Nora's Epiphany Essay

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Ibsen effectively utilizes this idea in his work, as he displays Nora’s epiphany that she has been treated wrongly. Nora comes to realize that as soon as Torvald’s “fear was over – and it was not fear for what threatened…[Nora,] but for what might happen to [Torvald]” (Pg. 70). In the final scene of the play, Ibsen juxtaposes the responses between Nora and Torvald relating to Nora’s forgery incident. Ibsen establishes that up until her epiphany, Nora had been frightful of the future; Nora’s best interest was to protect her husband and the only thing on her mind was what would happen to Torvald. However, Torvald only worries about himself with fear motivating his actions. Ibsen juxtaposes these two responses to reveal how Norwegian society often overlooked women’s interests during the late 1800s and focused on the interests of men. …show more content…

Up until Nora’s epiphany, she believed that Torvald loved her and would be willing to sacrifice his honor for her, just as she had done for Torvald; she never imagined that Torvald “would consent to accept…[Krogstad’s] conditions” (Pg. 70) The knowledge that Torvald was not willing to sacrifice his honor for Nora, while Nora sacrificed her honor to help Torvald recover from being ill ultimately allows Nora to see the problems with society, as wives were always seen as below their husbands, and have the epiphany that she has been wronged by Torvald. Ibsen furthers this through the diction of “consent” with the denotation of giving permission to something, the connotation of attempting to preserve one’s honor, and the tone of demeaning. This exhibits that Torvald was willing to go to any depths in order to protect his own honor and helping Nora was nowhere in his

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