Many female characters in 19th Century texts are caught between a need for independence through working, and a need for security, through marriage and the taking on of domestic duties as a housewife. They must choose between the uncertain prospect of setting out on their own and the extensive limitations of submitting to society's assigned gender roles, their independence often suppressed, confined to roles of the dutiful housewife and the china-doll wife. Through the women's choice, the writer portrays the views and values of 19th Century society. .
Through Nora in A Doll's House, Ibsen shows how women at the time had to appear economically dependent, in order to appease the fragile male ego, though many secretly harboured a desire for financial independence. Although she spends much of the earlier portion of the play acting as a petulant, charming' child, pretending to be a dependent featherbrain' in order to please Torvald, the reality is quite different. She yearns to earn her own keep, to work like a man', taking up copying work that she hides from her husband, deriving a guilty pleasure from defying some of the social expectations of females, which dictate that the husband is the master of the household, as well as the sole breadwinner.
Torvald, as the male presence in the household, exerts his dominance by his control over the finances, making Nora beg, through tears and entreaties', through dancing and dressing up and reciting', for money to run the household. Torvald's aversion to his wife working is marked, thinking that Nora working, tiring [her] pretty eyes' or her sweet little fingers' through work would imply that he could not support her on his own income. He also objects to what he considers unrefined activities such as dressmaking. Clearly, Torvald can't stand' to have his own power overshadowed by a woman, considered by him to be before all else a wife and a mother', and thus lesser in status than himself.
