The past always catches up with the present| A Doll's House

The past always catches up with the present, sometimes with some unintended consequences.

The choices that we made in the past have consequences that show up in our present lives, sometimes, influencing it negatively.

Nora Helmer made a choice in her first year of marriage that later leads to the breakdown of something for which she had worked so hard and persevered a lot of humiliation to preserve. It was a choice she had made out of her great love for her husband. Torvald Helmer was seriously sick because of overwork and the doctors had recommended that he takes a holiday in the warmer climates in Italy. Nora tried giving hints to make him get a loan for the trip and eventually told him to get it, but he would hear none of it. In this society, only men could get loans with minimal obstacles. Nora takes a loan of 250 pounds to save her husband. The loan is given by Krogstad who gives almost 'impossible conditions' and Nora has to forge not only her father's name but also his signature. Three days after the loan was extended, her father dies.

She patiently repays the loan for eight years. She has to skim some household expenses, work long hours on her knitting and get a copy typist work to put together enough to repay the loan and also keep her home running. By 'good luck', her husband gets a job at a bank as a manager. Krogstad is also employed in the same bank. In a twist of fate, Krogstad engages himself in some indiscretion, forgery, and in Helmer's housecleaning task, the first assignment is to get rid of Krogstad as he cannot work with the likes of him. Krogstad blackmails Nora to plead his case to keep his job or else he reveals her past indiscretion. But there are some complications. First, Mrs. Linde, an old school friend of Nora, and a girlfriend to Krogstad has requested for the job through  Nora, and it has been given. In any case, Nora's guiles and white lies will not sway Helmer who has even written a dismissal letter.

Matters go from bad to worse. Krogstad relents about the letter and tries to retrieve it. This is after they have had a discussion with his old girlfriend Mrs. Linde, and made up. Mrs. Linde is of the opinion that the letter should be read to end the lies and the hypocrisy in the house. Though apparently Krogstad tried to retrieve the letter from the mailbox, he did not succeed, Helmer discovers the secret the wife has kept hidden for years. He is upset that his image in the society will suffer a battering due to his wife's thoughtless actions. Ironically, he does not even pause to ask why she had done it in the first place. In his estimation, his wife should not even be a mother. She will contaminate the children, a belief current in the society that vices among parents destroy the children eventually. He does not even contemplate living as man and wife with such a contaminated wife and tells her that they can only live as brother and sister for appearance's sake.

Nora is upset. She feels betrayed that this is what her husband feels. In fact, she is disappointed because he does not even take the burden of her shame, or even try to understand. His cruel judgment is devastating considering that she did it for him. She has always tolerated his openly condescending attitude towards her, petting her with the diminutive little this or that, reducing her to a play thing, a doll. She was Little Squirrel, Little Skylark, Little Doll, terms degrading whatever the intention. She has always lived in his shadow in accordance with social expectations.

Helmer 'offers' her a lifeline, and 'forgives' her for her treachery. The chutzpah of the man is truly unbelievable. Nora has had enough of the marriage and she feels she is not the woman for the patronizing and utterly insensitive Helmer. She will no longer be a pet, a doll for him or the society to play with and she is walking out of the marriage to go and rediscover herself. NO pleading or even appeal to her religion or conscience is going to change her.

Thus, we can conclude that our present circumstances are usually the consequences of the choices we have made in our past. Nora made a decision out of a deep love for her husband, not to lose him, but ironically the decision comes back to split them up. The marriage she sought to preserve is broken up.