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Definition of Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved directly or indirectly, by making... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the... read full definition
Act One
Explanation and Analysis—No Debts!:
At the beginning of the play, Nora and Torvald have a conversation about how they should go about spending money to celebrate the holidays. Although they speak to each other in a good-natured manner, their dialogue foreshadows a host of tensions and secrets that lie beneath the surface of their marriage:
Nora: Oh yes, Torvald, surely we can afford to be just a little bit extravagant now, can’t we? Just a teeny-weeny bit. [...]
Torvald: Nora! [Crosses to her and takes her playfully by the ear.] Here we go again, you and your frivolous ideas! [...] Just like a woman! Seriously though, Nora, you know what I think about these things. No debts! Never borrow! There’s always something inhibited, something unpleasant, about a home built on credit and borrowed money. We two have managed to stick it out so far, and that’s the way we’ll go on for the little time that remains.
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Explanation and Analysis—Like Being a Man:
In Act 1, Nora reveals to Mrs. Linde that she has been secretly working to earn an income that will allow her to repay yet an even-more-secret loan. Their conversation is full of foreshadowing:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Nora: Oh, sometimes I was so tired, so tired. But it was tremendous fun all the same, sitting there working and earning money like that. Almost like being a man.”
Mrs. Linde: And how much have you been able to pay off like this?
Nora: Well, I can’t tell exactly [...] Many’s the time I was at my wit’s end.
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Explanation and Analysis—A Fog of Lies:
In an act of both foreshadowing and dramatic irony, during Act One, Torvald criticizes Krogstad’s forgery and deception, declaring that such acts will inevitably have a poisonous effect on the man’s children:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Just think how a man with a thing like that on his conscience will always be having to lie and cheat and dissemble; he can never drop the mask, not even with his own wife and children. And the children—that’s the most terrible part of it, Nora [...] A fog of lies like that in a household, and it spreads disease and infection to every part of it. Every breath the children take in that kind of house is reeking evil germs.
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Act Two
Explanation and Analysis—All to Himself:
In Act Two, Nora tells Mrs. Linde about Torvald’s possessive, jealous tendencies as though his behavior is romantic and desirable. However, this behavior actually foreshadows the fact that Torvald only sees Nora as a doll, a plaything for him to manipulate as he sees fit:
Unlock with LitCharts A+You see Torvald is so terribly in love with me that he says he wants me all to himself. When we first married, it even used to make him sort of jealous if I only as much as mentioned any of my old friends back home. So of course I stopped doing it. But I often talk to Dr. Rank about such things. He likes hearing about them
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