Act 1 Analysis

After reading Act 1 of A Doll’s House, I have noticed certain traits about the characters. Nora seems to be very conceited, self centered, frivolous, and comes off as ignorant a bit. When Mrs. Linde came back to visit, Nora said “I suppose it is. But you know, I’ve been so happy these last eight years.” She disregarded the hardships her friend, Mrs. Linde was going through. She didn’t seem to care or understand, because she went on about herself, bragging. “Oh Kristina, I’m so happy! It’ll be really wonderful to have lots of money, and never need to worry, wont it?” Meanwhile, Mrs. Linde was trying to find a job, which is the reason she came to her for help because Helmer would be given advancement as bank manager.

Another thing about Nora is that she keeps all kinds of secrets from her husband. The most obvious one is how she forged her father’s signature to pay off a loan for the trip to Italy. It was supposedly to save his life, but Nora seems like a gold digger, and she always tries to get money from her husband, and then hides the fact that she is squandering it away on silly things. She also should realize how Helmer feels about forgery, because that’s her husband. “Just think how guilty a man like that must have to be to lie and cheat and play the hypocrite with everyone. How he must wear a mask even those nearest and dearest to him.” He goes on saying how it poisons and corrupts the children.

Back to Nora; she always says fake things. When she was talking to Mrs. Linde about her forgery secret she says “he’d be terribly hurt and humiliated if he thought he owed anything to me. It’d spoil everything between us, and our lovely happy home would never be the same again.” Clearly their relationship cannot be so close and happy if she has room to hide so many secrets.

Another point about that is, their relationship is very odd. It isn’t much like a husband and wife relationship. It is more like a father/ daughter relationship. “My little songbird mustn’t ever do that again. A songbird must have a clear voice to sing with- no false notes.” Helmer was talking about lie, but he sounds like Atticus repremanding Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. Nora is similar to Scout in the way she would talk to her father, which reminds me of her and Helmer. It is very odd.

Towards the end of the act, Mrs. Linde brings up a very interesting possibility that Dr. Rank may have been lending Nora the money.Once again, Nora is lying! To top it off, Nora acts innocent asking for him to help her decide what to wear at the party. “Torvald, couldn’t you take me in hand and decide what I’m to go as- what my costume’s to be... Yes Torvald, I couldn’t do anything without you to help me.”

One of the other interesting things I noticed, was when Nora was talking to the maid, she makes it obvious she might run away. The maid said she would care for the children in a situation like that, if anything happened to her. The whole thing seems suspicious.

Mrs. Linde also seems a bit odd, how she popped back into Nora’s life only when she needed help from her. Krogstad just seems like a typical Disney villain-type character. There isn’t much I noticed about him. All of the characters seem to be revolving around Nora in a way. I’m thinking Nora probably cheated on Helmer with Dr. Rank, because he didn’t know who that was. And she’ll probably get herself into more trouble and run away. I feel like the ending of the play will either end as expected or completely the opposite. We have yet to find out!