How has Nora's character changed from Act I to Act III in A Doll's House?

Nora has undergone a complete change by the end of A Doll’s House as she exerts her independent spirit and willingness to educate herself as an individual.

In act 1, Ibsen depicts Nora as accepting of her husband’s condescension. Torvald’s nicknames go unchallenged by Nora, who is happy to accept her circumstances. Eager to pay back her debt, Nora constantly asks Torvald for money; he interprets her requests as proof that she is an “extravagant little person.” Nora has learned that a little flirtation will go a long way, so she uses her charms on Torvald and allows him to act as if she has no brain. “You haven’t any idea how many expenses we skylarks and squirrels have,” she tells Torvald in order to get more money.

However, we soon learn that Nora is quite shrewd and more intelligent than people give her credit for. She is willing to do anything for her loved ones. In the past, she committed forgery in order to save Torvald’s life, and she now is slowly paying back her debt so he won’t find out. She is not the simple, senseless spendthrift that Torvald would have us believe.

Nora grows up a great deal throughout the play, as she begins to realize that there are consequences to keeping such a great secret. When Krogstad first threatens to reveal her secret to Torvald, she tells him “impetuously” to do it, since she is confident that Torvald will save her and pay Krogstad. But, as time goes by and she hears Torvald’s ideas on how a mother’s bad influence can poison the children, she begins to fear that she is hurting her own children. The pride she had felt in keeping her secret gives way to fear. Eventually, at Christine’s urging, Nora recognizes that she must be honest with Torvald and accept whatever results come from that honesty.

Nora’s epiphany comes when Torvald, having discovered Nora’s secret, does not step up to save her. Instead, he berates her and expresses concern over his own reputation. When Krogstad decides not to blackmail them, Torvald resumes his condescending ways, prompting Nora to realize that he is not the person she thought he was and that this is not the life she wants anymore. She cannot raise her children if she does not have her own identity. She recognizes that “duties to myself” must be most important now. Torvald explains that a man cannot sacrifice his life for his love, to which Nora reminds him “It is a thing hundreds of thousands of women have done.” She will do it no longer.

How does Nora's attitude change at the end of A Doll's House, Act 3?

Nora finds her voice. Early in the play, Nora allows Torvald to belittle her with insulting "pet" names and endures his comments like "You're an odd little one." Torvald treats his wife like a child at best (and something less than human at worst), and in the beginning, Nora smiles and plays the part of his "little lark." In act 3, however, Nora realizes the truth about her marriage and delivers this line:

You don't understand me. And I've never understood you either—until tonight. No, don't interrupt. You can just listen to what I say.

The Nora in act 1 simply didn't have this type of courage or confidence in herself. By the end, she can effectively make her husband listen to her.

Nora realizes that she can be more than a man's possession. In act 1, she obtains the money needed for her husband's medical treatment by forging some documents. This actually begins to lay a foundation that she will need for her eventual escape—it gives her the knowledge that she can be resourceful enough to navigate a social system which is not designed for independent women. Still, in the beginning of the play, she hides the truth from her husband and even endures his insults about how she is incapable of saving any money. In act 3, she tells him,

When I lived at home with Papa, he told me all his opinions, so I had the same ones too; or if they were different I hid them, since he wouldn't have cared for that. He used to call me his doll-child, and he played with me the way I played with my dolls. Then I came into your house—I went from Papa's hands into yours.

Nora realizes that the men in her life have never given her a chance to be anything besides what they wanted her to be. In the end, she realizes that she has dreams of her own, and she is capable enough to set out to accomplish things that do not depend on the opinions of men.

How does Nora's attitude change at the end of A Doll's House, Act 3?

At the beginning of the play, Nora is content to live and act the way that Torvald (her husband) sees her.  By the end of the play, she realizes that she is not happy and has not been true to herself.  Her attitude is now that she needs to discover who she is.  Before she was content to devote her entire life to her husband and children, but now she feels that she owes as much to herself and her own happiness.

Her attitude in the beginning can be found in Act 1, where she tells Mrs. Linde that all she wants is to be free of her debt to she can "spend time playing with the children. To have a clean, beautiful house, the way Torvald likes it."

In the end, her attitude is shown by saying at the end of Act III,

"I have been performing tricks for you, Torvald. That’s how I’ve survived. You wanted it like that. You and Papa have done me a great wrong. It’s because of you I’ve made nothing of my life."

What actions and dialogue show Nora's change at the end of Act III in A Doll's House?

Throughout the majority of A Doll's House Nora plays a part in the Helmer household, resorting to coy and demur displays of affection and praise in order to get her way. At the end of the play, Nora gives up the pretense of fragility and weakness and dons a new strength, choosing to leave her husband, children and the security of a fixed, social identity behind. 

One of the most striking evidences of Nora's change from fake weakness to attempted strength comes when she brings the entire history of her marriage into question: 

“We have been married now for eight years. Does it not occur to you that this is the first time we two, husband and wife, have had a serious conversation?”

With these words, Nora blames both herself and her husband for the fraud of their partnership. Ultimately she blames the two men of her life for treating her as if she has no mind of her own. Her father and Torvald are both given responsonsibility for stiffling Nora's sense of self and suffocating her with their own. 

Perhaps the greatest display of her change is found in her decision to leave her family behind.

Nora realizes in the final act of A Doll's House that if she wants the opportunity to develop an identity as an adult, she must leave her husband's home.

Though she has fought against the image of herself as helpless and stupid throughout the play, she is also seen to depend on the affections of her children. In leaving them, Nora is leaving all comforts behind and taking on the task of finding herself. 

This is not necessarily a selfless or noble task and may be better seen as a selfish departure from the effacement Nora had accepted for eight years as a wife and mother. 

What changes Nora at the end of Act 3 in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House?

The turning moment for Nora in Act 3 was her husband's response to Krogstad's letter revealing that Nora had forged a signature on a loan. Nora had expected him to realize that she had forged the loan as a sacrifice for his sake; she expected him to realize how much she had loved him and to return that love. She had also expected him to allow his own reputation to fall for her sake. She, however, was expecting to spare his reputation by committing suicide. It is Torvald's sacrifice and her reciprocal sacrifice through suicide that she refers to as the "wonderful" and "terrible" thing that is "going to happen" (II). We especially see her expectations of sacrifice and suicide revealed in some of her lines in Act 3, such as, "You shan't save me, Torvald!" followed by, "Let me go. You shall not suffer for my sake. You shall not take it upon yourself" (III).

Instead, contrary to her expectations, Torvald thinks only of his reputation and nothing of how Nora made a sacrifice for his sake when she took out the loan to save his life. It especially begins to dawn on Nora that he is thinking only of his own reputation and not at all willing to sacrifice for her in return when he demands of her:

Do you understand what you have done? Answer me? Do you understand what you have done? (III)

Those three little questions are really the turning point in the dialogue. It is after these lines are delivered that Ibsen describes Nora's face as having a "growing look of coldness," as she says in reply, "Yes, now I am beginning to understand thoroughly. It is after this moment that Nora realizes how thoroughly naive she is about the world, decides she is not fit to be a mother, and decides she must leave to educate herself.

What major change occurs in Nora's life throughout A Doll's House?

The great change that takes place in Nora is a development of identity. Nora begins the play as a person without her own opinions. She ends the play as a person dedicated to defining herself as an individual, willing to make great sacrifices to do so. 

Nora's husband, Torvald, provides Nora with her only definition early in the play, characterizing her as a "singing lark", a "little squirrel" and otherwise diminutive and without agency.

She is viewed as an object, a toy, a child, but never an equal.

This uneven relationship is never more clear than in the scene when Nora prepares for the dance and preens for Torvald, manipulating him, and being characterized diminutive by him throughout.

The actions Nora takes throughout the play (until the very end) are kept secret. She sneaks cookies. She secretly takes a loan and suffers Krogstad's blackmail. These actions, as secrets, cannot actively define Nora or build an identity for her. 

After being disappointed by Torvald's reaction to the news of Krogstad's blackmail, Nora finally comes to realize that she has no identity of her own. Torvald berates and belittles her instead of fulfilling her vision of him as noble and loving. 

Nora is little more than a child playing a role; she is a "doll" occupying a doll's house, a child who has exchanged a father for a husband without changing or maturing in any way.

The hope that Nora has invested in Torvald gives way to the realization that he does not respect her and that, perhaps, she is not enough of a person to deserve respect. 

When Nora finally gives up her dream for a miracle and, instead, accepts the reality of her husband's failings, she finally takes her first steps toward maturity.

Nora's change receives quite a bit of commentary in the last scene of the play. Her realization is fully articulated, as is her plight in marriage with Torvald (a complete lack of identity of her own). 

She is willing to give up her children, ultimately, so that she can cease to be a child herself and learn to develop her own ideas and opinions.

How does Nora's character change throughout Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House"?

From the very beginning of the play, we can see that Nora is a pleaser. Her upbeat and excessively "chirpy" attitude is reflected in how she enters Scene 1 in such "high spirits," singing tunes, then eating macarons, and then interacting with her husband in an almost comical way. Their interaction immediately denotes a father/child dynamic where the husband acts as a disciplinarian more than a loving companion. To all this, Nora is compliant. She is fulfilling a role, after all: the very Victorian role of the "angel of the household." In the Helmer household, she would be playing the part of  her husband's "squirrel," the "little spendthrift," and the "featherhead," in Torvald's own words.

Once she reunites with her old friend Mrs. Linde, we find out the kind of trouble Nora is in. She has made a business loan with a man who works for her husband. The man is Krogstad, an individual with a shady past and questionable intentions. Eventually, he uses his position to control Nora and threaten her with telling Torvald if she does not agree to his terms of repayment. To all this, Mrs. Linde responds with what we suspect as readers: she tells Nora that she (Nora) needs to face the issue and tell her husband herself, or else what kind of marriage is she really a part of?

Nora's response is interesting. She feels that she will, perhaps by providence, be rewarded and appreciated by her husband (should he ever find out) for making the transaction with Krogstad. After all, she did it all to save her husband's life when they were in need of funding for a medical treatment. Of course Torvald would understand, right? Those were her thoughts. In her mind, that would have been, as she says, "her miracle."

Fast forward to the last act, when Torvald finally finds out about the issue. He acts terribly toward Nora. He does not even acknowledge the fact that she did all of that for him; he calls her a bad mother, a bad wife, and a bad influence. This is the catalyst that Nora needs to finally realize the sham of her marriage. She finally gets it: she has played the role of a doll with her husband, the same way she was a plaything of her father; she was an entertaining piece of the household and not really a valued, equally-treated human being. As such, Nora simply decides to leave everything behind her and goes away. She is tired of playing such a role.

How does Nora's character change throughout Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House"?

In the beginning of Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House," Nora Helmer is happy. She seems oblivious to the real world and the challenges adults are required to face. She revels in Torvald's treatment of her (as a "silly girl"). Life for Nora seems to revolve around her stash of macaroons and her seemingly perfect life. 

As the play progresses, readers learn of her true understanding of very complex ideas. Nora proves to be educated in finances, and she proves to understand the real world with excruciating realism. Forced to take out a loan to help out with the family's financial state, Nora goes behind Torvald's back to insure financial security. As the loan comes due, Nora faces a new challenge, blackmail. 

By the end of the play, readers come to see Nora change dramatically. That said, engaged readers may question if Nora really changes at all. Realistically, one could question if Nora really underwent any real change, or if she simply covered up who she really was.  

How does Nora's personality change throughout "A Doll's House"?

Let's look into the first activities that Nora is conducting when the play opens. She is out shopping, getting a Christmas tree, eating macaroons behind her husband's back, playing with her children, and responding to her husband's terms of endearment, which include "little squirrel," and a "lark." He warmly scolds her for eating sweets, criticizes her spending habits, and basically demonstrates with his behavior that he is the proverbial "head of the woman," a paradigm that Victorians lived by. 

But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.(1:Corinthians 11:3)

Judging by the way Nora responds to these dynamics, we can safely assume that she is content with her position; that she was groomed to be her husband's wife and her children's mother. 

Towards the middle of the play, Nora's behavior does not change, but her mindset begins to show signs of self-doubt and doubts about her husband. She talks about a "miracle" that would happen and make everything go away. This "miracle" she refers to is the scenario that she hopes to see if her husband ever finds out about the deal with Krogstad. In this scenario, Torvald would understand Nora's sacrifice, appreciate her for it, and then take the blame for her to protect her honor. Nora was torn, because part of her believed this would be possible, and another part of her knew it wouldn't happen.

Helmer [walking about the room]. What a horrible awakening! All these eight years--she who was my joy and pride--a hypocrite, a liar--worse, worse--a criminal! The unutterable ugliness of it all!--For shame! [...]No religion, no morality, no sense of duty-[...]and this is how you repay me.

Nora's "miracle" does not occur. As such, Nora is left disillusioned, frustrated and, to a point, devastated. Who is this man she married? How can the man for whom she has sacrificed so much call her such awful names, and make the horrible suggestions he makes? She has finally seen his true colors, and this is when she realizes that all her life has been a farce. She has lived like the plaything of a very shallow man. Knowing all of this was enough to make Nora decide on the spot that it is time for her to go. She realizes that she has never been happy and she goes away, leaving her husband and children behind. 

Describe Nora's transformation from a doll to a free human in 'A Doll's House'.

Throughout the play, Nora lives her life for her husband. She is the epitome of a docile, pretty, and lighthearted wife. Nora's desires for her own life are not of importance as she dotes on her husband and performs her duties as a perfect wife. Nora represents the images of the dutiful 1950's housewife (however, the story is set in the century before then). However, when Nora finally does something that her husband disapproves of, she suddenly realizes how empty her life is and that she is simply living for her husband's satisfaction. Through this realization, Nora decides that she will live for herself. This decision is the exact opposite of a dutiful, obedient, and submissive housewife, and it is this decision to live for herself that transformed Nora from a doll-like character into an autonomous human being. When Nora walks off into the unknown, she is finally able to make her own choices and experience the fullness of a liberated life.

Describe Nora's transformation from a doll to a free human in 'A Doll's House'.

In Ibsen's play, A Doll's House, Nora is a living doll throughout much of the drama. She is treated like an object by her husband, and her value comes from how pretty she is and how entertaining she can be. She feels like nothing more than a doll for her husband to command as he will. During the play, she is afraid her husband will find out her terrible secret that she borrowed money and forged her father's signature. She lives in fear that Krogstad will tell her husband.

When that moment finally does happen, her husband reacts in a harsh manner and she recognizes the emptiness of her marriage. Nora makes the decision that she will leave her husband--and her children--and in this decision, she finds freedom. She drops the pretense she had been carrying on--acting as if she wasn't clever and that she was carefree, only concerned for her husband's happiness--and transforms into a free human being. She chooses to follow her own path and make her own decisions for the first time in her life.

What positive changes does Nora undergo in A Doll's House?

The positive gains Nora makes in the course of the action in A Doll's House are the discovery of her own agency and identity. Although she seems happy at the beginning of the play, she has subordinated herself entirely to Torvald, who treats her like a thoughtless, foolish child, rather than an equal partner in their marriage. By the end of the action, she has asserted her right to independence and autonomy.

After the display of sentimentality between Nora and Torvald at the beginning of the play, it soon becomes clear that Nora has actually made sacrifices and taken difficult decisions which contradict the image of mindlessness she projects. While Torvald regards his wife as a pretty little spendthrift, Nora has actually been saving to pay off the loan she took out to pay for their trip to Italy, undertaken for the sake of his health.

Torvald is unwilling to face his own duplicity and selfishness. Once the threat of public disgrace is gone, he is happy to return to his former life of dishonesty and illusion. Nora, however, decides that this is no longer possible for her. She will no longer accept a marriage based on lies, or a position subordinate to a man she no longer respects. During the course of the play, she learns to assert herself as a strong, independent person in her own right, rather than playing the part of Torvald's weak and foolish child-wife.

What example shows Nora's development from a rebellious housewife to an independent adult in A Doll's House?

Nora's treatment of money early on symbolizes her rebelliousness as a housewife. She has taken out a loan from Krogstad without her husband's knowledge or permission, and she has forged her own father's signature on the contract. As a result, she spends little money on herself so that she can put everything she can toward paying back the loan; meanwhile, she keeps this information from her husband who teasingly calls her his little "spendthrift" and talks about how money "seems to slip through [her] fingers; [she] never know[s] what becomes of it." This isn't true, in fact—Nora knows exactly where her money goes, and she asks for more of it for Christmas so that she can "buy something with it later on," or so she tells Torvald. She is rebellious because she keeps information from her husband, especially financial information (despite her good intentions in taking out the loan).

However, later on, Nora takes a very different view of her marriage and her financial reliance on Torvald. She says, "When I look back on it now, I seem to have been living here like a beggar, from hand to mouth. I lived by performing tricks for you, Torvald." Further, she refuses to take any money from him now, saying, "To-morrow, . . . Christina will come to pack up the things I brought with me from home . . . I take nothing from strangers." Nora will take no money from her husband now, and she is determined to work for herself to earn her way. Her reliance on his wallet has ended, signaling her new independence.

What example shows Nora's development from a rebellious housewife to an independent adult in A Doll's House?

One way in which Nora shows rebelliousness is through eating macaroons. Her husband has expressly forbidden Nora to eat sweets because he thinks they will ruin her teeth. However, while out Christmas shopping, she purchases a packet of macaroons and is seen eating them when she first enters the house. Torvald's rule forbidding her to eat treats symbolizes all of societies rules over her. In rebelling against her husband, she is rebelling against society as well, especially society's order that a husband has authority to rule over his wife.

She especially eats the macaroons when conversing with Christine and Dr. Rank about the fact that her husband is now Krogstad's, her creditor's, superior. While she once saw Krogstad as a threat to herself because he could expose her cherished secret, she now sees herself and her husband as a threat to Krogstad. Krogstad further symbolizes society's rules because he represents the fact that women were forbidden to take out loans without the authority of a man. However, now that her husband is Krogstad's superior, Nora no longer feels threatened by either society or Krogstad. Nora sees so much irony in the fact that she and her husband now have so much power over one who once intimidated her, that it inspires her to rebel against society's rules by eating more macaroons, which symbolize not only her husband's rules over her but society's rules as well. Not only that, she sees so much irony in the fact that Krogstad is now Torvald's subordinate that she laugh's out loud, saying:

It's perfectly glorious to think that we have--that Torvald has so much power over so many people ... Doctor, Rank, what do you say to a macaroon? (I)

Nora's laughter and her rebelliousness in eating the macaroons shows us just how much she is rebelling against both her husband and society.

However, Nora's macaroon eating was just the beginning of her rebellion against society. By the end of the play, she decides to become an independent woman. She realizes that both Torvald and her father have treated her unjustly by treating her as a play thing, which was the characteristic way for society to treat women in this time period. Her decision to leave her husband, thus becoming an independent woman, is not only a rebellion against her husband but against society as well.

What influenced Nora's self-identity in A Doll's House?

Certainly the treatment Nora receives from her husband, as well as her father while he was alive, influences her identity. Her husband refers to her as his "lark" and his "squirrel," diminutive pet-names that make Nora out to be something small and cute. Torvald seems to see her as a pet, or a child, rather than as his equal or partner. He even forbids her from eating sweets so they don't rot her teeth, a very parental sort of injunction. He treats her like a parent would a child, and she acts very much like a child, horsing around on the floor with the kids, coyly asking him for money for Christmas, and generally acting in an immature way (like eating cookies and hiding the evidence).

Later, after the revelation that Torvald cares more about his honor that he does her love, she realizes that her father used to call her "his doll-child, and played with [her] as [she] played with [her] dolls." She feels that she "passed from [her] father's hands into [Torvald's]," that both men have treated her in much the same way. She feels that because they arranged everything in her life, she "got the same tastes as [they]; or [she] pretended to--[she doesn't] know which--both ways, perhaps; sometimes one and sometimes the other." She doesn't really even know what she, herself, likes or dislikes, and she feels her "life has come to nothing" as a result of these men.

What influenced Nora's self-identity in A Doll's House?

At the start of Ibsen's play, A Doll's House, Nora's identity was influenced by her husband and by society's expectations of how women should behave. During the time the play was written, the 1870's, women took a subservient position to men, especially their husbands, and they had few rights--they could not vote, could not sign loans, and would not have custody of the children in the case of a divorce. Nora's husband, Torvald, reinforces these gender roles by treating Nora like a child and as if she is only in his life as a possession or decoration. Her father has also treated her this way her entire life. Therefore, her identity has been shaped by the men in her life and by society; she feels and acts like a fragile, helpless woman. Later, her identity transforms when she realizes that she must claim her independence regardless of the cost. She recognizes how unfairly her husband has treated her and the problems of society's expectations for women, and has decided she has to make a change.

In what ways does Nora change from the beginning of the play The Doll's House to the end?I guess I was just wondering the degree to which Nora's changes are positive or negative, and how these changes relate to the themes of the play.

The stage directions lay the groundwork for the changes in Nora: “At the back, a door to the right leads to the entrance-hall, another to the left leads to Helmer's study.” These doors symbolize her dilemma, which concerns obedience to her husband, his office being the center of her world, or that door to the entrance, which at the end of the play becomes her exit from his world and her entrance to freedom. As the play closes, Helmer hears “The sound of a door shutting … from below” as Nora leaves his house and enters a new life. “only the most wonderful things” would have to happen for her to return to him with their marriage a “real wedlock,” she says, but she also says “I don’t believe any longer in wonderful things happening.” Nora “closing the door” has become symbolic in literature for a woman choosing a new life.

In what ways does Nora change from the beginning of the play The Doll's House to the end?I guess I was just wondering the degree to which Nora's changes are positive or negative, and how these changes relate to the themes of the play.

For the greater part of the play, Nora is just what her husband wanted. He delights in her flighty, birdlike personality. Nora is the perfect accessory for his career and lifestyle. Nora has kept secrets from him because she feels it is best not to upset him. Torvald is usually unaware of Nora, and in reality, treats her like a fond pet. He pats her head, has silly little names for her, and thinks she is the person he needs her to be.

Once Nora's secrets come out, Nora realizes these things about her husband. She has asked his forgiveness, explained why she took the loan, yet is rejected. Nora realizes that she is not a partner in her marriage, and leaves to establish a real identity for herself, not just that of wife and mother.

Nora finally tired of being little more than a plaything. She realized that she deserved a man who would love and accept her in all circumstances, and clearly Torvald was not that man.

Is the major change in Nora's life from the beginning to the end of Ibsen's A Doll's House positive?

If you had asked the audience seeing Ibsen's A Doll's House the first time, members of that group would have firmly censured Nora for the woman she eventually becomes. In fact, while copies of the play sold out immediately, audiences were appalled that a woman would leave her family. Ibsen had to write an alternate ending that he called...

...a barbaric outrage to be used only in emergencies.

Rather than seeing the play as a human rights story (as Ibsen intended), debate focused instead on Nora's departure from marriage and children.

From a modern standpoint, Torvald is a Neanderthal. He does not see his wife as a person—not even an adult—but treats her like a child. While she did all she could to save his life, he can only worry about his reputation. 

We can see the value of Nora's change in character in terms of her need to be treated as an adult, and an individual. While Torvald shows little regard for Nora's intellect, she demonstrates a keen resourcefulness. She forged her father's signature to borrow money to pay to take Torvald to Italy to save his health and life. She was frugal with her allowance and did some work on the side to pay Krogstad what she owed. In leaving, we can infer that life will not be easy, but Nora will survive. Kristine Linde is a perfect example: she has gotten a job at Torvald's bank. We can expect Nora would find a similar way in which to survive.

Nora needs to be praised for the person she is—not for the source of entertainment she provides for Torvald. Torvald treats her like a child, but he is not terribly responsible himself. He is either egotistical beyond measure in believing he will never be called upon to save Nora, or he is a hypocrite...or both. After the ball, Torvald tells Nora:

Do you know, Nora, I have often wished that you might be threatened by some great danger, so that I might risk my life's blood, and everything, for your sake.

In truth, when the situation presents itself later that night, Torvald's only thoughts are for himself.

Torvald's estimation of Nora's value when he believes he will suffer in society's eyes is evident here, proving that they could never be equals. He plans to imprison her in their home; she will not be allowed near the children; they will appear to be a normal family:

You will still remain in my house...But I shall not allow you to bring up the children; I dare not trust them to you.

Nora begins to see things of the world she never recognized before. Ironically, Krogstad (who Torvald so resents) is a better man than Nora's husband. Her sudden realizations will never allow Nora to return to the life she previously knew. She notes that her father treated her like a doll that he could manipulate; marrying Torvald brought more of the same treatment. Nora realizes she has been cheated:

You and papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life.

Had this not happened, Nora would have continued to operate like a robot. Now, however, she can learn to know herself and find value beyond how she pleases others. It would be a travesty to spend her life having so sense of self—something that doesn't concern Torvald at all.

Does Nora learn about herself as "A Doll's House" progresses?

The statement is very true. Nora's character is round and dynamic. This means that the perceptions, attitudes, behavior or beliefs of the character will change throughout the story, novel, or play. Main characters are usually round and dynamic. This is because the main problem of the story will likely have an impact on them that will result in change.

Nora's character undergoes a change when her husband, Torvald, discovers the secret that she had been keeping from him: That she had borrowed money from a man in order to pay for medical expenses for Torvald. The act of doing such a transaction constitutes misconduct from a wife to her husband, at least during the time period when the play is set. However, Nora had internally wished to see a "miracle" unfold in case the secret is ever found out. She expected, or at least wished, that her husband would ignore the social conventions and praise Nora for this act. After all, she did it for him, and nobody else.

However, the exact opposite happens. Torvald is offended and mortified about what Nora did. He insults Nora and even says that she is an unfit wife and mother. Yet, after he finds out that Krogstad, his disgruntled employee and the man who loaned the money, will not blackmail them for the secret, Torvald immediately changes his tone and tells Nora that she is forgiven.

This was all Nora needed to see that her presence in the household for all these years had been simply ornamental; that her husband only expectation of her was for her to be a plaything, a doll, for his own entertainment. She also realizes that she had enabled such expectations by acting the way that Torvald wanted her to.

Another realization that hits Nora is that she has always been this way, even with her own father. That she has always sought her validation as a woman without avail, since the society in which she exists fails to recognize the efforts and sacrifices of her gender. This is when she decides that it is time to quit the charade that has been her life. She chooses to leave everything behind, even her children, and she walks out of her home for good, in hopes of perhaps finding herself one day.

Does Nora's characterization in "A Doll's House" change from child-like to something more?

Yes, Nora's character definitely changes during the course of the play. At first, she is rather childish, accepting pet names from her husband—names like "squirrel" and "little bird"—diminutive terms that seem to stem from and describe her lack of maturity. In addition, her husband has forbidden her to eat sweets so they don't rot her teeth, and so she merely hides them from him like a small child who is disobeying a parent. By the end of the play, however, Nora has matured a great deal. She realizes that, to both her father and her husband, she has been like a toy. She says, of her father, to her husband Torvald

He used to call me his doll-child, and played with me as I played with my dolls. Then I came to live in your house . . . . I mean I passed from father's hands into yours. You arranged everything according to your taste; and I got the same tastes as you; or I pretended to—I don't know which —both ways, perhaps . . . . I lived by performing tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so.

Nora realizes that she has not been truly loved for herself, but because she acted the way the men in her life wanted her to—as an obedient and compliant child. Now, however, she refuses to be anyone's doll, and she abandons her family in order to acquire the "perfect freedom" from expectation that she now desires.

In Henrik Isben's A Doll House, how does Nora's character change throughout the play? Provide specific details please.

[eNotes editors are only permitted to answer one question at a time. Additional questions must be submitted as separate postings.

[I cannot address your concerns about your thesis. Should you want specific information, post you question and someone at eNotes.com can help.]

At the beginning of Ibsen's A Doll's House, Nora is presented as a child-like woman who is almost as much a kid as her own children are. She dresses and acts in ways that will make her husband happy.

However, as the play moves along, we learn that there are hidden strengths within Nora. She sneaks sweets behind Torvald's back, participating in her own little rebellion. She has managed to borrow money (illegal for women in 1879) in order to save her husband's life, and she has been finding ways for some time now to attempt to pay the loan back. She is even manipulative of Torvald in getting extra money from him, by playing the coy child-wife.

Nora starts to have some sense of herself as she asserts herself more strongly against Krogstad's threats, though she still lives in fear that her secret will be disclosed.

Toward the end of the play, Nora becomes overtly resistant to Torvald, as he practically has to drag her back from the masquerade party.

By the end of the story, Nora realizes that Torvald does not love her the way she loves him. When he discovers her secret, he is more concerned about his reputation than what his wife has been through in order to save his life.

In witnessing her husband's behavior, Nora's eyes are opened to Torvald's real character, for the first time in their marriage. She also discovers that she knows very little about herself because she was treated like a child first by her father for all the years she lived in his house, and now in Torvald's home—though she is a wife and mother of three.

The last thing Nora does that shows how much she has changed is making the decision to leave Torvald. Whereas she was petrified of losing him if he found out what she had done, she now realizes that she can leave Torvald, and that while it will be financially and socially disastrous for her, we sense she will survive.

How does Nora's character in A Doll's House represent women's evolution from traditional to modern?

Throughout Henrik Ibsen’s play, Nora Helmer realizes that she possesses the resources to live independently. Before the action presented in A Doll’s House, Nora had taken many things for granted and underestimated her own capabilities. She is shown as a traditional middle-class Norwegian wife and mother who puts the needs of others first. As she reminds her husband, Torvald, late in the play, Nora had gone from seeing her primary identity as one man’s daughter to that of another man’s wife. It is revealed that she rationalized committing fraud because she even placed her husband’s health and well-being above the law. Ironically, it has been the need for money to cover up her crime that forced her to learn how to earn money and take charge of the family’s budget.

By the end of the play, Nora has achieved a solid sense of her own self-worth and learned that her husband is a superficial hypocrite. She neither elevates his needs above hers nor imagines that she cannot function without him. Although her conversations with Mrs. Linde affect her decision to strike out on her own, it is primarily her rejection of the underlying premise of female dependency that strengthens her resolve. Nora’s final decision before walking out the door is to leave the children with Torvald. She not only has developed a concept of female identity as separate from that of mother but also refuses to continue presenting her children with a dishonest mother as a role model.

How has Nora's character in A Doll's House undergone a dynamic shift by the end?

With the caveat that we are not reading the play in the original language, everything about Nora's manner and diction, as well as the content of her dialogue, shows a dynamic shift in her character. At the beginning of the play, she is childish and irresponsible, wheedling money out of her husband and acquiescing in his characterization of her as a squirrel or a skylark—a sweet, brainless, appealing creature whom Torvald treats as a pet.

By the third act, Nora argues with Torvald as an equal. Indeed, she seems to regard herself as his intellectual superior, as she explains to him their past and future. She speaks in firm, measured sentences, makes demands with the cool assurance that they will be obeyed, and finally asserts her independence in the most categorical manner by leaving, probably forever. In their final dialogue, their roles are entirely reversed, as it is Torvald who pleads and wheedles, she who dominates the situation. She has progressed from a flirtatious, dependent child-wife to a character of strength, independence and certainty. What is most striking is the clarity with which she understands the nature of her behavior and her relationship with Torvald at the beginning of the play and how these would never change without decisive action on her part:

As soon as your fear was over—and it was not fear for what threatened me, but for what might happen to you—when the whole thing was past, as far as you were concerned it was exactly as if nothing at all had happened. Exactly as before, I was your little skylark, your doll, which you would in future treat with doubly gentle care, because it was so brittle and fragile.

Does Nora learn about herself as A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen progresses?

I’m going to disagree with this opinion, largely because Ibsen, in his entire canon, does not concern himself much with a character’s self-examination or self-awareness; he focuses rather on the character’s place in a society that is being revealed to the viewer/reader.  This is the central idea in this period of drama, which we now call "social realism." While Nora’s character is surely revealed to us (and by extension her society), she is not particularly introspective. She already knows herself well enough to forge the signature and save her husband, in other words to act effectively rather than according to the laws (both legal and social) that society has imposed. The strength of Ibsen’s pro-feminist argument lies in the fact that Nora is strong enough, sure of herself enough, to act, an assumption not automatically made in 19th-century Scandinavia. There are no internal monologues or other dramatic devices to suggest that Nora is “learning a lot about herself.” True, Helmer and the other characters are learning a lot about Nora, but Nora already “knows” herself.

Does Nora's life improve throughout A Doll's House?

Nora's life takes a tragic turn in Ibsen's A Doll's House. To begin with, she is treated as a "doll," by her patronizing husband who forbids her to eat macaroons, so she eats them surreptitiously, and fibs in order to maintain peace, "You know I wouldn't do anything to displease you" when Helmer inquires if she has "[M]unched a macaroon or two."

This rather innocuous patronizing, however, becomes more acrid as the drama unfolds. Ironically, Nora is chastised for mismanagement of money:

"You know, you're funny. Just like your father. You're always looking for ways to get money, but as soon as you do it runs through your fingers and you can never say what you spent it for.  Well, I guess I'll just have to take you the way you are.  It's in your blood."

For, Helmer does not realize that she is repaying a loan she took in order to save her husband's health by having him recuperate in a warm climate.

Further, in Act II when Nora is reunited with her old friend, Mrs. Linde, who asks her to help her find work, problems arise.  When Helmer decides to fire Krogstad and hire her, Krogstad threatens to reveal his loan to Nora on which she forged her father's name. While he misunderstands, thinking Nora has influence with her husband, she, too, misunderstands because she cannot conceive that she can be held accountable for forging her father's name when she saved her husband by doing so. Naively, she does not understand the functions of society and the law, nor does she comprehend her husband's reaction.

Thus, the worse turn of Nora's life occurs when Helmer learns of Nora's past actions of acquiring a loan and is appalled that she has acted illegally, even though she has done so in order to save her husband's life. In Act 3, he castigates her for her actions,

"What a horrible awakening! All these eight years—she who was my joy and pride—a hypocrite, a liar—worse, worse—a criminal! The unutterable ugliness of it all!—For shame! For shame!.... I ought to have foreseen it. All your father's want of principle—be silent!—all your father's want of principle has come out in you. No religion, no morality, no sense of duty—. How I am punished for having winked at what he did! I did it for your sake, and this is how you repay me."

In the end, in response to his claims that she has ruined his life, and then his patronizing attempts to act as though he forgives her even though he does not understand her,

"That is just it; you have never understood me. I have been greatly wronged, Torvald—first by Papa and then by you....You only thought it was fun to be in love with me."

Further, she acknowledges that Torvald cannot be the man to "bring [me] up to be the right kind of wife for you." And, so, she feels that she must leave because she cannot understand that the laws are right.

"A woman shouldn't have the right to spare her dying old father or save her husband's life! I just can't believe that."

Realizing that she "is no wife" for Helmer, Nora leaves the children in "better hands" than hers and departs the "doll's house," alone, releasing him from all responsibility.

So, while Nora may seem in one light liberated from a patronizing relationship at the end of the play, her life was probably more satisfying when she lived in the ignorant bliss of being cared for by her husband and family.

How do the characters in A Doll's House change?

Most of the characters in A Doll’s House are static. One of the challenges that Nora faces is that she is constantly reacting to others, especially her husband. Torvald is a rigid, unimaginative man who underestimates and condescends to his wife. Nora has committed a crime to help him and her family, lied to cover up the crime, and pretended to be a different kind of person in order to make the lies more believable. Even when Torvald has the opportunity to change, he proves incapable; when he offers Nora the opportunity to stay married for appearances’ sake, he shows his underlying hypocrisy. Nora’s exit and door slam indicate that she has realized the need to behave authentically, which is a major revelation showing how she has changed.

The only other character who changes significantly is Doctor Rank. He has steadfastly loved Nora but never confessed his love; he finally does so when he near death. Maintaining the illusion of only having paternal feelings was also a kind of lie, so he is similar to Nora in turning to honesty.