ADH Act 3 Quotes

Question 1

jilts

Answer 1

a heartless woman jilts a man when a more lucrative chance turns up?

krog

Question 2

brothers

Answer 2

I had a helpless mother and two little brothers.

linde

Question 3

shipwrecked

Answer 3

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

Question 4

something to

Answer 4

give me someone and something to work for.

linde

Question 5

sake

Answer 5

Mrs Linde Nils, a woman who has once sold herself for another’s sake, doesn’t do it a second time.

Question 6

secretly

Answer 6

It is because I make believe to myself that we are secretly in love,

voyeuristic

Question 7

blood

Answer 7

When I watched the seductive figures of the Tarantella, my blood was on fire;

torvald

Question 8

husband

Answer 8

Am I not your husband–?

torvald when nora denies him

Question 9

invisible

Answer 9

Rank - At the next fancy-dress ball I shall be invisible.

death

Question 10

ugly

Answer 10

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.

Question 11

8 years

Answer 11

All these eight years–she who was my joy and pride–a hypocrite, a liar–worse, worse–a criminal!

torvald

Question 12

duty

Answer 12

No religion, no morality, no sense of duty–.

torvald

Question 13

loved

Answer 13

whom I have loved so dearly, and whom I still–. No, that is all over.

torvald

Question 14

fragments

Answer 14

From this moment happiness is not the question; all that concerns us is to save the remains, the fragments, the appearance–

torvald

Question 15

dare not

Answer 15

I shall not allow you to bring up the children; I dare not trust them to you.

torvald

Question 16

saved

Answer 16

Yes, it is true! I am saved! Nora, I am saved!

torvald

Question 17

helplessness

Answer 17

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

Question 18

settling

Answer 18

Torvald, this is a settling of accounts.

nora

Question 19

conversation

Answer 19

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?

Question 20

transferred

Answer 20

Nora [undisturbed]. I mean that I was simply transferred from papa’s hands into yours.

Question 21

perform

Answer 21

I have existed merely to perform tricks for you,

nora

Question 22

committed

Answer 22

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

Question 23

playtime

Answer 23

Playtime shall be over, and lesson-time shall begin.

still very patronising - torvald

Question 24

proper

Answer 24

Nora Alas, Torvald, you are not the man to educate me into being a proper wife for you.

Question 25

desert

Answer 25

Helmer To desert your home, your husband and your children! And you don’t consider what people will say!

Question 26

mother

Answer 26

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.

Question 27

religion

Answer 27

Nora I am afraid, Torvald, I do not exactly know what religion is.

Question 28

age

Answer 28

Helmer This is unheard of in a girl of your age!

contradictoray

Question 29

convince

Answer 29

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

Question 30

delirious

Answer 30

Helmer You are ill, Nora; you are delirious; I almost think you are out of your mind.

Question 31

wonderful thing

Answer 31

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.

Question 32

sacrifice

Answer 32

Helmer no man would sacrifice his honour for the one he loves.

Nora It is a thing hundreds of thousands of women have done.

Question 33

borne

Answer 33

[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.

Question 34

bear

Answer 34

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

Question 35

taken

Answer 35

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

Question 36

little ones

Answer 36

, 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

Question 37

everything

Answer 37

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.

Question 38

most wonderful

Answer 38

Nora [taking her bag]. Ah, Torvald, the most wonderful thing of all would have to happen.

Question 39

wedlock

Answer 39

Nora That our life together would be a real wedlock.

Question 40

empty

Answer 40

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