[Please note that in different publications of this play,
the page numbers will not be the same.]
In Act One of
Ibsen's play, A Doll's House, Nora shows how important her family
is to her.
Nora confesses to Kristine Linde that she has
done something to save Torvald's life, but he must not
know.
It's
true—I've also got something to be proud and happy for. I'm the one who saved Torvald's
life...I told you about the trip to Italy. Torvald never would have lived if he hadn't
gone south.
Kristine
acknowledges that Nora's father game them the money. Nora explains that her father gave
them nothing, but that she raised the money—all of it—to save her
husband's life.
Four thousand, eight hundred crowns. What do you
say to that?
At the very end
of Act One, the audience sees how important Nora's children are to her when Torvald
discredits Krogstad and uses his life as an example of what happens
to a person and his/her children if that person is a
liar:
Oh,
I've seen it often enough as a lawyer. Almost everyone who goes bad early in life has a
mother who's a chronic liar...It's usually the mother's influence that's dominant, but
the father's works in the same way, of course....And still this Krogstad's been going
home year in, year out, poisoning his own children with lies and pretense; that's why I
call him morally lost.
Upon
hearing this, Nora is devastated to the point that she does not want to see her
children, for fear that she will "poison" them. She loves her children and her husband
very much and is willing to sacrifice whatever is necessary to take care of them and
protect them.
In both of these situations, the reader sees
that to Nora, her family is of the utmost importance in her
life.
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