Comparison of Nora (A Doll’s House) and Mrs.Alving (Ghosts) Essay

Nora and Mrs. Alving are two main characters in Ibsens plays. They are similar in some ways, but obviously they are both uniquely diverse. They play many of the same roles in their plays, and are probably the most similar two characters between Ghosts and A Dolls House.Nora is a unique character, a kind not usually seen in most plays. She swings her mood often she is either in truth happy or very depressed, comfortable or desperate, wise or nave. At the beginning of the play, Nora still plays a child in many ways, listening at doors and take in forbidden sweets behind her saves back. She has gone straight from her fathers house to her saves, bringing along her nursemaid which shows us that she hasnt really grown up. She also doesnt have much of an own opinion. She has always accepted her fathers and her husbands opinions. Shes conscious(predicate) that Torvald would have no use for a wife who was equal to him.But like many children, Nora knows how to manipulate Torvald by pouti ng or by performing for him. In the end, it is the truth about her marriage that awakens Nora. Although she may suspect that Torvald is a weak, petty man, she believes that he is strong, that hell protect her from the consequences of her actions. Then, at the moment of truth, he abandons her completely. She is shocked into earthly concern and sees how fake their relationship has been. She realizes that her father and her husband have seen her as a doll, a toy to be played with, a figure without opinion or will of her own. She also realizes that she is treating her children the same way. Her whole life has been based on illusion rather than reality.Mrs. Alving married her late husband, lord Alving, at her family proposal, but she had a horrible marriage. She ran onward to Pastor Manders, who she was attracted to, but he made her return to her husband. After enduring her husbands depravity for a while, she sent away Oswald at the age of seven, with the hope that he would never disc over his dead fathers immorality. Mrs. Alving built an orphanage to memorialize his death, and it was scheduled to be sacred the following day. She didnt want anyone to know the truth about his person she wanted everyone to think he was a great, honorable man. Fortunately, she at least had the compellation to tell her son the truth about his father.The occasions that arose for both characters were similar to some extent. One year into her marriage, Mrs. Alving, like Nora, walks out on her husband, fleeing to the house and into the arms of her lifter Pastor Manders, only to be persuaded by him to return to her husband. Another similar occurrence was when Nora had to save her husband, by going into exile and away for a precise bit, and Mrs. Alving saved her son by sending him into exile or at least away from their home so that Oswald would never have to grow up with his freelancing father.There were also some key differences between Nora and Mrs. Alving. In A Dolls House, the reaso n of the union between Nora and Helmer relied on the husbands conception of integrity and unyielding devotion to social morality. He was the conventional, ideal husband and devoted father. Not so in Ghosts. Mrs. Alving married Captain Alving only to find that he was a physical and mental wreck, and that life with him would mean utter degradation and be fatal to her possible children.In her despair, she cancelled to her friend, Pastor Manders, who needed to be indifferent to necessities. He sent her back to shame and degradation, back to her duties to her husband and home. Happiness, to him, was the unholy manifestation of a rebellious spirit, and a wifes duty was not to judge, but to bear with humility the cross which a higher power had for your own good laid upon you.Mrs. Alving eager the cross for twenty-six long years. Not for the sake of the higher power, but for her little son Oswald, whom she longed to save from the poisonous atmosphere of her husbands home. Meanwhile, Nora fled her husband for the sake of the higher power, for the opportunity to find her own ideas and opinions, to gain an experience without the controlling factor that her husband had on her.