A doll’s house key quotes Flashcards
Torvald’s reaction to Nora rejecting her duties
‘First and foremost you are a wife and mother’
Nora’s reaction to ‘First and foremost you are a wife and mother’
‘I believe that first and foremost I am a human being’
Torvald explaining why he didn’t take the blame for Nora
‘No man can be expected to sacrifice his honour for the person he loves’
Despite fantasising about giving up his ‘life and blood’ for Nora’s sake
Torvald after receiving the second letter
‘I would not be a true man if your feminine helplessness did not make you doubly attractive in my eyes’
Torvald asking Nora of the consequences of her leaving
‘But to leave your home, your husband, your children! Have you thought what people will say?’
What does Nora say she is doing off stage while Torvald is ranting out of relief after the second letter
‘Taking off my fancy dress’
Nora explaining how Torvald and her papa have ruined her life
‘I’ve been your doll-wife, just as I used to be papa’s doll-child’
Nora lying to Torvald Act 1
‘You know I could never act against your wishes’
Nora telling Torvald how she acted to get her way
‘I performed tricks for you’
- voice symbolises female frustration with the oppressive patriarchy
What does Christine say about women not being able to borrow money
‘Well, a wife can’t borrow money without her husband’s consent’
What does Nora say about not knowing Torvald anymore? Act 3
‘I realised I had been living here with a complete stranger’
Nora acknowledging the sacrifice of women
‘millions of women have done it’
- Carrie Cracknell 2012 changed to ‘thousands and thousands and thousands’ to emphasise this
Nora only allowed allowances to survive
Act 3 - Nora is living like a ‘pauper, from hand to mouth’
Wants to get ‘some sort of job’ - this line mocked by Ibsen’s detractors
Anne Marie as a fallen woman
She’s a ‘poor girl what’s got into trouble’
Nora fantasising about her erotic attractions
• desires money from an ‘admirer’ or ‘some rich old gentleman’
• ‘everything […] to my beloved Nora Helmer in cash’
Christine understands transactional nature of relationships
• admits to having ‘sold herself for others’ (sexually?)
• exploits her connection with Nora and Krogstad - ‘once upon a time he’d have done anything for my sake’
Torvald’s fragile masculinity
• Act 3 - ‘I would not be a man if your feminine helplessness did not make you doubly attractive in my eyes’
Nora acknowledging Torvald’s fragile masculinity Act 1
• ‘Torvald is ‘so proud of being a man- it’d be so painful and humiliating for him to know he owed anything to me’
• Without performance of gender roles ‘ This life we have built together would no longer exist’
Krogstad fragile masculinity
When Christine broke up with him it felt as though ‘all the solid ground had been swept from under my feet’
How does Torvald isolate Nora from Christine, demonstrating his insecurity?
Act 3 deems her a ‘dreadful bore’
What quotes demonstrate Torvald’s sensual nature, only liking pretty things
• Describes knitting as an ‘ugly business’ Act 3
• Rank’s death pollutes the surface level, positive nature of their marriage: Acts as a ‘dark background to the happy sunlight of our marriage’
Nora conditioned to desiring domesticity
She longs ‘to be free. To be absolutely free. To spend time playing with the children. To have a clean, beautiful house, the way Torvald likes it’
Torvald trapped, dehumanising himself
‘I have broad wings to shield you’
Nora understanding her need to play up to roles
• ‘when it no longer amuses him to see me dance and dress up and play the fool for him’
‘Then it might be useful to have something up my sleeve’
Torvald helping Nora dance the tarantella
Promises to assist his ‘poor helpless little darling’
Torvald’s fantasy
Pictures Nora as ‘young and trembling and beautiful’
Nora flirting with Rank Act 2
‘You’re being naughty’
‘Flesh coloured’
Nora trying to convince Torvald to give Krogstad’s job back
‘Squirrel would do lots of pretty tricks for you if you granted her a wish’
Torvald Act 3 owning Nora
Describes her as his ‘most treasured possession’
Torvald concerned with aesthetics, superficial, attractive relationship Act 3
• ‘His suffering and loneliness seemed to provide a kind of dark background to the happy sunlight of our marriage’
• ‘An ugliness has come between us; thoughts of death and dissolution’
Torvald irony and hypocrisy Act 3 scene 1 performance as a man
‘I wish some terrible danger might threaten you, so that I could offer my life and blood, everything for your sake’
Dr Rank about outward appearance Act 3
‘What a happy, peaceful home you two have’
Act 3 Torvald on religious duty
‘No religion, no morals, no sense of duty!’
Act 3 Torvald self centred
‘Now you have destroyed all my happiness’
‘I am condemned to humiliation and ruin simply for the weakness of a woman’
Torvald performance Act 3
‘We must appear to be living together just as before’
‘Henceforth there can be no question of happiness’
