Act 3 Analysis

ACT THREE PART ONE: PAGES 80–8

ANALYSIS

A SLOWER TEMPO

The opening of this act teases the audience. The tension has been escalating steadily. They assume that
the play will follow the pattern set at the beginning of the previous act, which took up Nora’s mounting
panic at once. Instead, the curtain rises on Mrs Linde. For a brief moment, Ibsen seems to indulge the
audience’s desire for tense emotion as she watches anxiously for Krogstad. But on his arrival the
audience must accept that they are going to be watching two people quietly discussing their own
concerns. This increases the suspense. It is also a needful reminder that everybody has a story of their
own. Two of the stock characters of melodrama – the villain and the confidante – are stepping out of
their dramatic functions to take the stage in their own right. It is rare to see this pairing – let alone see
them developing a genuine and complex relationship.

STUDY FOCUS: MAKING AN ENTRANCE

The return of Nora and Helmer shows Ibsen’s keen visual sense. He knows the audience is anticipating
their arrival and he ensures that it is a spectacular entrance. Their appearance contrasts sharply with the
drabness of Mrs Linde. They are both wearing a form of fancy dress. Each of them does so in a way that
fits the expectations of society about gender roles. Helmer wears a cloak over ordinary evening clothes.
This suggests he wants to give the impression of being above anything so childish as ‘dressing up’. Of
course, this is in itself a form of ‘dressing up’ and would make him very conspicuous at a fancy dress
dance – perhaps even a talking point. He describes the costume he has chosen for Nora as that of
a ‘capricious little Capricienne’ (p. 85); in other words, he sees her as a changeable child from an alien
culture, not part of the ‘real’ world of money, morality and decision-making.

Helmer taking off Nora’s shawl to display her for Mrs Linde’s admiration is a significant moment. In Act
One Nora spoke proudly to Mrs Linde about saving money by buying cheap dresses. Now, literally
dressed by Helmer, she is losing even that small independence.

ACT THREE PART ONE: PAGES 80–8

ANALYSIS

PHYSICAL COMEDY

We have just heard Mrs Linde optimistically telling Krogstad that the truth will help Nora’s marriage.
However, her attempt to tell Nora this is brought to a quick end by an episode that suggests Helmer and
reality are strangers: his hilarious demonstration of how to embroider and knit. This offers an actor with
a talent for comedy a piece of stage business as interesting as Nora’s tarantella: this large man in his
evening suit demonstrates how to be a domestic goddess, a drag act in miniature.

https://www.yorknotes.com/
 Act 3 Analysis

Helmer would never attempt this if he were not a little drunk – but it is consistent with the way he gives
lectures on subjects he knows nothing about. The audience might recall that Nora has earned money
from ‘fancy work, crocheting, embroidery’ (p. 31). She is a professional. Mrs Linde’s face as he bustles
her out, anxious to avoid walking her home, may contrast comically to her speech as polite employee,
calling him ‘Mr Helmer’ (p. 87).

A LOVE SCENE WITH AN UGLY EDGE

Ibsen gives the actors considerable freedom about how they play this scene. We have been aware
throughout that Helmer desires Nora and at times she seems to enjoy their games and fantasies. Helmer
should probably not seem too much of a predator here. The drunkenness – probably not a sensation he
is used to – makes him act like an adolescent and voice thoughts he would normally keep to himself. It
is ironic, however, that the fantasies of this man who persistently lectures his wife about truthfulness are
all about secrecy. And, although he may not have talked about them, he regularly indulges in them in a
way that might be socially awkward for Nora. He remains ‘aloof’ (p. 88) from her in company, so he can
imagine she is his secret mistress.

Having enjoyed narrating the fantasy, Helmer has such a clear image in his head of Nora as reluctant
young bride that he misses her anxiety and exhaustion. He completely fails to catch the critical edge to
her voice when she says, ‘I know you never think of anything but me’ (p. 88). The real Nora is invisible
to him, until she breaks the fantasy by refusing sex. This is, perhaps, the first time she has ever asserted
herself like this, and the first time in the play he has said anything as potentially violent as ‘Don’t want,
don’t want – ? Aren’t I your husband?’ (p. 88) The marriage appears to be reaching a crisis point before
any of Krogstad’s revelations.

KEY QUOTATION: NORA AND IRONY

Until now Nora’s flattery of Helmer may have been insincere, but here her tone seems blatantly ironic.
When she comments ‘You’re always right, whatever you do’ (p. 87) she has just witnessed Helmer’s
rudeness to Mrs Linde.

ACT THREE PART TWO: PAGES 88–94

ANALYSIS

PRIVATE LANGUAGE

A moment ago it seemed inevitable that Helmer’s insistence would trigger a final confrontation–
although a nineteenth-century audience might wonder, in their tightly censored theatre, how this scene
could possibly continue. Instead, there is another teasing postponement, which rapidly proves to be one
of the most extraordinary sequences in the play. Helmer’s greeting is rude and sarcastic. Rank’s
response, though blandly polite – ‘I thought I heard your voice’ (p. 88) – makes it uncomfortably clear he
has heard Helmer pestering Nora, and her angry and scared reaction.

https://www.yorknotes.com/
 Act 3 Analysis

This is a dark and very modern comedy of embarrassment. Nora’s remarks about champagne and high
spirits draw Rank into an alliance against Helmer. Their private code is still outwardly frivolous but is now
charged with sadness. Helmer adds a further dimension. His silly remarks – ‘Scientific experiment!
Those are big words for my little Nora to use!’ (p. 89) – are initially a source of amusement, to us, and
also to Rank and Nora. He is the butt of their private joke, trapped between them in a reverse image of
the tarantella scene where Nora was the object of the men’s gaze. As the scene goes on, Rank
understands just how deeply Helmer undervalues Nora. He cuts Helmer’s remark about the problems of
conveying ‘The Spirit of Happiness’ with the sharp retort, ‘Your wife need only appear as her normal,
everyday self –’ (p. 90).

STUDY FOCUS: SYMBOLIC FIRE

Note how Nora’s gesture of lighting the cigar takes on a ritual quality. She is making a special effort to
perform a courtesy that would more conventionally be done by Helmer, aware that this is a goodbye.
Rank shows that he too is aware of the symbolism with ‘thank you for the light’ (p. 90). It recalls how
she put an end to his declaration of love by ordering the lamp. Perhaps he is glad he has not betrayed his
friend Helmer in his last days. The phrase also connotes truth and virtue in more general terms – and the
idea that Nora ‘lights up’ Rank’s life. In this context the word can also be translated as ‘fire’ with all its
overtones of warmth and passion: these shades of meaning will be present through the sight of the
flame she carries.

NORA’S MIXED FEELINGS

Helmer’s desire to ‘offer my life and my blood, everything’ (p. 92) springs from drunkenness and selfish
pleasure that Rank is now out of the picture. But although he is barely aware of what he is saying – he is
still trying to make love to her – it is a crucial moment for Nora. Her body language and expression as she
insists that he read his letters are important. Helmer has just confirmed that she can expect a ‘miracle’ of
noble sacrifice from him. At the same time, however, his manner, and his callous attitude to Rank, have
brought her close to despising him. The jagged rhythm of her soliloquy on suicide shows how painful her
feelings are. Her instinctive choice of Helmer’s garment to wrap around her suggests that she still longs
for his protection. But the phrases themselves are clichés. The shawl over her head is the standard wear
for a heroine of melodrama cast out of her home on a stormy night. It is as if Nora is forcing herself
against all reason to take Helmer’s heroics at face value. If he will be a noble hero, she must be the noble
heroine, even if that means death.

HELMER PLACES THE BLAME

As Helmer emerges from his study, the stage picture mirrors the beginning of Act One when he popped
out to reprove his ‘little squanderbird’ (p. 24). One of the cruellest ironies of the scene is his description
of Nora’s behaviour as ‘the weakness of a woman’ (p. 94). Weakness is exactly what he has wanted from
Nora. By locking the door and proclaiming, ‘You’re going to stay here and explain yourself’ (p. 93), he
underlines his part in confining her to the ‘doll’s house’ and making her a child-wife. In this scene Helmer

https://www.yorknotes.com/
 Act 3 Analysis

endlessly repeats the word ‘I’. Even while he imagines his fate is punishment for his own most serious
error – helping Nora’s father – he manages to blame Nora: ‘I did it for your sake. And now you reward
me like this’ (p. 93).

A THEATRICAL COUPLE

Helmer fails to realise that Nora intends to take responsibility for her action and take her own life. His
sneer at her for being ‘melodramatic’ (p. 94) is ironic in the light of his false heroics just a few lines
previously. The only future he can imagine is all ‘acting’. Nora will continue playing the loving wife to
save his reputation. By making Helmer use the word ‘melodramatic’ for the first time in the play, the text
stresses to its nineteenth-century audience that the simplistic moral codes of the old theatre are being
tested to destruction. Nora and Helmer themselves have often used the language of melodrama. It has
been difficult for them to find a vocabulary to express their deepest feelings that does not rely on the
sexual stereotypes of sentimental drama. This reliance on gender clichés is the real weakness of their
relationship – although it has also, perhaps, kept them together.

KEY QUOTATION: HELMER’S FEELINGS

Helmer dismisses Rank with, ‘His suffering and loneliness seemed to provide a kind of dark background
to the happy sunlight of our marriage.’ (p. 91) The possessiveness implied by such language is the polar
opposite of Rank and Nora’s goodbye expressing mutual care.

ACT THREE PART THREE: PAGES 94–104

A VERY ORIGINAL STAGE PICTURE

Ibsen’s stagecraft is striking here. Every well-made play of the period involved compromising documents
– a letter, a will. The playwright might contrive a situation where a letter lies on a table for a whole act
like a ticking time bomb. Here, the compromising paper gains its most sinister significance by ceasing to
be a threat. Krogstad’s change of heart ought to mean a happy ending with the characters clustering in a
cheerful group for the final curtain. Instead we see the half-dressed and obviously puzzled maid.
Dragged out of bed in the middle of the night, she is trying to do her job and give the note to Nora.
Helmer stops her, not caring that his wife is humiliated in front of the servant. He then appears to slam
the door in the maid’s face in his eagerness to grab the letter.

HELMER’S FOCUS

It is worth noting that Krogstad writes to Nora, rather than his employer. She is evidently the person he
respects more. Not only does Helmer interpret the letter as his salvation rather than Nora’s, he has no
interest in Krogstad. He does not even speak his name. Even though Krogstad’s change of heart has taken
place in his own living room, even though Krogstad and Mrs Linde are both his employees, he is only
interested in what affects him. The whole episode, for Helmer, proves that people behave according to
the stereotypes of melodrama – the silly wife, the noble husband, and the minor character whose

https://www.yorknotes.com/
 Act 3 Analysis

motives are of no interest. Unconsciously, Helmer seems to be denying that individuals can change. By
throwing Krogstad’s note on the fire he is burning the evidence that change happens.

CLINGING TO THE STEREOTYPE

Helmer’s long speech on forgiveness is an attempt to recover a position he has lost by his selfishness of
the last few minutes. You might ask what, exactly, he is forgiving, since Nora’s action has not harmed him
and its motive was to do him good. For Helmer, though, the attraction lies in the power that it gives him.
It makes him both her husband and her father. But both of these men have profoundly betrayed her: her
father has effectively sold her, her husband has disowned her. Meanwhile, she has been Helmer’s
protector, shielding him from painful facts (even from the sight of knitting), has saved his life and been
genuinely ready to sacrifice her own.

ANTICIPATION

Helmer’s speech allows the actress time to take off ‘my fancy-dress’ (p. 96) It also gives the audience a
challenging space to consider what they want to see next. Many of Ibsen’s first audience would have
expected a meek entrance in nightwear by a wife prepared to confine herself still more closely in the
home. Modern audiences, listening to Helmer, hope this will not happen.

STUDY FOCUS: NORA’S LOGIC

Note how the ‘reckoning’ at the table is structured with great care. Points are raised and discussed
almost as if we are in the courtroom where Helmer once worked. The arguments move from the house
itself to the wider world. It begins with Nora’s domestic unhappiness. Helmer hopes to change that by
changing her with an ‘education’ he imagines he can deliver. Then it moves to the political: Helmer
appeals to all aspects of male hegemony: public opinion, patriarchy, the Church, the Law. Nora counters
this by asserting the right of the individual to question them. Then – after one last attempt by Helmer at
heroic generalisation about what men do – the conversation returns to the personal. But this time the
subject is Helmer himself. Still unable to grasp that he needs to change as much as Nora, he tries to
suggest what ‘we’ might do.

MUTUAL SUFFERING

This slow but inexorable dismantling of the relationship makes a solid frame for a scene of emotional
intensity. Both characters are in pain. Nora and Helmer have done their best within their limited
understanding of love. While Nora now wants to redefine love, she is not trying to punish the man who
has done her a ‘great wrong’ (p. 97). She accepts responsibility for the ‘tricks’ (p. 98). But she has
already taken off her fancy dress while Helmer is still ‘dressed up’ as the master. It will be more difficult
for him to abandon his illusions, simply because society will be on his side.

A FAMOUS EXIT

https://www.yorknotes.com/
 Act 3 Analysis

As the scene moves to its close, Helmer is more and more physically isolated in the doll’s house. Finally it
is ‘Empty!’ and all he has left is the idea of a ‘miracle’ (p. 104). In Ibsen’s first draft Helmer cried, ‘I
believe in them.’ In the final draft he cries, ‘I want to believe in them’ (Egil Törnqvist, A Doll’s House,
1995, pp. 39–40). What he has to believe is that he and Nora can become individuals capable of moral
choice. Ibsen’s wording does not suggest optimism. However, Helmer is alone, talking to himself as Nora
did at her first entrance. At that point it suggested loneliness, and it does now. But it was only alone that
Nora was able to set out on her journey to independence.

https://www.yorknotes.com/