of the play, which is that a plentitude characters’ lives are affected by single actions. The protagonist of the story, Nora Helmer, makes multiple decisions throughout the play that completely alter the course of her life, but one choice in particular affects her life the most. Nora Helmer’s life is irreversibly changed after she illegally borrows money, as she saves her family from harm, gets in financial and legal trouble, and goes through self discovery. Nora preserves her family’s health by using legally questionable methods. She must borrow money to pay for the treatment of her ailing husband, Torvald, but, as she needs a man’s signature, she has to commit forgery to do so. In prevaricating Torvald about the severity of his illness by taking on a loan, she conserves both his fragile ego and health. She even remarks, "How painful and humiliating it would be for Torvald… to know that he owed me anything! It would upset our …show more content…
Her life is irreversibly changed by her forgery, but the change is one for the better. She manages to ensure the emotional and medical stability of her husband, and she saves her dying father from debt and fret. Her selflessness comes at great personal cost, both in the literal sense and the emotional sense. The personal strain that Nora undergoes, however, causes her to come to the realization that her life is incomplete, and it allows her to make the difficult choice to leave her family and unhealthy marriage.. Ultimately, Nora’s decision to illegally borrow money permanently alters the course of her life in a beneficial