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Escape From A Dollhouse Essay, Research Paper

Escape From A Doll House We have all felt the need to be

alone or to venture to places that our minds have only

imagined. However, we as individuals have always found

ourselves clutching to our responsibilities and obligations, to

either our jobs or our friends and family. The lingering feeling

of leaving something behind or of promises that have been

unfulfilled is a pain that keeps us from escaping. People

worldwide have yearned for a need to leave a situation or

seek spiritual fulfillment elsewhere. The need for one?s

freedom and their responsibility to others can make or break

a person. Henrik Isben?s inspirational characters of Nora

Helmer, Kristine Linde, and Nils Krogstad have all had to

suffer for their right to be individuals and to be accountable

for their actions. A woman of the tough Victorian period,

Nora Helmer was both a prisoner of her time as well as a

pioneer. In her society women were viewed as an inferior

species and were not even considered real human beings in

the eyes of the law. Nora and other women soon discovered

that it was a man?s world and they were just not allowed to

participate in it. Women of that era though, were allowed to

stay at home and adhere to their tired, overworked spouse?s

needs, not to mention their constant obligation to their

children. Women in those days were only allowed to work

solely at home or to have minor jobs such as maids or

dressmakers. Nora was a free spirit just waiting to be freed;

her husband Torvald would constantly disallow the slightest

pleasures that she aspired to have, such as macaroons. Nora

lived a life of lies in order to hold her marriage together. She

kept herself pleased with little things such as telling Dr. Rank

and Mrs. Linde; ?I have such a huge desire to say-to hell

and be damned!? (Isben 59) Just so she could release some

tension that was probably building inside her due to all the

restrictions that Torvald had set up, such as forbidding

macaroons. The need for her to consume these macaroons

behind her controlling husband?s back was a way for her to

satisfy her sense of needing to be an independent woman.

Upon the arrival of her old friend Kristine Linde, Nora took

it upon herself to find her friend a job since she had gone

through a lot in her life. She asked her husband Torvald,

who also happened to be the new manager at the bank if

Kristine could have a job and he responded with an

afirmative response. Mrs. Helmer had also stated that she

had single handedly saved her husband?s life when she took

out a loan for his benefit. However, in those days women

were unable to get a loan without their husband?s consent or

another male?s signature, so Nora took it upon herself to

forge her father?s signature in order to secure the welfare of

Torvald. She saw it as her obligation as a loving wife to

break the law so she would be able to save a life, especially

when it was the life of her husband. Others though saw it as

a criminal offence; Nils Krogstad for example accused Nora

of violating the law to which Nora replied: ?This I refuse to

believe. A daughter hasn?t the right to protect her dying

father from anxiety and care? A wife hasn?t the right to save

her husband?s life? I don?t know much about laws but I?m

sure that somewhere in the books these things are allowed.

And you don?t know anything about it-you who practice the

law? You must be an awful lawyer, Mr. Krogstad.? (Isben

67) Nora saw the law as something which, stood in the way

of her responsibility to her family not to mention to herself. If

she were to of told her ill father about her situation

concerning Torvald?s health he could have died due to stress

of hearing this news. If she had spoken to Torvald about his

illness he would have forbidden her from carrying it on

because he wouldn?t want to be in debt to a women, and

more importantly his wife; his pride as a male would have

been crushed. It was her responsibility that she did not

disclose that information to Torvald because of the

repercussions it would bring. At the conclusion of the play

Nora knows that her secret will be revealed and awaits

Torvald?s reaction to it. When she learns that her marriage

was a sham and it was a one sided, playful wedlock she

decided to leave Torvald. Torvlad makes many futile

attempts to make her stay concerning her duties to her

husband and children to which Nora tells him that she has

other duties; duties to herself. Torvald pleads with her that

before all else; she is his wife and the mother of their

children, to which Nora says: ? I don?t believe in that

anymore. I believe that, before all else, I?m a human being,

no less than you-or anyway I ought to try to become one. I

know the majority thinks you?re right, Torvald, and plenty of

books agree with you, too. But I can?t go on being satisfied

with what the majority says, or what?s written in books. I

have to think over these things myself and try to understand

them.? (Isben 111) In her leaving and the abandoning of her

family and the memories that coincide with them, Nora was

able to gain her freedom as an individual and was now in

search for new responsibilities. Other people seek out

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