Student Question
What are three ways Ibsen uses dramatic irony to evoke sadness in "A Doll's House"?
Quick answer:
Ibsen uses dramatic irony to make the audience feel sad when Nora explains to Christine how Torvald treated her when she was trying to save his life, when Torvald condemns Krogstad for having committed the exact same crime that Nora herself has, and when Torvald describes a deceitful mother as the worst kind of poison to children. He did not know he was near death, and he does not know about the loan Nora took out, creating the irony.
Ibsen uses dramatic irony, certainly, all the while that the audience knows that Nora Helmer took out a loan that is a secret from her husband. Years ago, Torvald's doctors had told her that he would die without a substantial period of convalescence in some warmer climate. She lied and manipulated to get the money for the trip to Italy. She proudly describes her actions to her old friend, Christine Line, saying,
Do you suppose I didn't try, first of all, to get what I wanted as if it were for myself? I told him how much I should love to travel abroad like other young wives [...]; I even hinted that he might raise a loan. That nearly made him angry, Christine. He said I was thoughtless, and that it was his duty as my husband not to indulge me in my whims and caprices—as I believe...
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he called them.
It is sad that she cares so much for her husband that she has felt obligated to lie to him to save his life, and he is, evidently, willing to insult and belittle her in return.
Later, toward the end of act 1, we likely feel sad to see how willing Krogstad Torvald is to condemn and belittle for the very crime that his own wife has, unbeknownst to him, committed. Nora, of course, is already being blackmailed by Krogstad. She may not have been as clever as she thought, but certainly her heart was in the right place when she took out the loan. The irony that Krogstad committed forgery and that Torvald absolutely dismisses him as irretrievably immoral surely makes us sad for Nora, who he will likely judge as harshly.
At the end of Act 1, Torvald has described the poison with which a deceptive parent, especially a mother, fills her home. Torvald leaves Nora to her Christmas decorating, ignorant of the abject fear he has provoked within her. When the children clamor to see her, she forbids the nurse to bring them in for fear that she will "Deprave" them with her deceit and "Poison [her] home." I feel so sad for her in this moment, as the weight of dread and fright must be so heavy on her.