In the third act of the play, Nora shifts from a fragile and immature mother and wife to an independent and courageous woman who challenges society's gender roles in the 19th century and redefines womanhood as individualistic. As Torvald becomes aware of Nora's forgery, she becomes more aware of her feelings.
As the play progresses, Nora reveals that she is not just a “silly girl,” as Torvald calls her. That she understands the business details related to the debt she incurred taking out a loan to preserve Torvald's health indicates that she is intelligent and possesses capacities beyond mere wifehood.
She finally decides to leave the house, and she is now an example of a strong-willed and independent woman who is clear of what she wants. In conclusion, Nora's inner self or identity is awakened. She has decided not to conform to the manner a society defines women.
In this act, Nora shows signs that she is becoming aware of the true nature of her marriage. When she compares living with Torvald to living with her father, doubt is cast on the depth of her love for Torvald.
Nora says that she realizes that she is childlike and knows nothing about the world. She feels alienated from both religion and the law, and wishes to discover on her own, by going out into the world and learning how to live life for herself, whether or not her feelings of alienation are justified.
At the end of A Doll's House, Nora makes the ultimate assertion of her agency and independence by walking out on her husband and her children in order to truly understand herself and learn about the world.
Nora faced many challenges throughout the play that made her come to terms with the awful life she had been living ever since she was a child. In order to fix the problem, Nora decided to leave her family to start a new life instead of commiting suicide.
Torvald's selfish reaction to Krogstad's letter opens Nora's eyes to the truth about her relationship with Torvald and leads her to rearrange her priorities and her course of action. Her shift from thinking about suicide to deciding to walk out on Torvald reflects an increased independence and sense of self.
As the play progresses, Nora becomes aware of a vital element she has sacrificed due to the suppression of various men throughout her life. The sacrifice of her identity and autonomy.
Our first impressions of Nora, Torvald, and Krogstad are all eventually undercut. Nora initially seems a silly, childish woman, but as the play progresses, we see that she is intelligent, motivated, and, by the play's conclusion, a strong-willed, independent thinker.
Nora believes herself to be a doll because the men in her life see her more as a toy than a human being.
In Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, Nora Helmer spends most of her on-stage time as a doll: a vapid, passive character with little personality of her own. Her whole life is a construct of societal norms and the expectations of others.
Nora's epiphany occurs when the truth is finally revealed. As Torvald unleashes his disgust toward Nora and her crime of forgery, the protagonist realizes that her husband is a very different person than she once believed.
The settings unveil family relations and symbolically portray the roles of the husband and wife. Through the settings, Ibsen records the changes in Nora's nature and her desire to overcome her husband's oppression and become free from him. The settings unveil contractions between old and new values and ideas.
Nora has avoided her children, fearing to pollute them. In a conversation with her old nurse, she tells the servant that the children will have to get used to seeing less of their mother from now on. This is Nora's first suggestion of withdrawing from the life she has lived up until now.
She lives like a doll in a doll-house, and her character serves as a symbol for every oppressed woman who is restricted from living a free life. In the beginning of the play, Nora is shown as rather a submissive, childish woman, who enjoys being patronized, pampered and treated like a defenseless animal.
Torvald then retires to his study to work. Dr. Rank, the family friend, arrives. Nora asks him for a favor, but Rank responds by revealing that he has entered the terminal stage of his disease and that he has always been secretly in love with her.
What prompts Nora to reveal her secret about having saved Torvald's life by raising the money for their trip abroad is Mrs. Linde's contention that Nora has never known hard work. Although Mrs. Linde's accusation of Nora facilitates the pair's reconciliation, what motivates the two women here is unclear.
Nora had to make the difficult decision of sacrificing her innocence or her husband. She chose to take the selfless act, by sacrificing her innocence she was also sacrificing her reputation and her marriage. Because Nora is a woman, she has to keep the deed a secret among herself.
In wearing the dress, Nora had an epiphany. She realized that her life was A Doll's House, and that she didn't want to live it that way. In removing the dress, she has cast off not only Torvald's ownership, but also the societal constraints holding her within her contrived world.
Nora discreetly explains that several years ago, when Torvald Helmer was very ill, she forged her dead fathers signature in order to illegally obtain a loan. Since then, she has been paying back the loan in secret. She has never told her husband because she knows it would upset him.
It seems that Nora is a type of doll that is controlled by Torvald. Nora is completely dependent on Torvald. His thoughts and movements are her thoughts and movements. Nora is a puppet who is dependent on its puppet master for all of its actions.
It is then revealed that she forged her father's signature in order to get the money. Krogstad threatens to reveal Nora's crime and thus disgrace her and her husband unless Nora can convince her husband not to fire him.
Nora explains that Torvald has never understood her and that she has been wronged both by him and her father. Torvald, shocked, asks how that can be true of the two people who loved her more than anyone else.
As a play focused around the marriage between Nora and Torvald, A Doll's House can be seen as an exploration of love and marriage, or even, more profoundly, on whether there can be love in marriage. At the beginning of the play, Nora and Torvald appear to be very happily married, even to themselves.