A Doll's House Nora Helmer Quotes

NORA: "What do you consider my most sacred duties?"
HELMER: "[…] your duties to your husband and your children."
NORA: "I have other duties just as sacred. […] Duties to myself." (3.310-3.314)

This idea was completely scandalous in Ibsen's time. The thought that a woman might have value other than being a homemaker and mother was outrageous.

Nora Helmer

Quote 8

NORA: "How painful and humiliating it would be for Torvald, with his manly independence, to know that he owed me anything!" (1.197)

By rescuing her husband, Nora has emasculated him, at least by the standards of the society they live in.

Nora Helmer

Quote 9

NORA: "Many a time I was at my wits' end […] I used to sit here and imagine that a rich old gentleman had fallen in love with me […] that he had died; and that when his will was opened it contained […] the instruction: "The lovely Mrs. Nora Helmer is to have all I possess paid over to her at once in cash." (1.205-1.207)

Even in Nora's dreams, it's a man who saves her.