When Nora says, "Please be nice to me," her insecurity is made clear. Her need for affection by anyone - men or women, children or adults - is presented. When Dr Rank tells her he loves her, however, she runs away. Is this a foreshadowing of her fleeing later in the text? She is a bird - birds must fly.
She trusts Dr Rank more than 'anyone else'. Dr Rank picks up on how Nora loves keeping secrets from her husband - she finds this exciting, but Rank understands how this represents her mistrust. Nora and Torvald's relationship is difficult to understand. At some points it is tender, at others, it is predatory.Nora uses her husband - "I can't do anything without you."
Rank and Torvald prey on Nora as they watch her dance 'as though her life depended on it.' Torvald thinks that her performance 'was a little too natural'. This is because Torvald considers her to be a doll, in his doll's house.
Torvald says, "I always think that an exit should be dramatic." It's amazing how much foreshadowing there is in the texts.
Nora gives Dr Rank light - physically (when she lights his cigar) and metaphorically. He has lived in darkness for so long, but his love for Nora brings him light. That is why his invisibility hat and cross are black, to contrast with her brightness.
Torvald treats Nora like a child - telling her to sit down, take his jacket off her shoulders. He loses his love for her so quickly, then so quickly it returns when 'they are saved'. He takes the moral high-ground by stating the most obvious sentence in all of theatre - "I find your inability to do anything rather attractive. It makes me realise that I'm a man and you're a woman." His monologue about her 'becoming his child' summarises the major themes of the entire play.
Nora realises that neither of them had understood each other before his confession. He finds her amusing - he perceives her to be incapable of doing anything, especially helping him, because he thinks that he is infinitely better than her. She realises that she has been 'terribly treated' by her father and by Torvald, because she never understood what love was, because the men in her life loved her because they loved theidea of her. Nora says, "I've lived my whole marriage...like a street-entertainer...by performing tricks for [Torvald] because that's how [he] likes it."
She decides to leave Torvald so she can learn who she is and 'stand up on [her] own'. Torvald says that she is a mother and a wife before anything else, before herself, and Nora 'sees with clarity' that her responsibility lies with herself, and not with others. She states that she has 'a different opinion on this matter' to Torvald, and it is the first time that she has said what she feels, and not what Torvald does.
Torvald says that 'no man would give up his honour for the person he loves.' She retorts, saying 'thousands and thousands and thousands of women have done' exactly that. This shows an awareness of the world that she has not displayed before.
Nora says, "we have the people we are fond of, and the people we enjoy being with."
Nora concludes that she 'doesn't believe in miracles anymore.' This is an excellent climax.
10/10 inspirational
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading this excellent post and thought that not only are your comments telling and insightful but also that you pick out very interesting quotations from the script as examples. Does your second sentence follow on totally logically from your first? And, if so, don't you need to do a bit more to explain the logic there? I think this may be a good old-fashioned call to "show your working" as Maths teachers often say. I know this is reflective rather than analytical work but, even then, you are very fond of the assertion; and answering the questions *how* and *why* a little more frequently will give your writing a little more rigour and authority. Once again, I wonder to what extent the particular production is shaping your responses; perhaps you could reflect a little more on this? That said, this is very perceptive stuff which I'm enjoying reading, thank you.
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