Alright, so both of them are at fault, both Nora and Torvald, for their faulty relationship. Torvald is at fault because although he loved Nora, he never really respected her as an individual; likewise Nora is at fault because by her own definition of marriage, perhaps partly influenced by the social norms then, she didn't feel a need to establish herself as an individual, with her own worthy thoughts and opinions, until the very end when she tells Torvald she's leaving him.Now that we've begun to discuss the themes of the play A Doll House in class, I feel like I can better understand how this play not only comments on the treatment of women, as well as how their own behaviors may or may not have encouraged that treatment during that time period, but also comments on human relationships in general and how they can be broken through a lack of honest communication/deception (though sometimes they can still be remended later on, as Mrs. Linde and Krogstad showed us later on).
In the beginning, appearance-wise, Nora and Torvald seem like the perfect loving couple- and in a way they are, because they both do truly love each other, but they aren't able to truly communicate openly beyond their loving endearments and play-acting because they don't fully respect each other's, or even know of each other's differing priorities. As we see at the end, when Torvald finally finds out from Krogstad's letter what Nora had done, because Torvald and Nora had never honestly communicated to each other about one another's differing values, Torvald immediately assumes (perhaps since they both lived in the Victorian society in which social class and appearances were so important?) that Nora also has the same order of priorities that he has- that she also believes honor comes before love- which is why he is shocked and can't understand why she is leaving him. He even calls her a "silly child" (p 1230) when he finds out her true order of priorities- that love should come before honor- further reinforcing his lack of respect for her thoughts. However, that's not to say that Nora doesn't also do the same- rather than respecting Torvald's opinion that honor comes before love, Nora simply assumed that he would come to agree with her view of love coming before honor when she told him later and so just rushed into the transaction with Krogstad, forged signature and all. I think the reason they had been able to maintain such illusions of each other's thoughts/orders of priorities for such a long time of eight years, is because they had never really faced a situation in which they were forced to choose between love and honor because the two often complemented each other in situations.
In contrast, Ibsen portrays Mrs. Linde and Krogstad's final remended relationship as ending happily when the two are finally able to look past their previous deceptions and be openly honest with each other. In a way, Mrs. Linde and Krogstad's past relationship may also be slightly similar to Nora and Torvald's relationship because they had used deception to protect each other- just as Nora went behind Torvald's back to borrow money for the trip to the south that supposedly saved his life, Mrs. Linde also decieves Krogstad into believing that she's lost interest in her (in hoping that he'll forget her more easily that way) and marries another more rich man in order to provide for her family. Thus their relationship ended before on the basis of deception- however when they meet up again, their new open communication with each other (yay for no more misunderstandings!- between these two at least) allow them to better respect each other's thoughts and why they did what they did at that time- essentially understand each other's perspectives through honest communication, which is what a healthy relationship seems to be based on. So perhaps how Mrs. Linde and Krogstad remended their relationship serves as an example of how Nora and Torvald can possibly remend their own relationship in the future?- by respecting one another's differing perspectives and compromising through open communication...
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