Write a paper in response to one (1) of the two options listed below. Follow the individual directions for each assignment carefully. Submit the paper in the appropriate format on the day that it is due—no later.
Choose a character (or characters) from one of the plays we read during the drama unit and write a character analysis of no fewer than one thousand words. I choose Nora from the doll house.
A character analysis, as you know, seeks to explain why characters behave/think/act in the manner they do. Use specific references from the text to support your thoughts and conclusions.
I will present the directions that came with the character analysis assignment that concluded our unit on short fiction. Obviously, some of the possibilities discussed below are more relevant to this assignment than others. However, it makes sense to at least revisit them initially:
Is the character in question central to the work’s plot, or is he or she a minor character? What is this character’s function in the story?
What conflicts does the character deal with, and how are they resolved—if they are resolved at all? What qualities does the character possess that help him or her through the conflict?
Look at all the ways the character is created and brought to life. These can include
What the character says,
What the character thinks and feels,
What the character does,
What the character looks like physically,
What the other characters (and perhaps the narrator) say about the character,
How the character responds to others and to his or her environment,
How the other characters respond to what the character says or does.
What are the character’s strengths and weaknesses? Does the character overcome any of his or her weaknesses during the story?
Likewise, what are the character’s motivations? Also, look at the education, occupation, environment, economic status, family background, race, age, and sex of the character. How do these factors affect the character?
If the character is dynamic, look for any emotional, mental, or physical changes that occur throughout the story.
Consider the point of view from which the story is told. How does this point of view impact your impressions of the character? Are the narrator’s observations objective, reliable, consistent?
Does the writer use the character to reveal some aspect of human nature or life? Explain.
And, finally, consider the character’s name? Is there any significance in his or her name?
PRESENTATION OF THE PAPER:
Follow the model for presenting your paper that we have used since the beginning of the course.
Use evidence from the text to support your generalizations. Use parenthetical citation indicating the page or pages upon which direct quotes will be found. This is the same requirement that was expected of you for the short fiction paper.
Include a Work Cited page.
The paper will be a minimum, again, of one thousand words – or four pages – in length.
This is an example essay he gave us.
Embodiment of a Foil: An Analysis of Kristine Linde
The role of Kristine Linde in A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen is one of little glamour for the chosen actress. Almost throughout the entirety of the first two acts, she is suffered to be solely an attentive listener, interjecting here and there with one line questions or comments for Nora Helmer. However, boring as the role may initially be, the value of Kristine Linde is indisputable: without her, Nora’s transformation from Act I to Act III would be startlingly incomplete, lacking all the subtleties of reason behind the shift. Throughout this essay, I will prove that Kristine Linde is not only the foil of Nora Helmer, but the embodiment of Nora’s internalized true self, and responsible for her ultimate departure from Torvald’s house.
The entrance of Kristine in Act I, though subtle in terms of spoken lines, is hugely important as the presentation of a contrasting character to Nora. In other words, the audience immediately perceives the striking differences between the two characters, perhaps even subconsciously assigning favor to one or the other. Where Nora is excitable, Kristine is calm; where Nora is boasting, Kristine is modest; and where Nora is deceitful, Kristine is honest. Nora’s lack of self-control and indulgence, apparent with her macaroon habit, is contrasted with Kristine’s plentitude of self-control and selflessness. Nora’s uncomprehending playfulness about the serious subject of the illegal loan is countered by Kristine’s full understanding of the weight of Nora’s foolishness. Nora bounces about the room, throwing herself on the couch, humming to herself, while Kristine sits motionless, serious, and incredulous at the indiscretion that Nora has committed. She even calls her “a lunatic” (806). Those in the audience that view Nora’s actions as annoyingly childish must find Kristine’s steadiness a figurative breath of fresh air.
As the play continues, it becomes increasingly evident that the foil extends beyond the superficialities of personality traits. Most obviously, Kristine has a multitude of life-experience compared to Nora. In the ten years since their last meeting, Kristine has visibly aged, becoming paler and thinner, while Nora seems not to have aged at all. This point is indeed much deeper than the physicality of age: while Kristine is obviously an adult woman, Nora remains a child in her ways and means. Kristine’s life has taught her more than the cruelness of the passage of time; her experiences have brought her wisdom only acquired through living for oneself. Kristine’s life has been one of an “endless workday” (805), trying to provide for others that rely on her income. While Nora does have a husband, children, and household staff that could be construed as wanting her around, they do not rely on her presence in the same way as Kristine’s family needed her. Nora’s importance in the home is one of little consequence: as she says herself, “the maids know all about keeping up the house–better than [she does]” (851), and her children are “in better hands than [hers]. The way she is now, [she is] no use to them” (851). Another important contrasting trait is that of forms of influence. Kristine’s strength of character is demonstrated by her ability to manipulate by psychology, by forming a cohesive argument and acting out decisions in a calm manner. Nora has only been taught to manipulate by physical means. She manipulates Torvald by dancing and singing and being his little lark “[finding] something attractive to humor him with” (805).
Before considering how the character of Kristine explains, and some may say, brings about, the change in Nora, one should first consider the marriages of the two characters and how each views the idea of love. Understanding these concepts are pivotal to Nora’s ultimate departure from her husband and children, the final resolution of the play. Kristine knowingly walked into a marriage that was lacking in love on her part; she married out of duty to and love for others rather than for her own gain; she accepted her husband out of “conscience” (804). Kristine was not influenced by any false idea of what a marriage should be or how it should look–she knew that love was not necessarily an ingredient in marriage. By fully understanding and acknowledging this concept, she also fully understood the true nature of love. In effect, by knowing that she did not have a loving marriage, she knew what a loving marriage should be. On the other hand, Nora’s marriage was one of mutual shortsightedness about the nature of love. She admits, at the conclusion, that her role as a wife was that of a plaything, and understands that Torvald’s role as a husband was that of a puppeteer.
However, almost within meeting Kristine, clues indicating her character’s embodiment of Nora’s internalized frustrations and true personality present themselves. After Kristine explains her plight of recent years, instead of commiserating with her loss, Nora remarks “how free you must feel–” (805). Despite Nora’s frequent remarks about how Torvald’s house is elegant, charming, lovely, and cozy, these small remarks point to a deeper seated desire to be free of it. Kristine’s marriage to a very well-off man, “quite rich at the time” (804), after all must have afforded the same type of home–cozy, elegant, and charming–but equally as loveless. Additionally, Nora’s initial scoff at Kristine’s desire to look for work and occupy her mind, is thoroughly reversed when she voices “it was wonderful fun, sitting and working like that, earning money. It was almost like being a man” (808). Though she initially said that working was “dreadfully tiring” (805), I would go so far as to assume that this original opinion was voiced out of a desire to keep appearances, and Nora truly does value and desire the ability to earn for herself and be free of any other controlling men in her life, parallel to Kristine’s pride and happiness about her work.
The summation of the frustrated internalization of Nora’s true self, represented by Kristine, ultimately results in Nora’s final transformation into that character. Kristine even helps Nora along in this venture by continuing to assist her friend by attempting to reclaim Krogstad’s letter, all the while interjecting hints that honesty and truth must ultimately play out for Nora. While Nora initially resists giving up her light-hearted, untruthful, indulgent facade (represented by the tarantella), by the conclusion, she has gained self-control, the ability to argue with sense instead of physicality, and the desire to learn what life, love, and the pursuit of happiness truly are. Through Kristine, the audience can even glimpse what Nora’s future might look like after her escape from an unloving and artificial life. Kristine’s brief takeover of the Helmer’s sitting room, during her conversation with Krogstad, is symbolic of what Nora’s marriage could look like after she has discovered the true nature of love, obtained a respect for hard-work and honesty, gained self-control, and becomes responsible to no one but herself. For, Kristine and Krogstad both have these experiences, and thus their engagement in the Helmer’s sitting room is based on honesty and true love, making the home truly a lovely, elegant, and charming place, not just the facade it was in Nora and Torvald’s marriage. Kristine, by having already experienced the life that Nora is about to venue out on, is now able to truly “be free”: to marry for love because she knows herself and the world.
By the play’s conclusion, the audience has seen the full circle of the pursuit of freedom and happiness. Nora’s naivete slowly morphs into a visible frustration of her metaphorical imprisonment, which leads to her quitting her superficial life. Kristine then enters as a woman who has discovered “true” life and is now free to pursue the opportunities that knowledge allows. Ibsen’s masterpiece is indeed one of subtle parallels, albeit ones that reveal the undeniable and universal truth of self-respect.
