The theme that shows the sacrificial role of women in their society can be seen throughout the movie. In general, the play’s female characters exemplify Nora’s assertion that even though men refuse to sacrifice their integrity, “hundreds of thousands of women have.” In order to support her mother and two brothers, Mrs. Linde found it necessary to abandon Krogstad, her true but penniless love, and married a richer man. The nanny had to abandon her own child to support herself by working as Nora’s (and then as Nora’s children’s) caretaker. As she tells Nora, the nanny considers herself lucky to have found the job, since she was “a poor girl who’d been led astray”. We can also see that Nora goes through a great deal of sacrifice during the play. Towards the beginning of the play, we learn that Nora makes a loan with a fake signature all to help her husband to get the treatment he needs. On top of that, Nora’s abandonment of her children can also be interpreted as an act of self-sacrifice. In spite of her tremendous love for her children, which can clearly be seen by the way she interacts with them and her great fear of corrupting them, she leaves them. Nora truly believes that the nanny will be a better mother and that leaving her children is in their best interest.
The theme that women have a low status in society is one of the main aspects of the play. Though Nora is economically advantaged in comparison to the play’s other female characters, she still lives a difficult life because society dictates that Torvald be the marriage’s dominant partner. Torvald issues decrees and condescends to Nora, and Nora must hide her loan from him because she