Truth

Question 1

Paragraph One

Answer 1

• Main female protagonist as manipulative and perpetrating secrecy
• Nora takes loan and commits fraud
• (AO3): Broke Napoleonic code which forbade women having anything to do with monetary transactions
• Attempts to further hide truth by distracting Torvald with Tarantella dance
• Threatens Krogstad yet plays innocent to Torvald

Question 2

Paragraph Two

Answer 2

• Torvald’s hidden selfish nature is revealed
• Torvald discovers nora’s crime, reacts highly selfishly, only himself and reputation, not wife
• Leads to end of marriage
• Toril Moi AO5: ‘A moment of high melodrama’
• AO3: 19C standards, men act like this and women are expected to put up with it, women viewed as morally superior.

Question 3

Paragraph three

Answer 3

• Nora’s attempts to hide the secrets of her past results in a complex revelation at the end of the play – and, arguably, a new beginning.
• Nora leaves as she has duty to herself
• must abandon ‘sacred duties’ as mother and wife in order to further personal development
• AO3: poor contemporary reaction: - Actress Hedwig Niemann-Raabe refused to perform ending as she would never leave her own children
• Ibsen forced to write alternative ending to avoid pirating
• Torvald forces Nora into nursey, where she sinks to floor overcome with maternal guilt.
• Ibsen: ‘barbaric act of violence’ against the play
• AO5: Nora’s departure was “unnatural” and”artificial” (Erik Vullum)