Nora Helmer

Adapted from A Doll’s House, Act III


I must stand quite alone if I am ever to know myself and my surroundings. That is why I cannot stay with you.


I am going at once. It is no use forbidding me anything now. I shall take with me what belongs to me. From you I will accept nothing, either now or afterwards.


Tomorrow I shall go home—I mean, to what was my home. It will be easier for me to find some opening there. I must try to gain experience, Torvald. I can pay no heed to what the world will say. I only know that I must do this.


You speak of my holiest duties—my duties to my husband and my children. But I have other duties equally sacred: my duties towards myself.


I no longer believe that before all else I am a wife and a mother. I believe that before all else I am a human being, just as much as you are—or, at least, that I should try to become one.


I know that most people agree with you, Torvald, and that they say so in books. But I can no longer be satisfied with what most people say or with what is written in books. I must think things out for myself and try to understand them.


I do not really know what religion is. I know only what Pastor Hansen told me when I was confirmed. When I get away from all this and stand alone, I will examine that matter too. I will discover whether what he taught me is right—or, at any rate, whether it is right for me.


I know that I think very differently from you about these things. I have to learn about the society in which I live. I must decide which is right—society or I.


I have never felt as clear and certain as I do tonight.