Comparing Nora 'And Torvald'

Puppets On Strings A Doll’s House is the story of two people, living together but apart. Each person lives in their own world, while believing that everyone else lives there too. The characters of Nora and Torvald Helmer highlight two different ways of thinking, yet show how two such different viewpoints can share striking similarities. Both Nora and Torvald are codependent, self-involved, and superficial people; however, Torvald is content to be this way, while Nora feels that this way of life is not quite right for her and yearns to escape it. Both Torvald and Nora are dependent on each other in the way that they rely on each other to support their mental state. Torvald needs Nora to make him feel masculine, like “the man of the house”;
Torvald is completely absorbed in his own feelings, his own needs and wants, and his own affairs; he does not make time to play with his children and only seems to grant his wife attention out of habit and wariness that she will make a scene if he doesn’t. Similarly, Nora is absorbed in her own emotions and often fails to see the bigger picture. Throughout the play, it is noted that Torvald never calls his children by name and rarely calls Nora by hers; this is not only an act of dehumanization, it is him dismissing his wife and children. He treats most people as though they are below him and is generally very inconsiderate of the ideas and feelings of others. While Nora is a more considerate person than him, she often puts herself first in situations without really thinking about it. Torvald believes he is always right and he always gets what he wants, because he is not used to being refused or argued with. As a result of this, Nora resorts to childish manipulation tactics such as pouting and whining to get what she wants; the reasoning behind this may be if he already considers her below him and therefore not a threat, he may more easily give her what she wants. "How painful and humiliating it would be for Torvald, with his manly independence, to know that he owed me anything! It would upset our mutual relations altogether." (A Doll’s House, Act 1.
Torvald is content to stay in his sheltered world; he likes the illusion of being “in charge” and enjoys having the upper hand over his wife, whom he sees as stupid and docile and whom he treats like a large doll. He is quite fond of the world he has created and is extremely resistant to change; he is almost in denial when his wife leaves him and shatters his world. Nora, on the other hand, yearns to know something other than her life being controlled by Torvald, circumstance, and bad luck. She tries to break through her heavily moderated, superficial world by committing petty acts of rebellion, such as sneaking macaroons when they are not allowed. She must have felt like a puppet on a string being controlled by Torvald, jerking her around on the puppet stage of his world. After the scandal with the letter occurred she at last had a solid reason to leave Torvald and her children. She is finally able to break through the confused fog in her head and see how dull and frustrating her life with Torvald is. What she and Torvald never realized, however, was that Torvald is but another puppet beside Nora, spinning helplessly just like her, only he could never figure out how to cut the