The Cherry Orchard: Reality, Illusion, and Foolish Pride

in the bathtub with a knife out of a fear she has of her husband. The end result is one that is most

“All right, she [tells] herself. So I’ve killed him”(Dahl 2). She does not care about the death penalty for herself, but worries what they will do to her unborn child. She immediately plans her next move, putting the leg in the oven and making herself look as normal as possible, going to the store to give herself a cover story. She does not care about anything on the way to or from the store, but when she returns home, the reality of her husbands death sets in and she returns to loving

She did this because she didn't want to be seen in the act of doing so. She told her husband if he didn't do it, he wasn't a man in her eyes. So he had to do it to prove her wrong. “He’s here in double trust:

Throughout Nora’s whole life she has been controlled by whomever she has been close to. She has never had to chance to have her own experiences, to think her own thoughts and to try to make something of her life. She knows nothing but what her and her father let her. Nora admits to

Nora finds strength in realizing her failure, resolving to find herself as a human being and not in what society expects of her. Nora’s recognition comes when Torvald so

will never again be clean; she then unwittingly implicates herself and her husband in the murders of

people who caused despair to her husband and his friends, she takes pride in the fact that she has

The “gentleman” decided to pay her back in a way I never would have thought he would: taking her to seduce the man he was trying to pawn so he can give her the money she needs. I mean she was almost raped! If it wasn’t for her scars she would have never gotten out of the place she was later dragged into, something her father allowed. I almost ripped my book apart really; I could literally feel my blood boiling at that animal. My frustration due to the injustice of Jeannette getting underpaid at Becker’s Jewelry Box was nothing compared to this. It was especially nothing to what I felt when I saw Jeannette stand up to her nightmare of a mother for not working and getting hit by her father for it. I know she was furious, that was the moment Jeannette did start saving up to escape Welch before graduation, but in my opinion that is not enough. I couldn’t and can’t believe her. She should have been out for blood, not for escape. I know what it’s like, to suffer in embarrassment after an event like that, but if I was ever in a situation worse than I have been I wouldn’t even be stuck in a situation like hers. I don’t think I would have even tried to tough it out with the savages she’s lived with for so many years. I would have left as soon as I could think for myself, I would have never

If one of her other husbands were to do this, she probably would have just straight up left them far earlier than she had. But her somewhat irritated response to him running off for a day gambling shows how she has become

position in society. In addition, the downfall of a tragic hero is caused by fault of their own, often

She consistently lashes out at him. After working many hours, and then helping to attend to the kids, he is constantly being chastised by his wife about the things he did wrong and the “could haves” per say. Bartels provides a certain sort of “probable cause” as to the possible up bringing of his wife’s anger. He feels he has not done anything wrong and that his wife’s pent up aggression is out of lines. He continually pictures her as a monster and only shows the bad sides in the

wants the reader to realize that Nora was not the fool she allows herself to be

That fact that she did not deny a deed that was going to get her killed is courageous and strong, however, the choice to bury Polynices and listen to her heart and the gods rather than the law of the land is an entirely different strength all together. On the same token, Nora who was a suppressed woman in 1879 took out a loan to save her husband’s life and while Mrs. Linden – Nora’s old school friend– was bragging about all her accomplishments as a woman in the later 1800’s Nora tells her “I saved Torvalds life” (Ibsen 150). This has importance because that initially shows strength. In the beginning this shows courage and even when she explains later on about the loan she still seems to be strong. To have to hide something from your husband, the man you are suppose to love and share everything with, seems courageous as well as bold especially for a woman who had basically no rights. Another bolder statement from Nora comes in the end when Nora and Torvald are sitting down to talk about the loan and how this was going to affect their relationship Nora says “That is why I am now leaving you”(Ibsen 198). Women could barely work during the 1800’s. It was hard to get hired and looked down upon for a woman to “do a man’s job”. It was the husband’s job to take care of a woman, his wife, and

Here, Nora pulls together the tragic circumstances. She sees that she was never truly happy in the house, just content. Her father kept her as a child would a doll, and Torvald continued this when they were married. They formed her opinions for her, set expectations to which she was supposed to adhere, and wrote a vague script of how she was supposed to act. She was like a puppet, with no thoughts or actions of her own. When she finally realizes the injustice being done to her, she decides to free herself.

Her final goal was so important to her, protecting her family, she knew she had to do whatever was necessary, even if that meant not being true to her husband or society. In the end, she realizes that it was more important to her husband his reputation, than what it had meant to Nora, all she had done for the love of her family, concluding to the raw truth that her husband didn´t really love her: he loved what she represented before society, a loving, faithful wife that compelled to all his expectations. She knew that to love her children, she needed first to understand and love herself, a thought way beyond and ahead of time, for a woman in the late 1800´s.