Summary

The play A Doll's House, written by the Norwegian Henrik Ibsen and published in 1879, is about Nora, the wife of a bank employee. Nora has been married to her husband for eight years, and they have three children together. The three-act play presents a family drama that takes place in the couple's apartment between December 24 and 26.

At the beginning of the plot, the Helmer family and their three children lead a seemingly completely harmonious, happy, middle-class life. After long and difficult years, the father Torvald is to take up a position as manager of a joint-stock bank in the new year, which will bring the family a good living. In view of this positive change, Nora is already in a very joyful mood and wants to spend an especially nice Christmas with her family. Even though her husband criticizes her for all her spending, he too wants it to be a special holiday.

During the preparations for December 24, Christine arrives. She is Nora’s childhood friend, and Nora has not seen her in ten years. Christine married a wealthy man for financial reasons eight years ago . She moved away from the city with him to care for her ill mother and her two younger brothers. 

However, the wealthy man soon died and left Christine nothing. Therefore, after the death of her mother and when her brothers grow up, Christine returns to the city to look for work. As part of this search, she turns to Torvald, who promises her a job as a secretary. To do so, he must force his old university colleague, Nils Krogstad to resign. Krogstad has been shunned by society after a scandal involving forged signatures.

After Christine has left the house, Krogstad appears and confronts Nora. Nora has borrowed from him at that time the high sum of two hundred and fifty pounds (1200 species) without her husband’s knowledge. For this she had to forge the signature of her already deceased father....