Insights Into The Miracle

In the play A Doll’s House the idea of a miracle is mentioned a couple of times. Nora, the play’s main character is the one who mentions this miracle. She believes that the only thing that can save her marriage with Torvald is a miracle. Now as it becomes more and more obvious as the plays goes further and further, the two are not meant to be. Nora believes that the miracle is that Torvald will reveal himself as the man she originally thought she married, not the one she is currently married to. Now my question is not weather or not she believed this miracle could come true, but rather if it was even possible for it to happen.


As the reader or viewer goes through the play, Torvald is slowly revealed to us. Torvald is the man that treats Nora like a child, but that was not unexpected of the time. Women were expected to act like Stepford wives, and no one complained. Nora on the other hand is quite different. In the Stepford Wives, Joanna starts as the independent wife who eventually becomes a Stepford wife. In this play the opposite affect happens. Nora starts as a Stepford wife and after witnessing her husband destroy her hope of a miracle, becomes independent and walks out on him. The relationship between Torvald and Nora is the picture perfect marriage at the time, but based on what we learn from Torvald, we find that there is never a chance that the miracle will come true. Torvald is consumed with the idea of honor. When he finds Nora has committed the crime of forgery, he is worried about himself instead of them as a couple. He figures that she would never leave because her proper duty as a wife is to her husband and children. He figures that her proper thing to do is to go and hide while he has to take care of the situations. It is because of these reactions that we understand why the miracle did not happen.


So was the miracle ever capable of even happening then. The answer is no. Its not because Nora expected too much of Torvald, but instead she expected him to know things about the situation he didn’t. Why would he react any different way when presented the situation? With his limited knowledge of the situation, there was no other way to react. We as readers and viewers forget that he doesn’t know why she forged the note, we forget that he doesn’t know she has been paying it off, we forget that he doesn’t know what his demands were. So why should she expect him to react any differently? Ibsen created her expectations knowing the viewer would forget his lack of knowledge of what has happened because he never wanted Torvald to get her back. Ibsen created the ending to side with Nora, even though she was in the wrong. We learn that the outcome has been predetermined when Ibsen chooses to have Nora not explain the situation before he reads the note, and sets the ending up where Nora expects Torvold to know everything she had told Christina. The real insight is that we should feel empathy towards Torvold, not Nora, because he reacted as anyone in his position would and his wife expected him to react based on knowledge she had clearly chosen not to give him prior to reading the note. When reading the play, I did side with Nora, but after examining Nora’s faults I feel more empathetic for Torvald who was dealt a bad hand by a dealer who had stacked the deck and was never even given the chance to let Nora see her miracle come true.