even for the rest of their lives.

Then we have Nora herself. In some respects, the ending of the play is happy for her, or at any rate, it holds out the prospect of future happiness, however remote. She and Torvald never truly knew or loved each other, and Nora is no longer his "doll." She's finally got out of a marriage that was holding her back and which was based on a lie. That certainly presents itself as a clause for happiness.

But the situation is much more complicated than that. For a respectable, middle-class married woman to do what Nora has done is considered nothing short of scandalous by society. Once word gets out, Nora will be a social outcast, shunned by respectable society, her reputation in tatters. If Nora doesn't return to her family, then she'll have no choice but to go far away and somehow start over. But for a woman in those days, especially for a woman in Nora's position, that is a difficult task. And so it's very unlikely that Nora can expect any happiness any time soon. In that sense, the ending of A Doll's House is not really a happy one for Nora, and it certainly does not end on a light note for her husband and children.

However, the play's final lines suggest that there might be some hope for Nora and Torvald's marriage. As Torvald begs Nora to stay, Nora says that she could only remain if they were both "so changed that" their marriage became one of a "real wedlock." With that, she exits the room. Distraught, Torvald falls into a chair and puts his head in his hands. Upon realizing that Nora is truly gone, "a hope flashes across his mind," and he utters the last line of the play: "The most wonderful thing of all—?" The door downstairs shuts. It seems that, at the very last moment, Torvald may have garnered some understanding of what Nora was referring to, though he may be too late.

A Doll's House, in my opinion is a tragedy of sorts, but it is a result of the people of the time.  The society is male-dominated and though Nora's behavior seems sometimes comic in its ridiculous nature, she is actually simply playing a role (like a "doll") in order to get what she wants and, in a real sense, absolutely needs: money to pay Krogstad's I.O.U.

Nora leaves her children at the end and goes into an uncertain future. She knows she can not care for them, but regardless of the situation, a mother leaving her child is unnatural and hard to comprehend in any society, though it happens all too often.

I would say this play is sad: the family is destroyed and Nora has no idea of who she is or how she will survive. (Kristine has already described the horrors that a single's woman's life, trying to survive alone in a man's world, will hold for her.) Torvald has no clue, but this has been the case through the entire play. Even when he finds what she has done—only to save HIS life—all he cares about is his reputation. He is, of course, a product of his society, but in any age, there have always been people who have lived outside the confines of society to do great things.

For example, Ghandi, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King, Jr., are only a few examples: they could have stayed where society expected them to, but each chose to take a different path that confounded some, and enraged others. And thank God they did so.

Unhappy and tragic: that is how I see "A Doll's House."