A Doll's House Quotes

Question 1

‘here is a shelter for you, here I shall protect you’

Answer 1

Direct address

Question 2

‘Like a hunted dove that I have saved from a hawk’s claws’

Answer 2

Natural imagery and simile

Question 3

‘Nora as a man and wife, this is how it should be’

Question 4

‘Hasn’t a daughter the right to poorest her dying father from worry and anxiety?’

Question 5

‘I’m not sure about law, but I’m sure it must say things like that are allowed’

Answer 5

Naivity of women and the inherent corruption of society.

Question 6

‘I have been your doll wife, as I was father’s doll child’

Answer 6

conveys paternalism, and regressive cycle of female oppression and infantilisation.

Question 7

‘I am a shipwrecked woman’

Answer 7

Christine - New woman, portrays a realistic view of

Question 8

‘you have never understood me.’

Question 9

‘I have been wronged. First by papa, then by you’

Question 10

‘You neglect your most sacred duties’ // ‘duties to myself’

Answer 10

Stichomythia

Question 11

‘my little skylark’, ‘my little squirell’ ‘miss sweet tooth’

Answer 11

infantilisation

Question 12

‘Has my little spendthrift been wasting money again?

Answer 12

vindictive, patronising and reflective of conventional view of women.

Question 13

‘A wife cannot borrow money without her husband’s consent’

Answer 13

gender roles. (Mrs Linde)

Question 14

‘is a wife not allowed to save her husband’s life?’

Question 15

‘it was a tremendous pleasure to sit there working and earning money. It was like being a man’

Answer 15

Nora

Question 16

‘how painful and humiliating it would be for Torvald, with his manly independence, to know that he owed me anything!’

Answer 16

toxic masculinity

Question 17

‘an atmosphere of lies infects and poisons the whole life of a home’

Answer 17

places intense expectations of domestic role of women

Question 18

‘Almost everyone who has gone to the bad early in life has had a deceitful mother’

Question 19

‘In all these eight years…we have never exchanged a word on any serious subject’

Answer 19

superficiality of marriage

Question 20

‘When I look back on it it seems to me as if I have been living here like a poor woman - just from hand to mouth’

Question 21

‘I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being just as you are - or, at all events, that I must try and become one’

Question 22

‘But no man would sacrifice his honour for the one he loves.’

Question 23

‘It is a thing hundreds of thousands of women have done.’

Question 24

‘You have never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me.’

Question 25

'I must make up my mind which is right – society or I.'

Question 26

'I must stand on my own two feet if I'm to get to know myself and the world outside. That's why I can't stay here with you any longer.'

Question 27

'When I lost you, it was as if all the solid ground dissolved from under my feet. Look at me; I'm a half-drowned man now, hanging onto a wreck.'

Question 28

'How can I hold you close enough?'