Helmer : A Husband And A Bank Manager

We meet Torvald Helmer at the very outset when we find him talking to his wife Nora in a very loving manner, using various terms of endearment, such as “my little skylark” and “my little squirrel”.

Later on we again find him using similar expressions to show his affection for her. There can be no doubt at all that Helmer is in love with his wife. But we notice that his love is confined to her outer beauty. He does not have a deep love for her that is why he is unable to understand her spiritual love.

Helmer possesses many obvious flaws. One, he constantly talks down to his wife. Here is a list of pet names he used for Nora

“My little singing bird”

“My pretty little pet”

“My little sweet-tooth”

“My poor little Nora”

Here with every term of endearment, the word “little” is always included. Helmer views himself as an intellectual superior to the household. To him, Nora is a “child-wife” someone to be watch over, to be instructed, nurtured and censured. He never considers her as an equal partner in the relationship. Of course, their marriage is one typical of 1800s Europe, and Ibsen uses his play to challenge this status quo.

Perhaps his most dislikeable quality is his blatant hypocrisy. Many a times throughout the play, he criticizes the morality of other characters. He trashes the reputation of Krogstad, one of his lesser employees. He speculates that Krogstad’s corruption probably started in the home.

He believes that if a mother is dishonest, then surely the children will become morally infected. He also complains about Nora’s late father when he learns that Nora has committed forgery and blames her father for his weak morals.

Yet, for all his self-righteousness, Helmer is a hypocrite person. In the beginning of Act Three, after dancing and having a merry time at a holiday party, he tells Nora how much he cares for her. He wishes that some calamity would befall them, so that he could demonstrate his steadfast and heroic nature.

Of course, a moment later, that wished-for conflict arises. He finds the letter revealing how Nora has brought scandal and blackmail into his household. Nora is in trouble, but her husband, the supposedly shining white knight, fails to come to her rescue. Instead, here is what he yells at her:

“Now you have ruined my entire happiness!”

“And it’s all the fault of a featherbrained woman!”

“You will not be allowed to bring up the children; I can’t trust you with them.”

So much for being Nora’s dependable knight in shining armor!

A very prominent aspect of his personality is his realistic approach towards life that is why he does not like borrowing. “No debts, no borrowing”. (Ibsen, Act1 Page 5). When his wife says that they can borrow some money and can repay it after he takes the charges as a bank manager, he terms her ideas about money “frivolous”.

It was a purely male dominated society in which women were not given importance which is why he used to speak to her from a higher level. His superiority to her lies in the fact that he is the husband while she is the wife. He thinks that his wife is a “spendthrift” who goes about squandering money, and so he tries to impress upon her the value of economy in expenditure.

In compliance with Nora’s wish, Helmer agrees to give Mrs. Linde a job in the bank, thus showing his helpful nature and his kind-heartedness. However, he is quite strict with his wife in terms of his moral principles, even though in course of time it appears to us that his own ego and his self-interest are more important than what he regards as his moral principles. When Nora speaks to him on behalf of Krogstad, he rejects her recommendations unhesitatingly.

Helmer is a very protective type of person when it comes to the family image that is portrayed to the public. This is because his career, as a lawyer, depends on it. He feels that he should have a perfect public image just for the sake of his career, not his family, since that is what comes first in his life. This is seen when he discovers a letter from a bank that his wife, Nora, gets a loan from Krogstad. He finds out that the loan was acquired illegally through forgery. She had used her father’s signature to get the loan.

Helmer immediately strips her of all her rights to him as his wife and to the children as their mother. He does not ask for divorce since this will not be a good public image for his career, instead he asks her to have a separate room from his and limits her time with thechildren.

Helmer is the rule maker at his house. He meticulously gives details on how he wants his house run. He has set time for everything, when the meals are prepared, when thechildren should go to sleep, when they should wake up, what to eat, when to check the mails etc. This is probably the reason why he is successful in his career. He is again putting his career on first priority and uses the principal that he applies to it in the family.

Helmer has a separate room in his home where he maintains official work. To this room Nora was given only a limited access. He treats her as if she was one of hischildren instead of “his wife”. He entertains his official friends in the office in closed-door sessions and usually doesn’t fill in his wife on his business for career comesfirst to Helmer.

The key to the mailbox was in the hands of Helmer. It looks like he does not take his wife as an equal by not giving her a spare key. He wants to be thefirst one to handle all the mails, scans the letters in the box and then distributes them to the concerned people. His wife again is placed second to his business. This is more evident in the episode where Nora tries to protect herself instead of their relationship, putting their marriage in second place.

Nora is caught red-handed lying about the visit of Krogstad, the banker. Helmer asks about the banker’s visit but she denies the fact that he had never come to their house. She is constantly lying just to save herself from changing her husband’s view towards her.

The blow to their marriage happens when Helmer discovers that his wife forged a bank document to get a loan. He gets angry and strips her of all her motherly and wife rights. Soon after their quarrel, another letter clears them form the forgery. Now he changes immediately and reinstates Nora back to her position in their home. This clearly shows that he loves his career more than anything else.

Helmer’s reaction to Krogstad’s second letter emphasizes some of the weakness of his character which has already been brought to our notice. As soon as the danger from Krogstad ends, he relapses into his original self-complacency. He again assumes airs of superiority and says that he would from now on give her all the advice and guidance that she needs.

“I have forgiven you, Nora, I swear it!” (Ibsen Act3)

He behaves as if nothing had happened at all.

“You try and get some rest, and set your mind at peace again, my frightened little song-bird. Have a good long sleep; you know you are safe and sound under my wings.” (Ibsen Act3)

He even goes to the length of saying that he has now made her his “property” in a double sense: he has given her a new life, and she has become in a way both his wife and child. No wonder that Nora decides to leave him for good. She tells him openly that she is not prepared to continue in the role of a doll-wife to him, and that she loves him no more because he is not the man she had thought to be.

Despite his many flaws, some readers and audience may still feel tremendous sympathy for Helmer. When Nora calmly says, “We two have a lot to talk about,” Helmer learns that Nora will no longer be his doll or “child-wife.”

He is astounded by her choice. He asks her for a chance to reconcile their differences; he even suggests that they can live as “brother and sister” which Nora refuses. Being in a desperate condition, he asks if there is the smallest hope that they might be husband and wife once again.

She responds:

Nora: Both you and I would have to change to the point where… Oh, Torvald, I don’t believe in miracles any more.

Torvald: But I will believe. Name it! Change to the point where…?

Nora: Where we could make a real marriage of our lives together. Goodbye!

Then she promptly leaves the house as well as the house-owner. Grief-stricken, Torvald hides his face in his hands. In the next moment, he lifts his head up, somewhat hopeful. “The miracle of miracles?” he asks himself. His longing to redeem their marriage seems sincere.

So perhaps, despite his hypocrisy, self-righteousness, and his demeaning attitude, the audience may feel sympathy for him as the door slams shut on his tear-stained hopes.