Torvald's decision to fire Krogstad stems ultimately from the fact that he feels threatened and offended by Krogstad's failure to pay him the proper respect. Torvald is very conscious of other people's perceptions of him and of his standing in the community.
It's interesting that Krogstad is Torvald's childhood friend, just as Nora's foil, Christine, is a friend from earlier days. Ibsen sets up a direct parallel between the two pairs. Krogstad is like the dark version of Torvald, the version that's seen real hardship.
Nils Krogstad is, at least at the beginning, the antagonist of the play. Known to the other characters as unscrupulous and dishonest, he blackmails Nora, who borrowed money from him with a forged signature, after learning that he is being fired from his job at the bank.
Rank, he is “rotten to the core.” Helmer, on several occasions, expresses his disapproval of Krogstad's character, calling him “a man without scruples.” He believes that an atmosphere of lies, like that of Krogstad's house, “infects and poisons the whole life of a home.” Helmer also remarks that Krogstad will make his ...
Torvald's remark about Krogstad—“I honestly feel sick, sick to my stomach, in the presence of such people”—illustrates his deep contempt for moral corruption of Krogstad's sort.
After Nora rather easily admits to her forgery, we learn that Krogstad's bad standing in society, the cause of his moral disease, results from committing the same crime. He tells her that “what I once did was nothing more, and nothing worse, and it destroyed me” (Ibsen 166).
Like Nora, Krogstad is a person who has been wronged by society, and both Nora and Krogstad have committed the same crime: forgery of signatures.
The kind of effect Torvald believes that someone like Krogstad would have on his/her home and children is it poisons the home and makes the children take in evil.
Honesty 5: When Nora questions Torvald about Krogstad's character, he explains that Krogstad is a moral outcast, for he lied and forged a legal bank document. He continues to say that any household that contains lies (and dishonesty) is tainted, infecting the entire household and family with evil.
Torvald makes a decisive show of mailing the letter firing Krogstad against Nora's pleas to demonstrate his power over Nora and his unwillingness to be controlled by her.
Krogstad's moral failings are that he did not accept his punishment when he forged a letter for his wife. Torvald believes that he chose to get out of punishment and not take it shows that he is a coward. And since he did not take his punishment, he should not be forgiven because he did not own up to his mistakes.
In his letter, Krogstad includes Nora's promissory note (the one on which she forged her father's signature). Torvald relaxes, rips up the contract, throws it into the stove, and tells Nora that life can go back to normal now that this “bad dream” has ended. From now on, forget happiness.
Krogstad is different from Torvald because he is not as well off economically and socially and this leads him to try an extremer form of manipulation. Krogstad is desperate to keep his job at the bank and tries to get Nora to secure the job with her husband through blackmail.
Christine loved Krogstad but at the time he did not have the money she needed to insure that her family would be taken care of. Krogstad was devastated after Christine left him, which made him into a bitter, unhappy man.
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.
Torvald Helmer and Nils Krogstad are both men who use Nora Helmer in the hope of advancing or protecting his career; but Nils is the one who releases Nora, while Torvald tries to tighten his control over Nora.
The first letter, which Krogstad places in Torvald's letterbox near the end of Act Two, represents the truth about Nora's past and initiates the inevitable dissolution of her marriage—as Nora says immediately after Krogstad leaves it, “We are lost.” Nora's attempts to stall Torvald from reading the letter represent her ...
We also come to realize that Krogstad is also a hypocrite by the way Torvald described him. Torvald says that even though Krogstad is a lawyer, he is a hypocrite as he committed a crime by forging someone's name on a loan application form.
Obsessed with thoughts of illness, the physician characterizes Krogstad as "morally diseased." Like many of his physically diseased patients, he continues, the lawyer refuses to submit to his fate, despite great agony, in the hopes of a change in his position.
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.
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.
Krogstad explains that his reputation at the bank, destroyed by an indiscretion in the distant past, is extremely important to him and to his social respectability. He threatens again to reveal Nora's secret. Nora then vehemently responds that he can do his worst.
Krogstad leaves and when Torvald returns, Nora tries to convince him not to fire Krogstad. Torvald refuses to hear her pleas, explaining that Krogstad is a liar and a hypocrite and that years before he had committed a crime: he forged other people's signatures.
A Sudden Change of Heart
Near the beginning of Act Three, Krogstad has an earnest conversation with his lost love, the widow Mrs. Linde. They reconcile, and once their romance (or at least their amiable feelings) are reignited, Krogstad no longer wants to deal with blackmail and extortion. He is a changed man!
This man, Nils Krogstad, is the person from whom Nora has borrowed her money. 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.