Act 3 Quotations

Mrs. Linde - desperate

• ‘Do you think I’m so utterly heartless?’

• ‘You mustn’t forget I had a helpless mother to take care of, and two little brothers.’

• ‘Nils, suppose we two shipwrecked souls could join hands?’

Mrs. Linde - lost

• ‘Castaways have a better chance of survival together than on their own.’

• ‘But now I’m alone in the world, and I feel so dreadfully lost and empty. There’s no joy in working just for oneself.’

• ‘Oh Nils, give me something - someone - to work for.‘

Mrs. Linde - affection

• ‘You and I need each other. I believe in you, Nils. I am afraid of nothing - with you.’

• ‘I know what despair can drive a man like you to.’

Mrs. Linde - regretful

• ‘Nils, a woman who has sold herself once for the sake of others doesn’t make the same mistake again.’

Mrs. Linde - rational

• ‘I’ve seen incredible things happen in this house. Helmer must know the truth. This unhappy secret of Nora’s must be revealed.’

Krogstad - doubtful

• ‘It’s the old story, isn’t it? - a woman chucking a man because something better turns up?’

• ‘Life has taught me to distrust fine words.’

• ‘You’re just being hysterical and romantic. You want to find an excuse for self-sacrifice.’

Krogstad - hopeless

• ‘When I lost you, it was just as though all solid ground had been swept from under my feet. Look at me. Now I’m a shipwrecked man, clinging to a spar.’

Krogstad - heartened

• ‘Thank you, Christine - thank you! Now I shall make the world believe in me as you do!

• ‘I’ve never been so happy in my life before!’

Krogstad - sympathy

• ‘I shall tell him he must give me back my letter - I’ll say it was only to do with my dismissal -’

Helmer - objectifying women

• ‘She’s worth looking at, don’t you think?’

• ‘What, not look at my most treasured possession? At all this wonderful beauty that’s mine, mine, mine alone, all mine.’

• 'You’ve still got the tarantella in your blood, I see. And that makes you even more desirable.’

Helmer - patronising women

• ‘I took my beautiful little Capri signora - my capricious little Capricienne, what?’

• ‘Now my little songbird’s talking like a real big human being.’

• ‘Scientific experiment? Those are big words for my little Nora to use!’

Helmer - lustful

• I wrap the shawl round your lovely young shoulders, over this wonderful curve of your neck -’

• ‘When I saw you dance the tarantella, like a huntress, a temptress, my blood grew hot, I couldn’t stand it any longer! That’s why I seized you and dragged you down here with me -’

Helmer - narcissist

• ‘You ought to take up embroidery.’

• ‘It’s much prettier.’

• ‘But knitting, now - that’s an ugly business - can’t help it.’

Nora - assertive

• ‘You mustn’t talk to me like that tonight.’

• ‘Leave me, Torvald! Get away from me! I don’t want all this.’

• ‘Read your letters now, Torvald.’

Dr. Rank - sombre

• ‘At the next masquerade, I shall be invisible.’

• ‘Once it’s over your head, no one can see you anymore.’

Helmer - callous

• ‘His suffering and loneliness seemed to provide a kind of dark background to the happy sunlight of our marriage.’

• ‘An ugliness has come between us; thoughts of death and dissolution.'

Helmer - enraged

• ‘Wretched woman! What have you done?

• ‘She who was my joy and pride - a hypocrite, a liar - worse, worse - a criminal!’

• ‘Oh, the hideousness of it! Shame on you, shame!’

Nora - changed

• ‘Yes. Now I am beginning to understand.’

• ‘When I am gone from this world, you will be free.’

Helmer - humiliated

• ‘I am condemned to humiliation and ruin simply for the weakness of a woman.’

• ‘Hide yourself, Nora, say you’re ill.’

• ‘Nora, you’re ill. You’re feverish.’

Helmer - selfish

• ‘Now you have destroyed all my happiness. You have ruined my whole future.’

• ‘Yes, yes, it’s true! I am saved! Nora, I am saved!’

Helmer - accusatory

• ‘All your father’s recklessness and instability - be quiet!’

• ‘No religion, no morals, no sense of duty! Oh, how I have been punished for closing my eyes to his faults!’

Helmer - valuing reputation

• ‘How would it help me if you were ‘gone from this world’, as you put it? It wouldn’t assist me in the slightest.’

• ‘He can still make all the facts public; and if he does, I may quite easily be suspected of having an accomplice in your crime.’

• ‘As regards our relationship - we must appear to be living together just as before. Only appear, of course.’

Helmer - distrustful

• ‘But the children shall be taken out of your hands. I dare no longer entrust them to you.’

Helmer - delusional

• ‘I shall merely regard the whole business as a dream.’

• ‘How lovely and peaceful this little home of ours is, Nora. You are safe here; I shall watch over you like a hunted dove which I have snatched unharmed from the claws of the falcon. Your wildly beating heart shall find peace with me.’

Helmer - hubris

• ‘Ah, my poor little Nora, I understand. You can’t believe that I have forgiven you.’

• 'Just lean on me. I shall counsel you, I shall guide you. I would not be a true man if your feminine helplessness did not make you doubly attractive in my eyes.’

• 'Don’t be afraid. I have broad wings to shield you.’

Helmer - infantilising women

• ‘She is now not only his wife but also his child.'

Helmer - dehumanising

• ‘From now on that is what you shall be to me, my poor, helpless, bewildered little creature.’

• ‘You’re talking like a child. You don’t understand how society works.’

• ‘Oh, you think and talk like a stupid child.’

Nora - serious

• ‘You and I have got to face facts, Torvald.’

• ‘Does it occur to you that this is the first time we two, you and I, man and wife, have ever had a serious talk together?’ 

Helmer - confusion

• ‘Did you expect me to drag you into all my worries - worries you couldn’t possibly have helped me with?’

• ‘Nora, how can you be so unreasonable and ungrateful?’

Nora - realisation

• ‘He called me his little doll, and he played with me just the way I played with my dolls.’

• ‘I’ve been living here like a pauper, from hand to mouth. I performed tricks for you, and you gave me food and drink.’

• ‘Our home has never been anything but a playroom. I’ve been your doll-wife, just as I used to be papa’s doll child.’

Helmer - demeaning

• ‘Playtime is over. Now the time has come for education.’

• ‘But you’re blind! You’ve no experience of the world - !’

Helmer - conventional views

• ‘But to leave your home, your husband, your children! Have you thought what people will say?’

• ‘But this is monstrous! Can you neglect your most sacred duties?’

• ‘First and foremost you are a wife and mother.’

• ‘But it’s unheard of for so young a woman to behave like this!’

Nora - self-actualisation

• ‘There’s something else I must do first. I must educate myself.’

• ‘I must stand on my own feet if I am to find out the truth about myself and about life.’

• 'I believe that I am first and foremost a human being, like you.’

• ‘I must try to satisfy myself which is right, society or I.’

Nora - rational

• ‘But you neither think nor talk like the man I could share my life with.’

• ‘Once you’d got over your fright - and you weren’t frightened of what might threaten me, but only of what threatened you.’

Nora - distant

• ‘I had been living here with a complete stranger, and had borne him three children - !’

• ‘I tell you, no. I don’t accept things from strangers.’

Helmer - realisation

• ‘A gulf has indeed opened between us.’

Nora - unfeeling

• ‘You mustn’t feel bound to me in any way however small, just as I shall not feel bound to you.’

• ‘We most both be quite free. Here is your ring back.’

Helmer - panicked

• ‘No, no, Nora, I can’t conceive of it happening!’

• ‘Nora - can I never be anything but a stranger to you?'

Torvald - desperation

• ‘But I want to believe in them. Tell me. We should have to change so much that - !’

• ‘Empty! She’s gone! The miracles of miracles - ?’

Nora - disillusioned

• ‘Oh, Torvald! Then the miracles of miracles would have to happen.’

• ‘You and I would both have to change so much that - oh, Torvald, I don’t believe in miracles any longer.’