Mrs. Linde represents the variety of ways that women can live fulfilling lives, independent of their husbands. Mrs. Linde acts as a foil to Nora, providing a serious contrast to Nora's frivolous personality and highlighting the spoiled life Nora leads.
Mrs. Linde, as she is generally known to the other characters, is an old friend of Nora's. She is a woman whose marriage was loveless, and based on a need for financial security, and who doesn't have any children. She and Krogstad had been in love at the time, but he was too poor to support her family.
Linde believed she had to marry someone with money so that she could take care of her family. She sacrificed her own happiness and reputation in order to fulfill her duties to her family. She sacrificed her own feelings for Krogstad, by making him believe she was not someone he should love. Mrs.
Linde marries her husband for money so that she can support her sick mother and dependent younger brothers.
Linde feels that her life is “unspeakably empty” because there is “no one to live for any more.” She moves to look for office work and hopes Nora will help her find employment. We later learn that she also hoped to rekindle a romance with her long-lost love, Krogstad, and become a new mother for his children.
Mrs Linde's function in this scene is a traditional one – she is a confidante. Her dramatic function is to listen to the heroine's secrets. However, Ibsen gives her an unusually active role: she has her own story.
Nora becomes indignant and says that she too has “something to be proud and happy about.” She goes on to tell Mrs. Linde that she saved her husband's life when he was sick.
Nora confesses that everything Krogstad has written is true and tells Torvald she has loved him more than anything. Torvald tells her to stop talking, bemoans the ugliness of the forgery, and calls Nora a hypocrite and a liar.
Torvald tells her that Mrs. Linde will replace Krogstad at the bank. Torvald says that Krogstad is an embarrassment and that he cannot work with him any longer.
Nora has chosen to abandon her children and her husband because she wants independence from her roles as mother and wife. In contrast, Mrs. Linde has chosen to abandon her independence to marry Krogstad and take care of his family. She likes having people depend on her, and independence does not seem to fulfill her.
The main message of A Doll's House seems to be that a true (read: good) marriage is a joining of equals. The play centers on the dissolution of a marriage that doesn't meet these standards.
There are major opposing moral views between characters in Henrik Ibsen 's dramatic play A Doll 's House. One moral trail leads to the conclusion that once someone commits a bad deed, there is no saving them; that person is now a low-life degenerate with no redemption in sight.
The doll's house itself is a symbol of the Burnell family's societal position. When it is brought into the Burnell courtyard, it becomes, literally, a house within a house, a mirror of the Burnell's home.
Linde contributes to the exposition and pivotal moment of the decideding factors of Krogstad, she also has a profound influence on the character development of Nora Helmer. Mrs. Linde directly contributes to Nora's moment of realization and Nora's decision to leave her husband at the end of the play.
Linde admit about her marriage? Mrs. Linde admits that her marriage was just a contract in a helpless circumstance in order to be able to provide for her "bedridden" mother and "two younger brothers." She admits that she married her ex-husband for the money and there was no love or romance in their relationship.
Mrs. Linde: I could not endure life without work. All my life, as long as I can remember, I have worked, and it has been my greatest and only pleasure.
She says she returned to town to seek him and renew their love. Krogstad, deeply moved, is grateful for her love and faith.
Linde functions as a convenient device for exposition. She enters Act One as an almost forgotten friend, a lonely widow seeking a job from Nora's husband. Nora does not spend much time listening to Mrs. Linde's troubles; rather selfishly, Nora discusses how excited she is about Torvald Helmer's recent success.
Exposition develops social issues by introducing conflicts and settings. How does the character of Mrs. Linde help develop the idea of gender inequality? She says that she did not think she could turn down her husband's proposal.
The play was so controversial that Ibsen was forced to write a second ending that he called “a barbaric outrage” to be used only when necessary. The controversy centered around Nora's decision to abandon her children, and in the second ending she decides that the children need her more than she needs her freedom.
What secret has Nora been keeping from Torvald? She was in love with his brother before she married him.
Nora says that if they're ever to be more than strangers "the most wonderful thing of all would have to happen," that their "life together would be a real wedlock" (3.376).
When Torvald accuses Nora of not loving him anymore, Nora says his claim is true. She then explains that she realized that she didn't love Torvald that evening, when her expectation that he would take the blame for her—showing his willingness to sacrifice himself for love—wasn't met.
Nora Helmer enters the house with packages and a Christmas tree. She pays the porter double what she owes him and eats some macaroons.
Whom did Mrs. Linde abandon for a richer man? Mrs. Linde abandoned Krogsted for a richer man.