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A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

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A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen was written in 1879 during the Victorian Era. The story is written as a play to be performed on stage. The two main characters Nora and Torvald Helmer are upper middle class husband and wife, but it boils down to social expectations. Conflicts arise when women are under their husbands rule for everything and society pressure to keep up appearances. Torvald Helmer is the antagonist to Nora, his wife, because he is mostly concerned about his reputation, he is the supreme power of the household, and he is very hypocritical. These character traits make Torvald Helmer out to be a shallow person with no regards for other people’s feelings. A Doll’s House revolves around the lives of Nora and her husband Torvald and their relationship. The play uses man vs. man conflict to illustrate the expectations of a Victorian society. In Act I, Nora and Torvald’s relationship appears happy, loving, and caring. The reader learns of Nora’s secret of how she borrowed money to save her husband’s life and is now trying to pay it back without Torvald’s knowledge. During this time period, “a woman couldn’t legally borrow money without her father’s or husband’s consent” (Mays and Booth 878). Krogstad, another character who works at the same bank as Torvald, is the one who lent Nora the money and discovered that Nora forged her father’s signature. Krogstad is now blackmailing Nora, threatening to expose her secret if Nora does not save his job at the bank. Nora begs

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