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Inconsistency of the character Nora

 

            "The Doll House" is a play written by Henrik Ibsen more than a hundred years ago. It is probably one of the first attempts to discuss the need for an equality between men and women. The inclusion of this play in a "World's Classics" book series tells us about how great this play is. But on reading it I found what seemed to be an inconsistent character.
             Nora, arguably the protagonist of the play, is an unrebeling and an extremely submissive wife of a bank manager. She is someone who apparently has no mind of her own and for eight years has done only what her husband has asked her to do. In one day this shy wife turns into a clear-minded un - emotional person who unbelievably leaves her husband and her children - a change / transformation too big in too short a period to swallow.
             Nora's qualities until the end of the play are similar to women of that era. She is shy, and is absolutely blindly submissive to her men folk - her husband in particular. Infact they would even chose her likes and dislikes for her, as she says -" Daddy used to tell me what he thought, then I thought the same. And if I thought differently, I kept quiet about it, because he wouldn't have liked it." She would even do away with things that she really loved, such as macaroons. She would not eat them simply because her husband didn't like her to do so for the mere reason that they would spoil her teeth. He even controlled her tongue. She didn't even have the courage to say "damn" in front of him. He was totally in control of her. He would abuse her father and curse him regularly, and all she did was kept shut. .
             If, maybe if her husband had loved her, she may have found it worthy enough to sacrifice her freedom for him. But no, apparently he didn't even love her, as she admited later: " You two (husband and father) never loved me. You only thought how nice it was to be in love with me." Whether he loved her or not, we don't know, but we do get an idea of the slavish nature that she possessed, to be able to stay with such a person at the loss of her own freedom - a person who didn't even love her.


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