Word: nora
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...Nora's husband, Torvald Helmer, Donald Madden is an excellent foil. His blond Scandinavian looks, his slightly mannered stuffiness, arrogance and condescension all contribute to a solid and coherent character. He conveys just the inflexible sense of property and propriety that is so necessary to the role. There is no falling off in the rest of the cast-in Nora's worldly wise friend (Patricia Elliott) or in the doctor (Roy Shuman), who is paying mortally for the sins of his father, or in the unscrupulous moneylender (Robert Gerringer), who is trying to keep a slippery foot...
Seductively Powerful. As everyone probably knows, Nora Helmer has saved her husband's life with a convalescent trip financed by an indiscreet secret loan from the moneylender, who writes a letter exposing her to her husband. Torvald plays a cravenly abusive blame game with Nora, then, when the threat lifts, wants to go on together as if nothing had happened. But Nora sees her idealistic love shattered. She feels that she has been treated like a doll-child in her father's house and a doll-woman in her husband's. She opts to leave...
...counts as an imprimatur, Betty Friedan was in the opening-night audience. Since Ibsen is a seductively powerful dramatist and the evening's didactic thrust is something like "Go thou and do likewise," it is important to examine Ibsen's intent and Nora's behavior...
Ibsen's teen-age disciple, James Joyce, understood him much better than Shaw. As Ibsen had slammed the door on a claustrophobic Norway, Joyce slammed the door on Ireland and uttered his non serviam: "I will not serve that in which I no longer believe." Nora's door slam is a crisis of belief, her non serviarn. But is she saving herself or indulging herself? To judge her act, one must imagine the alternatives. In that final scene in which Nora accuses Torvald of never having talked to her seriously about serious things, man and wife...
...different ending, Torvald might say, "O.K., Nora. I agree it's been a bad marriage. I'm leaving, too. Let the children fend for themselves." Viewed in that light, the cost Nora is inflicting on others by her abandonment is clearer. She is being selfishly irresponsible. The logic of her act is that one no longer honors a commitment as soon as it displeases...