I can quite understand your disappointment at a married woman abandoning her husband, children and home. However, I write this letter to you to provide you with perhaps a fuller understanding and awareness of why Nora had little choice but to abandon her husband, children and home. I fear that had she remained behind her very sanity, indeed, if not her life, were in jeopardy.
You must understand the constraints and confines on women and their roles in the Victorian era. Women were viewed as no more and no less than a reflection of their father or spouse. There was no room in polite society for a woman who refused to be bound by the limitations or such roles. Nora was such a woman. As she herself tells husband, ôa great wrong was done to me Torvald. First by Papa and then by youö (Ibsen 104). This wrong is that Nora has sacrificed her entire life and being to please the men in her existence, leaving no room for her own desires, needs or development.
Despite sacrificing her life for her father and her husband, Nora asked for very little for herself. She contented herself to playing larks and squirrels for Torvald, keeping his house, and tending to their children. The only thing she ever asked for from Torvald was for a trip to Italy but he refused her even this pleasure. He told her such a trip was ôfrivolousö and that it was not his position to ôpander to her mood and caprices,ö despite the fact that she catered to his every mood and whim (Ibsen 106). Therefore, Nora has never received one thing from Torvald that truly fulfills her own desires or needs.
Instead of viewing Nora as a woman in her own right, Torvald only viewed his wife as a sexual object who was at his side to make him look attractive to others or who was there to fulfill his desires. We see this when he cajoled her into playing larks and squirrels. His reaction to her, while she pranced about like a silly school girl for his pleasure, is one ...