The Most Immoral Character of "A Doll's House": Torvald Helmer
One of the most striking aspects of Ibsen's "A Doll's House" is that the most apparently moral character of the entire play, the upstanding Torvald Helmer, ends the play as its most apparently immoral character. At first glance, the character of Krogstad might seem to be the most immoral and unethical character of "A Doll's House." At first it seems that Krogstad will stop at nothing to regain his position at the bank. Yet Krogstad acts unethically towards Nora out of the motivation of helping his family as well as himself, a motivation that Torvald later proves incapable of understanding. In his actions, Krogstad is actually not so different than Nora, Torvald's wife. Krogstad places family obligations above personal morality when he forges a signature, like Nora. However, unlike Nora, who is naive as to the workings of the legal world outside of the doll's house of her home, Krogstad has a better understanding of the implications of his actions. Thus, Krogstad's actions seem more blameworthy than Nora's, although both characters have sympathetic qualities.
Thus, between the three characters that place personal morality above private ethics, the three of them, morally and ethically, seem to be about the same. However, unlike Nora and Krogstad, Kristine also has an unattractive tendency to be morally judgmental towards others. At the end of the play, after reconciling with Krogstad, Kristine orders him not to take back the implicating letter that proves Nora made a forgery to help save her husband's life. Kristine says there has been enough lies told in the Helmer household. But who is she to judge, as an outsider, with such a cold and harsh judgment, the ethics of a family she is not part of, when she herself agreed to marry a man she did not love, based on lies? forgery and his threats make Krogstad the most unethical character of the entire play? True, Krogstad often acts purely according to what serves his own or his family's interests, like Nora-and like Nora's old friend Kristine. Long ago, Kristine refused to marry Krogstad, even though she loved him, and instead married a wealthier man she did not love for the sake of he
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Approximate Word count = 733
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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