A predictable response to reading Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House might be a disgust at Nora's weak obsession with money, possessions and culture through the first two acts which is then, suddenly and unexpectedly, reversed when those harsh opinions fall back on her stunned husband. as Nora frees herself from the strings of her puppet and takes a stand for the potential she had, which was suppressed and wasted by the men who dominated her life. Her revelatory speech is so stirring, so epic, that a reader can't help but applaud her at the end and look at Torvald Helmer with a kind of anger and shame at his typical gender oppression, and when Nora finally slams the door on the their marriage and about his life as a "doll", there should be mental applause in the reader's head as the audience rises screaming from their seats with only the defeated Helmer remaining on stage to suffer for their joy. All of this, however, is in stark contrast to the first two acts, where audiences would collectively shake their heads at Nora's superficial, simple actions and her husband's looming problems that came with them. Indeed, the transition between the second and third acts is jarring, to the point that the reader, after coming down from the euphoria of that final speech, inevitably questions the transition. There is little in common between the Nora who implores her husband: "You know that I could never act against your will" (31) and the Nora who announces that "I believe that I am first and foremost a human being" (58 ), in the sense that it revokes her status as a doll (although this essayist would like to point out that, to parody Forrest Gump, the human is as human is). However, while Nora's sudden development is often argued to be a flaw in the narrative, Helmer's role is more ambiguous. After all, a reader might assume, didn't it strengthen Nora's role as puppet? Has she ever done anything to ignite a passion in her for things beyond macaroons and clothes? Certainly not, at least not as far as the play reveals. And this becomes ample reason to wag the finger at Helmer in shame. However, it could also be argued that Helmer was not as domineering and condescending as Nora claimed, at least not by nature. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay It could be that he himself was simply settling into a role to fit his own actions; after all, he didn't shape Nora this way. Rather, she continued her growth in the same direction she had already been headed and was happy with, as initiated by her father, whose role is not so easily analyzed through the play because it appears in it exclusively through Nora's references , and even those are subjective and few. But, assuming that her father had the same effect on her as he claimed, then it is likely that when Helmer met Nora, she was already playing at being a doll and showed no signs of higher aspirations in life. She accused Helmer of molding her to share his fantasies and opinions, but perhaps the opposite is also true, that Helmer adapted himself to fit her doll mind. After all, there is no indication of Helmer's personality before Nora; he may well have been one to encourage those with intellectual potential, but since Nora had never shown it, she had no reason to assume he possessed a mind that could deal with anything more complicated than sneaking macarons. In The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing argues that all people, men and women, identify themselves through.