The Door Slam Heard ‘Round the World: Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” (Part 2)

Nora Helmer begins Act I as a devoted wife to her respectable husband, Torvald, and a devoted mother to her young children. She ends Act III by walking out on all of them and closing the door behind her. The emotional distance covered in these three acts (representing a span of just a few days in the lives of the Helmers) makes Nora one of the greatest and most coveted acting challenges in the theater. How might we mark out a route between the Nora of Act I, the charming toy of the men in her life who seems to desire nothing more than the comfort and ease her husband’s recent promotion is set to provide, and the Nora of Act III, an independent woman willing to sacrifice everything in pursuit of her own self-determination? Wes & Erin discuss continue their discussion of Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House.” Upcoming Episodes: Jaws, Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People.” Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email [email protected] to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website Transcript 0:20 Erin: or patreon.com/subtextpodcast. Welcome to part two of our discussion of Ibsen's play A Doll's House. We're still talking about money. We're gonna be. We're gonna be talking about money the whole time. We're talking about how Nora has a different relationship to the future, shall we say, than Torvald does in her, as demonstrated by her relationship with money. I also, you know, I want to piggyback off of that and just say that Nora is aware as well of the power that her looks give her. And she's also aware that this is a finite power. So she's also investing, if you will, in the present. She talks about the fact that she might reveal the scheme of the loan to Torvald when she's old and has lost her looks. Do you remember that part? 1:15 Wes: Mm. But that's impossible. That'll never happen. 1:18 Erin: That'll never happen. You gotta love Nora's self confidence for all of her being a beggar. Oh, here we go. It's on 122. I found it. She says, yes, perhaps one day, many years from now, when I'm no longer as pretty. You shouldn't laugh. I mean, of course, when Torvald no longer admires me as much as he does now, when he no longer finds it amusing to have me dance for him, dress up and recite things. Oh, God, that is awful. Then it might be good to have something in reserve. And she breaks off. Oh, rubbish, Rubbish. That time will never come. She's smarter too, then about the present, about necessity, things that need to be done at this moment, the sacrifices that need to be made now for the future. And also, she's smart about the Ways to get things. So she. When she recounts to Christine the moment of her husband's diagnosis, she says to Christine, good Lord, don't you understand? He wasn't even meant to know how much danger he was in. I was the one the doctors came to saying that his life was at risk, that nothing could save him except to stay in the south and only four star hotels would do now, don't you think I tried to coax him at first. I talked to him about how lovely it would be for me to travel abroad like other young wives. I cried and I begged. I said he should please remember my condition. She's pregnant at the time, right? Is that it? I guess that he must be kind to give in to my wishes. And then I suggested that he could perhaps take out a loan. But then he almost went into a fury, Christine. He said I was frivolous and that it was his duty as a husband not to give way to me and my whims and caprices, I think he called it. Well, I thought, you've got to be rescued. And so I found a way out. So she acts the part of the frivolous wife. So she's been told he's going to die unless he goes. He's not to be told that he will die. So she has to find a way to get him to go without telling him, it's for your own good, it's for your health. So she plays the part of, well, I want nice things, I want my trip abroad, I want my time, you know, I want my vacant, my fancy vacation. She puts it in those terms, I want to take my frivolous, extravagant vacation and you better pay for it. And so I think this is evidence that she is aware of things. You know, in the last part, I think I pointed briefly to some evidence that she knew all along that her opinions were different from him. And I think that she was aware of. And in instances like these where she recounts him refusing to take out a loan, she obviously had a different opinion about him, about the idea of taking out a loan. And that's demonstrated by her actions. And I think she's aware of putting on the mask of the coquette, the alluring woman, and also at times putting on the mask of the high maintenance young wife who wants what she wants. All of these things are to manipulate him to do something either for his own good or for the sake of the children. 4:18 Wes: Yeah, I'm not sure if I completely agree about how aware she is of all of these things. She is making a dramatic Transformation. In the end, she's not aware of all the things that she talks about. In the end, she might be partly aware or unconsciously aware. It's a weird way to put it. Certainly the sprouts and the beginnings of awareness are there and I think they're enacted, right. They come out in the whole. The loan is not just about her loving him and wanting him to get better. It's about finding out who he is, I think. Right. It's not consciously that. And it's also about efficacy. Right. So she says at one point, right. See Christine, aren't I also capable of something? This was her big moment of individuation and efficacy. It was her way of asserting herself and being more than a doll, being more than this powerless thing in Torvald's household. But she's also aware that it puts her husband into a kind of debt, emotional debt. He doesn't like financial debt, but it also puts him into a kind of emotional debt. Just think how awkward and humiliating it would be for Torvald with his manly self esteem to know he owed me something. It would upset the entire balance of our relationship. Our beautiful happy home would no longer be what it is. And of course that's the whole point of this trajectory of events is to unsettle the balance of the relationship because the relationship is unsatisfactory. Is she aware that the relationship is unsatisfactory? Probably like most people. Yes and no. Right. You know, it's like she is and she isn't. She's in probably quite a bit of denial, but she's aware enough to get things going to the point of discovery. I don't know. Does that sound right? 6:05 Erin: Yes. No. I don't disagree with you and I don't think that these things are mutually exclusive. I mean, I think that she could be aware of the ways in which she's manipulating him up to a point. Right. And think that this is happiness. I mean, part of this idea is, or part of the idea of why she's doing the things she's doing is supposed to be out of this self sacrificial. She's trying to please him. She's trying to please him. Right. And that's a woman's job after all, isn't it? It's to be a wife, it's to be a mother, it's to not have an identity except in relation to these other people. So it's to not be an individual or a human being. It's to sure put on this little performance if that's what's going to make my husband happy, because that is the number one thing, is to make him happy and to make sure that everything goes smoothly. And she only discovers at the end of the play that she had not been happy all along performing for him. Right. So she knows she's performing for him, but she thinks that this is actually making her happy to exert herself for him in this way. She realizes at that point that she's only been cheerful, not happy on some deeper level. 7:10 Wes: Right, right. 7:11 Erin: But I think her awareness is more considerable than everything being on an unconscious level, or most things being on an unconscious level. She says to Christine, for instance, when she accuses Christine of being condescending to her, says, you're like the others. You all think I'm incapable of anything really serious. She's talking about serious work, but I think she's talking about something else there, too. She expresses, in other words, a frustration. 7:37 Wes: And this is why she basically brags about the loan. This is the serious thing that she did. She wants to counter Christine's perception. 7:42 Erin: Yes, I know what I'm doing. I have efficacy, too. I understand. You know, she understands enough to lie about the macaroons, for instance. You know, she understands enough to lie in the long term to Torvald about this loan. She knows not to tell him. 7:59 Wes: Yeah, I just don't think she fully. I don't think she understands why she took out the loan. She partly understands. Right. 8:07 Erin: Yes, I agree with you. 8:08 Wes: Right. So she understands that it gives her a sense of efficacy, but she doesn't, I would say. Right. As a psychoanalyst, the two main motivations for her in doing this are to this just the sense of efficacy that it gives her in the immediate moment and the fact that it sets in motion a chain of events which will lead to her own independence and individuation. Right. 8:31 Erin: Those are still secondary to the reason, which is he needs to go south to save his life. 8:36 Wes: Well, that's the conscious. That's the conscious motive. 8:39 Erin: Okay, I see, I see. 8:40 Wes: And that, I think, is true, but it's also only part of the equation. And in a way, the two unconscious motives I've given, I think, are more. Are stronger, in a sense, and the conscious motive just masks that. Which is not to say she doesn't love him and wanted him to get well. I think there's an apt quotation here, which is. It's a variation on the. Oh, these things are so hard to keep track of or get a hold of. She'll say later on, these kinds of transactions are so extremely difficult to keep track of. And she's talking about, she's saying to Christine that she doesn't know how much she has left to pay on the loan. But at this point, I think the play has paved the way enough that we can read the subtext of that, which is that transactions of love and honor are hard to keep track of. These are two different currencies. And Torvald in the end will say, well, no one would trade his own honor for love. Right? This is the non financial transaction that's really at issue in the play. Honor, independence, efficacy, autonomy versus love. For the sake of love. Would you trade away your independence, Torvald? No. No one would ever do that, Nora. That's what women do. That's what this is about. She sets in motion a chain of events where he is invited to appreciate that by being subjected to a situation where he has to make a decision, is he going to sacrifice his honor for the sake of love in the way that she has been forced to? She's inviting him into that position that she's experienced as a woman. Well, she's inviting him into that, into that position and inviting him to live up to his promise that he would be self sacrificing for her. And of course he can't do it. So she's right. So there's an unconscious motivation, I think, in the very beginning or before the play even begins, to expose him for the type of person he is. Some instinctual level. She knows something wrong is wrong with the relationship. I don't think she can articulate it, but she acts in such a way that it'll be articulated in the course of time. 10:56 Erin: Yeah, I love that, you know, in thinking through that, I wonder the extent to which these psychological questions, these unconscious motivations that you're pointing to are capable of coming to the fore in this play at this point, present moment, the moment of the play, only because it's been so long since Torvald's illness. In other words, the immediate, the conscious motivation is now so distant from the dramatic moment of the play. You know, we don't see Torvald as someone who was ever sick. And he has this distaste for Dr. Rank's illness, or for illness in general, I think as a result of the fact both that he did not know that he was ill. 11:37 Wes: Plot wise. What brings everything to a head is his promotion, because that's what makes Krogstad uneasy. He knows he's gonna get fired and so has to embark on his project of blackmail, which you know, will inevitably lead to the exposure of all this. And then. And then the real exposure, which is the exposure of Torvald. 11:57 Erin: Right. 11:58 Wes: For being the person, the type of person that he. That he is. 12:01 Erin: Right. 12:01 Wes: So this has all been hibernating, so to speak. It's unearthed by the promotion. So the happy promotion. Right. Which is going to bring them out of frugality and asceticism and austerity. Self denial, supposedly. And it's going to justify her extravagance. It's going to allow her to. Anyway. That, ironically, is the thing that brings it all down. 12:26 Erin: Right. She's finally going to be out of austerity. He has everything the way he likes it and hasn't been denied anything. So the austerity was being experienced only, it seems, by Nora. 12:36 Wes: Right. All of that in quotation marks. There's no. 12:38 Erin: Right, Right. 12:39 Wes: Well, to some extent, they've lived in austerity. If she's been making the presents out of paper or doing whatever it is she was, and they didn't have a proper Christmas tree the last. The previous year. But it's hard to tell, Right. Were they really that poor off or. Yeah, yeah. What's going on there? But in any case, whatever situation that they're in, she gets the brunt of it because she's on the allowance. 12:59 Erin: Right. And we're also made to understand that part of the austerity was as a result of Torvald refusing to take certain cases as a lawyer, which I think is very important. So in the previous part, you made this really great distinction between the kind of illness that Dr. Rank has and the kind of illness that Krogstad has, and that Torvald makes a distinction between these two. Torvald isn't even aware of himself as someone who has been physically ill in the past, nor is he aware of someone who is sort of morally ill, morally compromised. And I think that's key, that ignorance on those. Both on both those fronts that aligns him sort of with Krogstad and sort of with Rank. But one of the reasons it seems that they have not had much money is because of his refusal to take cases which he thought were improper. So in other words, to act as a lawyer for someone who he felt was guilty is that. So he stands as judge of these clients and if he, as judge, decides that they've done something that he doesn't want to associate with because he's very concerned about being contaged by other people's wickedness. 14:10 Wes: Yeah, he and Dr. Rank share that, by the way. 14:13 Erin: Yes, yes. And he believes in both in contagion and in genetic moral disease. We have to take his word for it when he says that Nora is a spendthrift at the beginning of the play because we don't know any better really. And also because he gives a genetic explanation for her being a spendthrift, saying that her father was one as well. But we never get any evidence for this. We do, however, get an indication that the father was involved in some legal trouble and that in that instance, Torvald. Actually this is how Torvald became introduced to Nora, that he was acting as a lawyer for Nora's father and actually betrayed his principles to defend Nora's father for Nora's own sake. So he got Nora under the conditions that he claims he's too good for. To me, there's something that's an indication of the hypocrisy at the very root of their relationship. We have this discussion of propriety at the very beginning of the play. Nora tells Christine about Torvald's promotion. Nora says how wonderful it is. And she says, as a lawyer. So prior to this he's been a lawyer, now he's been made the director of the bank. And she says, as a lawyer, one's income is so unreliable, especially when one doesn't want to handle any affairs except those that are right and proper. And that's something Torvalds never wanted to do, of course, and I'm entirely with him there. So I take that to mean that he wants to be a judge and a lawyer, so he won't take a case unless it's right and proper, which probably means that he won't defend someone he suspects might be guilty. Is that, is that a proper interpretation of this? 15:55 Wes: Yeah. 15:56 Erin: And then we learn he defended Nora's father, who Torvald is quite, quite mean about, by the way. I mean, I wouldn't, you know, this man is dead. And I would be pretty upset if someone was saying this to about a family member of mine. But they're talking about Krogstad and Nora's talking about how afraid of him he is. And Helmer says, you're thinking of your father, of course. And Nora says, oh yes, that. That's it, yes. Remember how those evil minded people wrote in the newspapers about daddy and slandered him so horribly I think they would have got him dismissed if the department hadn't sent you over to look into it. And if you hadn't been so obliging and helpful to Him. And Torvald replies, my little Nora, there's a significant difference between your father and myself. Your father wasn't an unimpeachable public servant, but I am and hope to remain so for as long as I am in my post. So perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but I take this to be the origin of their acquaintance. So he must have met Nora because he was defending Nora's father. Nora's father did something wrong, but Torvald must have compromised on his principles in that instance to defend the father in order to win Nora. 17:04 Wes: Yeah, it's interesting because he's talking about his unimpeachability in that context. Sorry, in the context of not wanting to be corrupted by external influence, namely her influence in keeping Krogstad in his post. And that's also the point where he says he would take everything on himself if anything happened. So he says, you know, my dear Nora, I forgive you the anxiety you're going through here, even if it's essentially an insult to me. Oh, yes, it is an insult. Or isn't it perhaps an insult to believe that I would be worried about some wretched hack lawyer's revenge, But I do nevertheless forgive you because it's such sweet testimony to your great love for me. You'll see I'm a man enough to take everything upon myself, and then a little later we'll share it. Nora as husband and wife. I think this is midway through the play, and it's like the very midpoint of the play where she suddenly gets charged with this idea of what she calls the miraculous thing. The miraculous thing is just what he described, this bit about being able to take everything upon himself, of not being worried about exposure, if that's what Krogstad desires to do. So yeah, he's much more believing in his unimpeachability at that point. Not just in the sense of not being subject to corruption, but not being subject to bad press. 18:32 Erin: Yeah, and he said prior to this as well that he's talked about a sort of putrid environment in the home as a result of lies or as a result of parents having a negative effect on the morality of their children, which seems to be a combination of this genetic idea and this contagion idea. So somehow it seems to be inherited, but also it's the environment created by the bad behavior of a parent that can infect the child. So it's a sort of double barreled infection. And he particularly ascribes this to mothers. But he says fathers are also capable of this. And so one then thinks about. Because he. In their final confrontation scene, he mentions Nora's father having been an indication that Nora would be not a suitable mother, not a fit mother. And so he's therefore betrayed his personal principles, it seems, by defending the father and therefore subjecting himself to sort of close contact with, you know, this infected person and also subjected his children to. No, he's betrayed both of these barrels, if you will, by getting involved with Nora, because Nora, as the daughter of her father, would have this genetic. Sorry, I'm not, I, I, I'm, I meant to bring this back around to what you were saying in regards to bad press and things like that. And now I can't remember how I was going to do that. But anyway, I wanted to go back around back and circle back around to Nora's father and talk about that as well. But anyway, how can I, how can I just shut this down quickly and move us along? 20:13 Wes: I think this is very important about. Because Dr. Rank and Torvald, friends from early childhood, have this idea about what society is, which is to say it's something that's eroded by lies and eroded by mistrust. And this is, I think Rank is the first person to express this idea when he's talking to Nora and Christine. This is around 20 pages in, but he starts by talking about his own misery. Well, he says it's interesting because Christine was talking about climbing the stairs slowly, and he says, oh, you have a touch of the internal rots. Yeah. And she's like, no more. It's just about exhaustion. And then he accuses her of coming to unwind at various festive gatherings. And she's like, no, I've come here to try to look for work, actually. And then he says, I suppose that's a proven remedy for exhaustion, is it? This is our introduction to Dr. Rank. I think it's such a powerful. He's such a interesting sidekick character here. But he's fun. 21:19 Erin: Oh, yeah. I love that. 21:20 Wes: His pessimism and Eeyore, like, quality is a lot of fun. Christine says, we have to live. Doctor. And this is a theme that comes up again and again. And ultimately it's referring to the material dependence of women on men because Christine had, you know, married someone she didn't love and rejected Krogstad because she needed the money, because she had to support her brothers and her mother, so she had to sacrifice the love of Croxtad for the love of her family. And then Rank says, you know, with a nice sarcasm, yes, it is Indeed, a commonly held belief that is, that such a thing is necessary, right? Having to live. And Nora's like, come on, come, come, Dr. Rank, you want very much to live, too. And he says, yes, of course I do. However miserable I may be, I still prefer to be tormented for as long as is possible. And the same goes for all my patients as it does for the morally afflicted, too. Right now, in fact, there's just such a moral invalid in there with Helmer. So he turns us from the idea of having to live despite misery and physical illness. And then, you know, Christine having the rots because she's climbing the stairs. Slowly, he turns from that to the idea of Merle Rot and Krogstad in particular, right? Rotten right down to the roots of. He uses this word rotten repeatedly. Rotten right down to the roots of his character. But even he started to talk as though it was of some magnificent import about his having to live. Turning Christine's words back against her. Having to live. Right. That's another area in which one might sacrifice honor for the sake of love. And then he'll end up saying, you have the kind of people who scamper breathlessly around sniffing for moral decay, only to get the individual admitted for observation in some favorable position or other. The healthy people just have to put up with being left outside. So his idea here is that this isn't about reform or correction. That's not what punishment is about. We should find the sick people, the morally sick people, and then exclude them from society. And then when Christine says, surely it's the sick who should be brought in the fold. And Rank says, it's that attitude that turns society into an infirmary. And Nora just laughs, and he says, what are you laughing at? Do you actually know what society is? And then she says, that's boring. I'm going to talk about something else. But it. Right. So, yeah, what is society? Society is something corrupted by sickness. Of course, you know, he's rank. His speak, and he's rank. I don't know if the double entendre is there in the original. 24:03 Erin: I was wondering about that, too. 24:05 Wes: But he's sick. He's rotten. He's rotten because of the sins of his fathers being visited upon him. And likewise, society becomes rotten in an atmosphere of lies and mistrust. At some point, Torvald makes the comment that he feels physically ill in Krogstad's proximity. So you get this interesting transition from moral illness to physical illness. And the same thing with rank. Dr. Rank, right. He has a physical illness because of his father's moral sickness, being with prostitutes and so on. Syphilis. But anyway, I just wanted to emphasize that thematic role of sickness here. 24:44 Erin: Sure. Well, let's take a closer look at Rank and at Krogstad for that matter. And Christine, by the way, this rank quotage just occurs to me. However miserable I may be, I still prefer to be tormented for as long as is possible. I'm 90% sure you have said almost that exact thing to me. 25:02 Wes: Great. 25:03 Erin: Wow, that's. 25:04 Wes: So that's the character I wanted to be compared to. 25:06 Erin: Of course. Of course. Well, I think that. I think this is Ibsen a little bit. Right. I mean, Ibsen toying with some social Darwinism is, you know, self parodying or whatever. There's a little bit of Stockman in rank. 25:20 Wes: No, yeah, I mean, I think. I think Ibsen here, this is one of the other things I was going to say is, I mean, Ibsen is Nora. Ibsen is a character in this play. Ibsen is Nora. And reading more Ibsen now and reading into the, you know, some of the background stuff, I have a much more palpable sense of how much he despises society's hypocrisy and the moralism here. And this is really an attack on that. And after the Nora dances the tarantella, Torvald becomes a critic. He says a storming success, which was well deserved, although there was something a little over natural about her rendition. I mean, a little more than was, strictly speaking, opposite to artistic requirements. Right. The sorts of criticisms that Ibsen has heard about his own work here. So, yeah, we should, as always be conscious of the fact that this critique of the condition of women in society, although Ibsen is a little bit lukewarm about characterizing it that way, but it's also a critique of what society inevitably does to the artist or to the work of art. And Torvald is trying to do to Nora in part is to turn her into the embroidered work of art that he would like, as opposed to this thing that's been knitted, the deeper thing that's been knitted together. 26:40 Erin: Right. And the dancing is the cure, Right? It's the dancing itself. I mean, the tarantella, you know, maybe for listeners who don't know, though I think a lot of people know this, that it's this thought to be the result of being bitten by a tarantula. And you would be compelled to. To dance out, to sweat out the poison through dance. So this is the cure for these societal ills. If we could think of Nora as being contaged with illness herself, that she then has to dance out through the tarantella. The artistic response to society's ills is the primary one. 27:17 Wes: I mean, in this case, it's. The illness that Ibsen is diagnosing is precisely the opposite, in a way, of what Rank and Torvald are diagnosing. 27:27 Erin: That's right. 27:27 Wes: They want society to adhere to their very strict values. But that's where Ibsen sees the sickness. So, yeah, her doing that dance. Right. I think someone does it Rank who says she looked like she was dancing for her life. Someone says that you're dancing like your life depended on it. Oh, this is when she's practicing. I think you're dancing as if your life depended on it. And she's dancing more and more wildly. And Nora says. And it does. So, yeah, at that point. Right, right. The poison that she has to sweat out is Torvald himself. But, yeah, go ahead. 28:00 Erin: And also all of patriarchal society, if you will. Right. Part of the actual purpose for this dance was to give an outlet of intense exertion for women, a sort of emotional stress release to dance this. At least that was my understanding from older Italian women in my family telling me this is the understanding as well, that women would dance frenetically this way to kind of get out their stress. The tarantella is a perfect thing. You know, it's so funny. It kind of. I always forget that she does this, and it kind of comes out of nowhere in this Norwegian play, you know, but it's a perfect symbol for the not that Nora is trying to work out. 28:45 Wes: You know, Ibsen does give us every chance to sympathize with Torvald because he does beg and plead at the end. And, you know, I'll change. She's like, no. So he really. There's an incredible harshness to the ending. Ibsen knew what he was doing. Right. He knew this was gonna be predictably. It was gonna make people very uncomfortable. There's a justice to what she's doing, but. But he doesn't soften the blow at all or make her look compassionate in the end. She goes into clarity mode, and then she's got to do what she's got to do. 29:18 Erin: Well, she's compassionate to herself or something. She's. I don't know, Compassionate as me, me, me. 29:26 Wes: To go back to that critic. 29:28 Erin: Right, right. 29:30 Wes: That's the new woman of today. Me, me, me. 29:33 Erin: Yeah. 29:34 Wes: Yeah. 29:34 Erin: Quite a contrast to Christine. Yeah. 29:36 Wes: Who needs someone to love, and Christine needs someone to work for. 29:40 Erin: Yeah, she's a real codependent. 29:45 Wes: Gives her life meaning. 29:46 Erin: Evil husband has been dead for two seconds before she gets into relationship. 29:50 Wes: A new evil husband. 29:52 Erin: Yes, exactly. Exactly. But one who's instantly transformed by Christine's love, which that I find far less believable than Nora's ending, is Krogstad's sudden transformation. 30:06 Wes: Look, there are two shipwrecks passing each other. 30:10 Erin: Yes, exactly, Exactly. 30:11 Wes: But not in the night. And I don't know how they're moving, but they're two shipwrecks coming together and making one beautiful ship. 30:19 Erin: Isn't it better for there to be two people on the same boat, which I take to be. Then you have. When one of you dies, the other one has something to eat. 30:26 Wes: That's a. I didn't quite. I'm a man shipwrecked on a broken vessel, and I, too, am sitting like a woman shipwrecked on a broken vessel. Nobody to grieve for, nobody to provide for. What if two shipwrecked people were to cross, to reach across to each other just coincidentally, shipwrecked right near each other? Is one shipwreck big enough for both of them? You know Jack got kicked off the board at the end of Titanic. 31:01 Erin: That's an entirely different debate. Okay, let's not go there, because I feel myself itching to talk about this. That's another door that slams shut. 31:12 Wes: But in any case, yeah, you were. Yeah. Maybe the Krogstad's transformation is not that believable, but I don't know. I have a bit of a place in my heart for Krogstad because he is, after all, more honest in a way than Torvald. 31:26 Erin: Oh, of course. I think even Nora has sympathy for him on 138. She says, so that's why this poor Krogstad. So she calls him this poor Krogstad after he's just threatened her. There's this interesting idea with Krogstad, too, because he also is a friend of Thorvald's from youth. And part of Krogstad's great offense seems to be. So he's acted in a way that has betrayed his own honor or something. Or he's. Because of his forgery, which he's then somehow gotten away with, he maintains this stain on his reputation. 32:03 Wes: He had a good lawyer, Right? 32:05 Erin: Right. But part of his great offensiveness to Torvald is the familiarity with which he treats Torvald. So Torvald doesn't want this unclean person to come near him. You know, we're made to understand by the notes anyway, that perhaps what Krogstad is doing is considered too familiar, just in general. Not just for someone as snooty and picky as Torvald is, but he has known him from the time that they were young boys. And then Nora tries to pull rank on him, confusingly. Sorry, I should use a different word. But there's this whole idea of subordination and influence in their conversation, which is quite interesting. Right. So she claims to have a certain influence over Torvald, then completely does a 180 when she realizes she's gotten herself into a bind. It becomes this race to the bottom. It's like, which of us is more abject? You, Krogstad in a subordinate position at a bank, or me, a mere woman in a subordinate position to my husband? You know, they're sort of like trying to out victim each other in Krogstad trying to sort of play on her sympathy in a way. 33:10 Wes: Yeah. 33:11 Erin: There's also a sense that Krogstad has done whatever crime he did commit, he might have had. You know, there's this question of motivation as well. Obviously this is at the heart of Nora's self defense, that she might have forged this document, but she had a good motivation for doing so. Motivation is everything, Nora points out. And Krogstad has to tell her that, you know, the law does not care about motivations. And she says, then it must be a bad law and you must be a bad lawyer. But the implication is that perhaps he also had his motivations as well. And there's some desperation. We never know what the circumstances were of his forgery, but we are told, or it's implied that it was out of some kind of desperation. And even Torvald himself says usually when people commit forgeries, it's out of some sort of desperate motive. Krogstad says to her, but you didn't consider the fact that you were committing fraud against me. And it aligns with what Torvald says earlier about if something happened to Torvald, what would Nora do? How would she repay debts? So if they took out loans and then Torvald dies, how would Nora go about paying off those loans? And Nora very smartly says, if something that ghastly happened, it would make no odds to me whether I was in debt or not. So if you were to die, what would I care if I was also in debt? You know, which is absolutely right. And Torvald says, perhaps so, but to the people I'D borrowed from. And Nora says them. Who's bothered about them? They're just strangers. So, like, why is Torvald thinking about her creditors rather than the situation that Nora herself would be in? Because it seems to be entirely about appearances for him. He cares about his honor after he's gone. He cares about the ability to sort of pay back a loan and thereby secure his reputation even in death or something. But there's this sense that, like, she's focused on him, and were this terrible thing to happen, then who cares if she's in debt or not? She would be destroyed by the loss of him. And he cares about the people that she borrows money from getting back their money. Like, he doesn't care about the fact that she might be left in this terrible position, that she would be so devastated that she would have a lot more to worry about than just having creditors. And so it seems that Krogstad and Torvald are aligned in this emphasis on the collective as opposed to the individual. Something like that. Right. The idea of repaying a loan for the sake of the person who's loaned you the money. They seem to have less of an appreciation of the personal and are more interested in this sort of societal matrix, which has to be respected and which is fundamentally impersonal. 35:56 Wes: Yeah. Although I think Krogstad is just using that in that moment. But. 36:00 Erin: Right, right. 36:00 Wes: Because he himself, of course, has committed the same violation and is committing another violation in blackmailing her. So he's appealing to a moral motive in a way by talking about fraud or legal transgression and a moral transgression. But, yeah, his behavior is amoral up to the point where he finds love again. 36:21 Erin: For someone who has a lot of kids, he seems to be kind of an incel or something because Christine left him, and then he was mad for years and years, and so finally he just gets what he wants. He gets his girlfriend back. Yeah, that seems to be the basis of his criminal career. 36:40 Wes: Cured by love. 36:41 Erin: Cured by love. 36:42 Wes: Yeah, that was fun. We're gonna have to. 36:44 Erin: Yeah, we'll have to close the door. 36:45 Wes: Slam the door on this. But, yeah, we're gonna be. I guess we'll do Jaws next, and then we'll have more Ibsen. 36:53 Erin: Sounds perfect. 36:54 Wes: So, Enemy of the People. Cool. Thank you. 36:56 Erin: Thank you. And thanks to everyone who listened. subtextpodcast.com patreon.com subtextpodcast please send your questions, feedback and episode requests to [email protected] if we get enough questions, we'll do some bonus Q and A shows for subscribers. You can also find us on Facebook subtextpodcast and on Twitter enjoysubtext.