ADH quotes

Michael Meyer translation

Secrecy on first page

“Hide that Christmas tree away, Helen.” (“The children mustn’t see it before I’ve decorated it this evening”)

Extra money to maid, when she needed a shilling

“Here’s a pound. No, keep it.”

Nora eating macaroons + different spheres of life (in the stage directions)

She takes from her pocket a bag containing macaroons and eats a couple. Then she tiptoes across and listens at her husband’s door.

Helmer (from his room) calling nicknames

“Is that my skylark twittering out there?”

“Is that my squirrel rustling?”

Helmer feeling the need to stay in his separate sphere + stage directions

“You must’n’t disturb me!” Short pause; then he opens the door and looks in, his pen in his hand.

Helmer on Nora spending again

“Bought, did you say? All that? Has my little squandering been overspending again?”

Helmer on his ‘practicality’

“Well, you know, we can’t afford to be extravagant.”

Nora’s response to Helmer saying that they can’t be a big extravagant until April bc that is when his new salary starts

Nora showing early signs of breaking rules**

“Pooh; we can borrow till then”

Helmer patronisingly physical with Nora

“Nora (Goes over to her and takes her playfully by the ear). What a little spendthrift you are!”

Nora’s response to Helmer asking what would happen if she borrowed and it “something like that did happen? What then?”

“If anything was frightful as that happened, it wouldn’t make much difference whether I was in debt or not.”

Helmer pointing out the importance on the people that they would have borrowed money from in an emergency.

Shows how Nora loves him at his point, but also insular bourgeoisie society

“Them? Who cares about them? They’re strangers.”

Helmer: “Oh Nora, …..

Nora, how like a woman!”

Helmer Act 1

“A home that is founded on debts and borrowing can never be a place of freedom and beauty.”

Helmer Act 1 before he gives her money

“Now, now! My little songbird mustn’t droop her wings. What’s this? Is little squirrel sulking? (Takes out his purse) Nora; guess what I’ve got here!” Nora: (turns quickly) Money!

Helmer giving Nora the money because “I know how these small expense crop up at Christmas.”

Nora: (counts them) “One-two-three-four. Oh, thank you, Torvald, thank you! I should be able to manage with this.”

Nora buying trivial things which she says were for “so cheap!”

“And a doll and a cradle for Emmy-they’re nothing much, but she’ll them apart in a few days. And some bits of material and handkerchiefs for the maids.”

Helmer on secrecy

End of the play Christmas Eve + the ‘miracle’

“Well Nora, you keep your little Christmas secrets to yourself. They’ll be revealed this evening, I’ve no doubt, once the Christmas tree has been lit.”

Nora’s response to Torvald asking what he should give her for Christmas

(Plays with his coat-buttons; not looking at him) If you really want to give me something, you could - you could -”

(Quickly)

Nora being frivolous (and perhaps melodramatic here in her extent of loving money almost like a parody)

“please! Please! Then I’ll wrap up the notes in pretty gold paper and hang them on the Christmas tree. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Helmer says….. although he (smiles) !

“But you’ll spend it on al sorts of useless things for the house,”

Helmer being patronising + pretending she is bird

“You can’t deny it, Nora dear. (Puts his arm around her waist.) The squanderbird’s a pretty little creature, but she gets through an awful lot of money. It’s incredible what an expensive pet she is for a man to keep.”

Nora playing along with it/manipulating even(?)

(Hums and smiles, quietly gleeful) “Hm. If you only knew how many expenses we larks and squirrels have, Torvald.”

Helmer insulting Nora by saying she is like her father used to be

“You’re a funny little creature. Just like your father used to be. Always on the look-out for some way to get money, but as soon as you have any it just runs through your fingers and you never know where it’s gone.”

Helmer on hereditary diseases/habits, in a condescending/mansplaining matter

“Well, I suppose I must take you as you are. It’s in your blood. Yes, yes, yes, these things are hereditary, Nora”

Nora being assertive about her father, shows she is independent of thought, and likes the male influence in her life, longs for it

“Oh, I wish I’d inherited more of papa’s qualities.”

Helmer putting Nora way below him after she is assertive about her father + shows longing for male influence/to be more like her father

“And I wouldn’t wish my darling little songbird to be any different from what she is.

Helmer being melodramatic about sweets

You look awfully-how shall I put it?-awfully guilty today?”

Helmer’s father-daughter relationship but sexual

(Wags his finger) “Has my little sweet-tooth been indulging herself in town today, by any chance?”

Nora returning to + showing to be the obedient wife + in her sphere

(Goes over to the table, right) “You know I could never act against your wishes.”

Helmer on missing wife when she is in her own sphere, ironic because we later find out she was actually participating in something somebody in the male sphere woud do, showing how spheres and roles separate people and make people unhappy

“Ugh, it was the most boring time I’ve ever had in my life.” And then recjoicing on the present where 'I don’t have to sit by myself and be bored.”

Helmer infantalizing Nora

“And you don’t have to tire your pretty eyes and your delicate little hands-”

Nora mentioning miracle

“I don’t have [work] to any longer! Oh, it’s really all just like a miracle.”

Nora shown to be insular/selfish

“Someone’s coming. What a bore.”

Nora being melodramatically insensitive

“Is it so long? Yes, it must be. Oh, these last eight years have been such a happy time for me!”

Nora being melodramatically insensitive about Ms. Linde’s husband dying

(Quietly) “Poor Christine, you’ve become a widow.”

Nora sounding really self-absorbed and not caring at all about Christine, after seeing that her husband had died in the newspapers

“Oh, Christine, I meant to write to you so often, honestly. But I always put it off, and something else always cropped up.”

Mrs. Linde by being asked by Nora “And he didn’t leave you anything?”

“Not even a feeling of loss or sorrow”

Ms. Linde treating Nora like a pet, after Nora said “how is that possible?”

(Smiles sadly and strokes Nora’s hair) “Oh, these things happen, Nora”

Nora not being able to give a damn about anyone else example 1

“All alone. How dreadful that must be for you. I’ve three lovely children.”

Nora not being able to give a damn about anyone else example 2

“No, you start. I’m not going to be selfish today, I’m just going to think about you. Oh, but there’s one thing I must tell

Nora melodramatic about money

“I feel to happy! Well, I mean, it’s lovely to have heaps of money and not have to worry about anything. Don’t you think?”

Nora picking up on patronising treatment from society (when talking to Christine)

(Laughs quietly) “Yes, Torvald still says that. (Wags her finger) But ‘Nora, Nora’ isn’t as silly as you think. Oh, we’ve been in no position for me to waste money. We’ve both had to work.”

Ms. Linde says working + having nobody to live for

“Makes one feel so bitter”

Making a living causes (Ms. Linde)

“One has to live; and so one becomes completely egocentric”

Ms. Linde says she does not feel relieved that she doesn’t have to work for her brothers, but instead

“Just unspeakably empty. No on to live for any more.” She felt “cut off from the world” staying in the countryside - bourgeoisie insular lifestyle

Ms. Linde being voice of realism

“I have no papa to pay for my holidays, Nora.”

Ms. Linde also thinks Nora is a child + saying she doesn’t have hardship, everything is perfect for her in her life

“Well, good heavens - those bits of fancy - work of yours - well, really! You’re a child, Nora”

Ms. Linde and outsiders could think that they are watching a perfect ideal lifestyle, relates to Eden which can actually be seen as entrapment

“It’s Sweet of you to brother so much about me, Nora. Especially since you know so little of the worked and hardships of life.”

Nora speaking on patronizing but playing still

“You patronize me, Christine; but you shouldn’t” “You’re like the rest. You all think I’m incapable of getting down to anything serious”

Moral laws, Nora saving a life

“I too have done something to be happy and proud about. It was I who saved Torvald’s life.”

Nora being proud that she didn’t get the money from her male superior - her father

“Papa didn’t give us a penny. It was I who found the money.”

Ms. Linde also thinks Nora is insane, she knows the actual law

“Nora, you’re crazy!”

Nora finding a way to make her goals come true, shown to be ambitious, after she “cries and prayed” but “He said I was firvolous, and that it was his duty as a husband not to pander to my moods and caprices.”

“Well, well, I thought, you’ve got to be saved somehow. And then I thought of a way-”

Nora being so aware of gender dynamics

“-he’s so proud of being a man-it's be so painful and humiliations for him to know that he owed anything to me. It's completely wreck our relationship. This life we have built together would not longer exist.”

Nora on entering into the male sphere

“But it was great fun, though, sitting there working and earning money. It was almost like being a man.”

Nora bragging about taking heroically on the role of the male sphere herself to support her husband

“In case you don’t know, in the world of business there are things called quarterly instalments and interest, and they’re a terrible problem to cope with.” - how men might view emotions/moral laws that women deal with

Nora insular + moral laws

“But don’t lets talk about business. It’s so boring”

Rank talking about

Dr. Rank calls Krogstad a

“A moral cripple” “He’s crippled alright;morally twisted”

Nora's father had a

“Not unassailable reputaiton” suggesting there was a scandal attatched to his name