Monday, March 21, 2016

After reading Act I, and a little bit of Act II, I have made opinions on what's going on in Henrick Isben's "A Doll's House."

     Mainly focusing on Nora's problems, and her interaction with Mr. Krogstad, Nora is in a very bad position, in a hysteric of grieving even, as, since she doesn't really have much foresight, nor thinks about what could happen later in the future from the decisions she has made (Otherwise, known as consequences.), she has trapped herself by getting her husband, who's a bank manager, to hire her friend, Mrs. Linde, for a job position in the bank, and, thus, Krogstad is going to be fired to make room for Mrs. Linde. Because of this, Krogstad threatens to reveal to Nora's husband that Nora forged a bank note to pay for their vacation long ago, something that Nora felt her husband vitally needed to stay alive, which would reveal a long, and enormous lie that Nora had kept hidden for a long time and, no doubt, would be intolerable by Nora's husband (Keep in mind, this is in a time where women are almost completely dependent on their husbands, and would barely survive in society without one.). If the forged note went to court, as Krogstad had threatened, Nora's entire family would instantly become disreputable, and in a position far worse than Krogstad's, as a woman had made the forgery behind her husband's back, something absolutely humiliating for a husband to let slide under their noses.
     What I think of this was that Nora was trying to be thoughtful for her friend, when her decision was really thoughtless. Although, being just introduced to the characters, the reader wouldn't have seen this coming either, as the reader didn't know Krogstad worked at the bank, nor knew that there wasn't any extra room for him, so the reader might not blame Nora. However, Nora makes another mistake that she could've avoided easily if she didn't have such a big ego at the time. This mistake was, outright, telling Krogstad that it was she that recommended Mrs. Linde. While it was clear that Krogstad was suspicious even before Nora had told him, Nora just put herself deeper into trouble by admitting to it without even being asked.
     Then, we learn that Nora had, foolishly, forged her father's signature. The funny thing is that she could have gotten away with it, if it wasn't for the fact that she put a date on the note that was three days after her father's death, very much putting her troubles through refinement, and gravely putting herself at the pinnacle of lpurposely tried to forge a note in someone else's name. If she had just thought about, on that day, how the date she had put wouldn't make any sense, she could have been able to excuse herself that her father had forgotten to write the date, but not only did she not put a logical date, but she didn't even get her father's actual signature because she hesitated, like how she hesitated to tell any of this to her husband. By holding these lies back, she is letting them grow, and eventually they'll become big enough to notice, and pop with all their stored pressure.
aw justice, as the date showed she had
     Even though I explained how I feel about Act I, I feel like I have to talk a little about Act II, because it shows she still hasn't started thinking about the future, nor her consequences. Basically, Nora becomes desperate, and tries to bewitch Dr. Rank into becoming entranced enough to able to ask him for enough money to pay off the debt to Krogstad, so she can take the no longer binding note, and destroy it. This doesn't turn out well at all, as now she has to keep, yet, another lie from her husband, and has, potentially, put herself at Dr. Rank's mercy because Dr. Rank also has the choice give Nora away or not. Although, there might be a chance that Nora's husband won't believe Dr. Rank if he were to give Nora away, and see Dr. Rank's tattle as an insult. Either way, Nora had just put her, and her husband's friendship with Dr. Rank in jeopardy, especially with herself and Dr. Rank because they probably won't be able to see each other the same way, again, for quite some time.
    Also, even though that's as far as we have read for now, I'm predicting that Nora's next way to save herself is to get Mrs. Linde to turn down her job offer from her husband, which will likely not work at all, again, and just rot her relationship with Mrs. Linde, like how she rotted her relationship with Dr. Rank, and after such a long friendship, too. (This is just a prediction.)

2 comments:

  1. I think I went over-board with the length of my post... Anyway, I commented on:

    Visco's Blog,
    Josue's Blog,
    Nelson's Blog (Ran into a bug where my comment was duplicated, so don't mine that one of my comments was removed.)

    and Felicia's Blog (This blog I especially liked.)

    ReplyDelete