The Search for Self in Tirra Lirra by the River Essay

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

When Torvald finds her hairpin stuck in the keyhole of the letter box, Nora tells him it must have been their children trying to get into it, not willing to admit that she had tried to break into his things. Although the truth about her is about to be discovered, Nora wants to preserve the last bits of dignity that she has left, finally worrying about herself before anyone else. This last lie however, leads up to her finally speaking the truth and expressing that she no longer feels that she loves Torvald. Her husband is furious at her, insulting her, and fails to see that every lie that she told was for his sake. Realizing that Torvald can’t see her side of things and will only find fault in what she did, she comes to her decision to leave her family. Nora states that she is not happy and never really was, her marriage to Torvald was as fakes as a doll house according to her. Rather than lie, she is completely honest now and states that she wants to become her own person and learn that which she doesn’t know despite what society might think.

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

Nora is trapped in her own house, in her own society as being a woman and the role they have. "I shall not allow you to bring up the children; I dare not trust them to you" (line 242). Torvald says to be own wife, taking away her most prized possession and the ones she loves the most and since she's a woman and Torvald is the man of the house, he is allowed to do it. One of Nora's friends, Mrs. Linden just married a man who recently passed away just for the money because women in that time aren't allowed to own the money that the family brings in, thinking Mrs. Linden would get all the money she got nothing. Then she meets Mr. Krogstad again and she's willing to sell her body once again for money and a way of living. "What a difference! Someone to work for and live for--a home to bring comfort into" (line 84). The book is complete brilliance, it shows that women are imprisoned inside their homes how Mrs. Linden has willing played a large part in this role towards the end of the

Nora is motivated throughout the story to be according to her "free," however, she does not only want to be free of the loan she is owning to Krogstad, she wants to be free from her father and husband's control. Throughout the story, Nora feels as if she has always been treated like a doll child first by her father and then by her husband and is never given the opportunity to evolve as an individual and become a woman who has the potential to be independent and forceful (Yuehua 83). The perfect example her attempt to fulfill her potential as a woman is when she first borrows the loan from Krogstad by forging her dying father's signature. Although she knows her act is wrong and against the law, she still goes on with a naïve challenge to Krogstad during their encounter about the forged signature

Nora starts off the play essentially as Torvalds toy. She is obedient, she is cute, she rarely goes against his wishes, and she is nothing without her “owner”, Torvald. The reader, however, discovers early on that all is not what it seems to be. Nora is actually a very rebellious woman who enjoys going against Torvald’s wishes. There are scenarios where she does this out of the sheer enjoyment she gets. Nora loves macaroons.

While Mrs. Wright lashes out against her perceived cage, her gender role, by killing Mr. Wright, Nora’s character ultimately decides to trip the latch, to fly free from the bars. Nora’s complex personality proves to be difficult to predict to the very end, when she decides to shirk her duties to her husband and children to focus on herself, to serve her own needs for individuality, a decision that was not entirely popular with readers and audiences alike. Indeed, Nora quite easily refuses to be the “doll” in Torvald’s house, and abandons her loving, though misguided husband, and her children. She feels driven to do this once she realizes that she and Torvald had never exchanged a serious word in

Each time Nora finds herself unable to help herself the problem is easily directly traced back to her husband, her father, and to the overbearing dominance of the male society. She tries to save the life of the man she thinks she loves and in doing so sees how she has become a victim of her own ignorance which has been brought upon her by the men in her life.

Nora plays the part of a slave in her subservience to her husband, for she is supposed to

Her first instinct is to feel pity for Mrs. Linde’s lack of children or husband, classifying her “utterly alone” state as “terribly sad” and inferior to the life she has with Torvald (Ibsen 8). This all changes, however, once Nora agrees to help Mrs. Linde. By binding herself to a woman instead of a man for the first time, she reaches a further state of awareness. When Mrs. Linde mentions Nora’s “lack of trouble and hardship” and calls her a child, Nora becomes defensive, alluding to her displeasure with her position in society (Ibsen 12). “You’re just like the rest of them,” she claims, “you all think I’m useless when it comes to anything really serious...” (Ibsen 12). The “them” and “you all” in Nora’s pivotal statement refers to the men who have bound Nora to the state of a useless doll in a dollhouse: dependent, incapable, and unenlightened—merely nice to play with and pretty to look at.

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

An inauthentic identity is when a person believes their personality is identical to their behaviour. However subconsciously they know that it is not true. Nora was inauthentic because her situation was all that she was ever exposed to. She is a grown woman that was pampered all her life by men. Nora was spoon-fed all of her life by her father and husband. She believes in Torvald unquestionably, and has always believed that he was her god or idol. She is the perfect image of a doll wife who revels in the thought of luxuries that she can afford because she is married. She is very flirtatious, and constantly engages in childlike acts of disobedience such as little lies about things such as whether or not she bought macaroons. Nora goes through life with the illusion that everything is perfect. When a woman of that time loves as Nora thinks she does nothing else matters. She will sacrifice herself for the family. Her purpose in life is to be happy for her husband and children. Nora did believe that she loved Torvald and was happy. She had a passionate and devoted heart that was willing to do almost anything for her husband. At first she did not understand that these feelings were not reciprocated. Torvald does not want a wife who will challenge him with her own thoughts and actions. The final confrontation between the couple involves more oppression by Torvald, but by this time Nora has realized the situation he wishes to maintain. Torvald calls her a "featherbrained

Nora gets blackmailed for forging a signature, and for this she gets disowned by her husband. But, when her husband finds that the blackmail will be dropped, and will no longer affect their lives, he tells Nora that everything is okay and they both can presume living like normal. This opens Nora’s eyes fully for the first time, before she had only glimpses of the wrongness in her identity, but now she knew. Nora had been living a false identity, she had been a ‘toy doll’, and at the end of the play she decides to want so much more than to be what others thought she should be. In the end of Act three, Nora states ”I must think things out for myself and try to get clear about them” (Ibsen 199). Nora is now going to decided who she is and what she really believes, she is going to discover her own identity. In an article on women working in World War II, it states, “While patriotism did influence women, ultimately it was the economic incentives that convinced them to work. Once at work, they discovered the nonmaterial benefits of working like... contributing to the public good, and proving themselves in jobs once thought of as only men’s work” (“Rosie Riveter: Women”). Women before World War II were thought of as simply housewifes for the most part, similar to Nora. The circumstances of World War II brought about need for women in the workplace, this started a domino effect of women taking up an identity similar to males the sense that they could now

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.