A Doll's House

A Doll House: Character Analysis of Nils Krogstad in Revealing the Character of Nora Helmer

Henrik Ibsen's social drama “A Doll's House” (1879), deals with the issue of women's rights and emancipation. The drama in consisted of three separate acts, and describes the life of Mr. and Mrs. Helmer during the Christmas holidays. Torvald Helmer is a lawyer and has just been appointed director of a joint stock bank that has made his and Nora's life prosperous. The relationship between the two is quite remarkable.

One of the secondary characters in this play that has truly defined the character of a Protagonist, Nora Helmer is a former lawyer who now works as a bank clerk in the Bank where Mr. Helmer is Director. Krogstad is a widower and a father of four children. Years ago, Krogstad committed an "indiscretion" in order to provide for his sick wife, who later died but he is still with those dirty tricks that has greatly damaged his reputation in a society, which, however, he is well aware of. The goal that Krogstad wants to achieve, by all means, is the restoration of his reputation in the society, which he lost by his former dirty business. That's why he tries to gain unfair advantage over Nora Helmer by asking her to help him by convincing his husband not to fire him and keep him as a clerk at the bank (Ibsen at all, 2006). 

Although, personality of Krogstad is shown a bit on the soft side in the play as he is extremely articulate and polite however, he also knows and makes use of a puzzling way to express his feelings and convince people in his favor. Krogstad is shown very shrewd and clever who very rightfully uncovers the accurate and factual fraud on the part of Nora, and use it against her by asking her to influence the decision making of her husband and also sees through how Christine Linde (Nora's old friend) has secured a job in the same bank he works for with the help of Nora and her power to influence the decision making of her husband, Mr. Helmer, the Director at the bank. His deep understanding of the situations he is in is what makes him a good as well as a bad person at the same time (Ibsen & Haldeman-Julius, 2008).

Krogstad's character also helped to define the relationship between Nora and her husband, Nora's priorities in giving favors and her husband's priorities in giving favors. Although, Nora tried to convince her husband in regards to Krogstad's job, but reluctantly. Moreover, as Krogstad was notorious in the society, Nora's husband also found it hard to listen to his wife and denied her request to keep Krogstad in the bank as clerk. When Krogstad learned that his dirty tricks are not working, he tried to push Nora further into the hole of his blackmailing by putting letters in the mailbox of Torvals (Nora's husband) in which he revealed Nora's secret of forgery ...