Name: Ornella

Grade:9D
Date: 15.02

End of Text Short Essay Formative

Although the plays are interesting for their social message, Henrik Ibsen's dramas would not survive
today were it not for his great skill as a playwright. Each of his dramas are carefully turned into a tight
logical construction where characters are clearly presented and interrelated, and where events have a
symbolic as well as actual significance. The symbolism in Ibsen's plays is rarely overdone. They are
carefully integrated to unify the setting, events, and character portrayals. In “A Doll's House”, he
especially looked at the problems of social passivity assigned to women in a male-oriented society. After
considering the plight of Nora Helmer, he then investigated what would happen had she remained at
home.

Question: In the play, Torvald Helmer seems to prefer his imaginary view of life over a realistic
view of life. Discuss how this is shown in the play, using examples and quotations.

In this essay I will be talking about how Torvald Helmer in a play “Doll’s house” seems to
prefer his imaginary view of life over a realistic view of life. I will explain and show how I think
he eventually develops his character, and analyze everything. I will also bring quotations to
support my opinion.

First of all I will start with analyzing his character. In act 1 we could see that their relationship
with Nora seems very loving, but it only seems. We could also see that he doesn’t like the way
Nora keeps spending money. “Bought, did you say? All that? Has my little squander bird been
overspending again?” His attitude towards Nora and Krogstad is very different. He hates
Krogstad and he wants to fire him, even though Nora asks him to not do that , Torvald still does
not care about her opinion. Later, at the end of the play we will see that Torvald doesn’t love
his wife Nora. He treats her like a toy , like a “doll”. He sees her only as a little , poor , silly child ,
who only cares about spending money. He talks with her in a way people talk with little
children. He calls her nicknames such as * songbird, skylark, squirrel , and little money
spender. * In my opinion he never loved her, he loved how easy it was to manipulate her. He
treated her like a little child and saw her only in that way. His attitude towards Mrs. Linde is
different as well. In my opinion he is very polite and nice towards her. We could see that when
Nora asked him to find a job for Mrs Linde , he says that it’s quite likely that he may find a job
for her .

However, in my opinion Nora helps him to develop his character. We could see his character
development when he sees that letter which reveals all the truth about Nora. He gets very mad
and angry at her , which was expected, but the unexpected thing was that Torvald started
mentioning Nora’s father in a very disrespectful way. “I ought to have guessed that something
of this sort would happen. I should have foreseen it. All your father's recklessness and
instability he has handed on to you. No religion, no morals, no sense of duty!”

But eventually, we could see his reaction change, after seeing another letter. He started
saying he forgives Nora. “You can't believe that I have forgiven you. But I have, Nora. I swear it
to you. I have forgiven you everything. I know what you did, you did for your love of me.” This
reaction change helps us to see and understand Torvald’s character development. It helps us
understand that he doesn’t actually love her. He sees her only like a child and his doll.