ADH Act 3 Quotes Flashcards
jilts
a heartless woman jilts a man when a more lucrative chance turns up?
krog
brothers
I had a helpless mother and two little brothers.
linde
shipwrecked
Krogstad [more gently]. When I lost you, it was as if all the solid ground went from under my feet. Look at me now–I am a shipwrecked man clinging to a bit of wreckage.
very romantic
something to
give me someone and something to work for.
linde
sake
Mrs Linde Nils, a woman who has once sold herself for another’s sake, doesn’t do it a second time.
secretly
It is because I make believe to myself that we are secretly in love,
voyeuristic
blood
When I watched the seductive figures of the Tarantella, my blood was on fire;
torvald
husband
Am I not your husband–?
torvald when nora denies him
invisible
Rank - At the next fancy-dress ball I shall be invisible.
death
ugly
Nora With the thought of your friend’s death–
Helmer You are right, it has affected us both. Something ugly has come between us–the thought of the horrors of death.
8 years
All these eight years–she who was my joy and pride–a hypocrite, a liar–worse, worse–a criminal!
torvald
duty
No religion, no morality, no sense of duty–.
torvald
loved
whom I have loved so dearly, and whom I still–. No, that is all over.
torvald
fragments
From this moment happiness is not the question; all that concerns us is to save the remains, the fragments, the appearance–
torvald
dare not
I shall not allow you to bring up the children; I dare not trust them to you.
torvald
saved
Yes, it is true! I am saved! Nora, I am saved!
torvald
helplessness
I should not be a man if this womanly helplessness did not just give you a double attractiveness in my eyes.
torvald - he is patronising
* thrives off the weakness of woman
* insecurities of his masculinity
settling
Torvald, this is a settling of accounts.
nora
conversation
Nora We have been married now eight years. Does it not occur to you that this is the first time we two, you and I, husband and wife, have had a serious conversation?
transferred
Nora [undisturbed]. I mean that I was simply transferred from papa’s hands into yours.
perform
I have existed merely to perform tricks for you,
nora
committed
You and papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life.
patriarchal restrictions, the new woman
playtime
Playtime shall be over, and lesson-time shall begin.
still very patronising - torvald
proper
Nora Alas, Torvald, you are not the man to educate me into being a proper wife for you.
desert
Helmer To desert your home, your husband and your children! And you don’t consider what people will say!
mother
Helmer Before all else, you are a wife and a mother.
This summarises the main belief of a contemporary audience. Torvald believes it is a woman’s duty to care for her husband and children before she cares for herself. Women must prioritise marriage and motherhood before individuality.
religion
Nora I am afraid, Torvald, I do not exactly know what religion is.
age
Helmer This is unheard of in a girl of your age!
contradictoray
convince
I find it impossible to convince myself that the law is right. According to it a woman has no right to spare her old dying father, or to save her husband’s life.
nora
delirious
Helmer You are ill, Nora; you are delirious; I almost think you are out of your mind.
wonderful thing
Helmer And can you tell me what I have done to forfeit your love?
Nora tonight, when the wonderful thing did not happen; then I saw you were not the man I had thought you were.
sacrifice
Helmer no man would sacrifice his honour for the one he loves.
Nora It is a thing hundreds of thousands of women have done.
borne
[Getting up.] Torvald–it was then it dawned upon me that for eight years I had been living here with a strange man, and had borne him three children-
nora
alienation - In the nineteenth century, more so than now, marriages were often arranged for purposes of social propriety. It seems like Nora and Helmer’s has been such a marriage. The downside is of course that, yknow, you don’t really love the other person.
bear
Oh, I can’t bear to think of it! I could tear myself into little bits!
nora
Aligns with what she said on pg 63 about tearing the dress: not just a costume
taken
Nora Perhaps–if your doll is taken away from you.
Helmer But to part!--to part from you! No, no, Nora, I can't understand that idea.
pacification
little ones
, Torvald. I won’t see the little ones. I know they are in better hands than mine. As I am now, I can be of no use to them.
nora - renounces maternal role
everything
The maids know all about everything in the house–better than I do.
At the time the play was written, a woman’s main duty was to care for her children. But Nora is revealing that she doesn’t even do this, the maids know more about her own home than she does. Nora does not fulfil her duties as a wife and mother.
most wonderful
Nora [taking her bag]. Ah, Torvald, the most wonderful thing of all would have to happen.
wedlock
Nora That our life together would be a real wedlock.
empty
Empty. She is gone. [A hope flashes across his mind.] The most wonderful thing of all–?
[The sound of a door shutting is heard from below.]
hope - then hope crushed
