Teaching Subjectivity. Travelling Selves for Feminist ... - MailChimp

she is beautiful but not reliable, at least not in matters of money. To pay off the
loan, Nora had to work in the late evenings; it was the only job she could find:
copying by hand. In addition, she asked for more money for the household. Just
like my father, Helmer suspected that she was being too lavish. Nora plays her
role, because this allows her to set aside money from the household. My mother
did the same thing – although her motive was to secure enough money for her
personal needs. Although Nora knows that the means are wrong, she hopes that
“the most wonderful” will happen: that Helmer will recognise her deeds as acts
of love and forgive her. In the end Helmer does forgive her, in the sense that she
is reinstated as a doll in a doll’s house: “You have loved me as a wife ought to
love her husband. Only you had not sufficient knowledge to judge of the means
you used. But do you suppose that you are less dear to me because you don’t
understand how to act on your own responsibility? No, no; only lean on me; I
will advice and direct you. I should not be a man if this womanly helplessness did
not just give you a double attractiveness in my eyes.”
And when Nora does not seem to understand, Helmer underlines that
he has indeed forgiven her: “You have no idea what a true man’s heart is like,
Nora. There is something so indescribably sweet and satisfying, to a man, in
the knowledge that he has forgiven his wife, forgiven her freely, and with all his
heart. It seems as if that has made her, as it were, double his own; he has given
her a new life, so to speak; and she has in a way become both wife and child to
him. So you shall be for me after this, my little scared, helpless darling.”
Forgiveness is often defined as reinstating the person you forgive in the
same position. This is also the difficulty in most cases. In this case Helmer has
no problem with reinstating Nora; in fact the more helpless she is, the more
lovable and attractive she becomes to him. This is, however, no longer a position
Nora wants. Instead, she asks Helmer why they have never had a serious
conversation in their eight years of marriage. Helmer wonders what good that
might have done her. Should he have told her about his financial troubles?
Nora: You have never understood me, I have been greatly wronged, Helmer.
First by papa and then by you.
Helmer: What! By us, by us two, who have loved you better than anyone else
in the world?
Nora: You never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love
with me.
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