Torvald continues to assure her that everything will be okay. In fact, he argues that, by forgiving her, “it's as if [a man has] twice made [his wife] his own.” He says that he feels he has given Nora a new life so that she is now both his wife and his child.
After Krogstad rescinds his blackmail threat and returns the loan document with the signature Nora forged, Torvald is relieved and tells Nora he forgives her. However, Torvald uses his forgiveness as an additional means of objectifying and controlling Nora by saying he now owns her doubly.
He insists that Nora is not to be allowed near the children anymore, because she may corrupt them. Just then, a letter arrives from Krogstad. In the letter, Krogstad says that he's had a change of heart and will no longer be blackmailing them. Torvald is really happy and forgives Nora.
It soon becomes clear to us that Nora's dependence, not Torvald's love for Nora as a person, forms the foundation of Torvald's affection for her. In Act One, Torvald teases Nora about wasting money but then tries to please her by graciously giving her more.
Torvald Helmer
Nora's husband. Torvald delights in his new position at the bank, just as he delights in his position of authority as a husband. He treats Nora like a child, in a manner that is both kind and patronizing. He does not view Nora as an equal but rather as a plaything or doll to be teased and admired.
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.
He's incredibly overbearing. He treats Nora more like a child than a wife. He calls her silly names and scolds her for eating macaroons. Toward the end of the play, he even says that Nora is "doubly his own" because she has "become both wife and child" (3.257).
What secret has Nora been keeping from Torvald? She was in love with his brother before she married him. She borrowed the money they used to take a trip to Italy. She had an affair with Krogstad five years earlier.
By the end, the marriage breaks apart due to a complete lack of understanding. Together in wedlock, Nora and Torvald are incapable of realizing who they are as individuals.
The money was necessary to finance a trip that saved her husband's life, but Nora forged her father's signature to secure the loan and lied to Torvald that her father had given them the money. Thus, she has been deceiving her husband for years as she worked to repay the loan.
In that moment, she realizes that her marriage has been nothing but a sham and walks out the door, never to return. After such a triumphant exit, what could possibly bring Nora back to the home she once shared with Torvald and their three young children?
However, Nora, who has seen Torvald's true selfish character, decides to leave. She tells Torvald that like her father, he had never known her—even she doesn't know who she really is herself. She states that she felt like a 'puppet' under Torvald's control and she needs some time to live alone to understand herself.
This is a drastic change from the traits Nora displayed in the beginning of the play where she was dependent on Torvald for all things. She has now liberated herself from his grasp and the play ends with her leaving, never to be spoken to again.
He gets angry and sends the maid off with a letter informing Krogstad that he's fired. Nora freaks out and begs him to get the letter back. Torvald forgives her for her behavior, because it shows how much she loves him. He says that even if trouble comes from the firing, he's tough enough to take it.
Torvald's objectification of Nora is clear from the start, as he addresses her with dehumanizing epithets like “little singing bird” and “little squirrel of mine,” which cast Nora more as a pet, as a thing to be kept, than as a person with autonomy (3).
Torvald tells her to stop talking, bemoans the ugliness of the forgery, and calls Nora a hypocrite and a liar. He then says that he should have seen such a thing coming—Nora's father was a morally reckless individual. Torvald blames Nora for ruining his life and his happiness by putting him at Krogstad's mercy.
At the end of the play, Nora expects that Torvald would side with her and in a way to attempt to take her blame. Another "wonderful thing" that Nora expected was that in standing by her, Torvald would prove they had a true, loving marriage. It does not happen.
If Torvald could accept his wife's help and didn't feel the need to have control over her every movement, Nora would not have to lie to him.
To Nora, the right choice seemed to be to leave her family. She felt trapped in her own home. She was like a doll taken from the shelf to play with whenever Torvald felt like he wanted to pay attention to her. She lived only for him.
Nora is a victim of the male-dominated society of the nineteenth century. To save her husband, Torvald, she borrows money so that he might be able to recover from a life-threatening illness in a warmer climate.
"How painful and humiliating it would be for Torvald, with his manly independence, to know that he owed me anything [says Nora]. It would upset our mutual relations altogether; our beautiful happy home would no longer be what it is now."
For the author, Torvald stands for all the individual-denying social ills against which Ibsen has dedicated all his writing. As a victim of his narrow view of society, Torvald inspires sympathy rather than reproach.
While speaking with Nora, Dr. Rank confesses his love for her, adding that Torvald is not the only man who would make sacrifices for her. In the end, however, we learn that Torvald does not even consider sacrificing himself for Nora. In his confession, Dr.
Nora's use of Torvald's pet names for her to win his cooperation is an act of manipulation on her part. She knows that calling herself his “little bird,” his “squirrel,” and his “skylark,” and thus conforming to his desired standards will make him more willingly to give in to her wishes.
Torvald has banned Nora from eating macaroons. Although Nora claims that she never disobeys Torvald, this is proved false in the very opening of the play when Nora eats macaroons while she was alone in the living room. The macaroons come to represent Nora's disobedience and deceit.