In Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, Nora suffers due to oppression in the sense that her husband does not treat her as a real human being and attempts to control her. Nora finds ways out of her oppression through deception.
Examples of Torvald's attempts to control Nora can be seen all throughout the play, especially in the first act; likewise, many examples of Nora's use of deception to escape oppression can be seen in the first act. The strongest example, however, is seen in Torvald's refusal to permit Nora to take out a loan early in their marriage; in refusing to permit her to do something she feels is necessary to do, he is preventing her from being her own person, which is oppressive. Knowing Torvald needed to be in warmer climates to recover from the health problems caused by overwork (putting him at risk of early death), Nora deceived her husband by forging her ill and dying father's signature on a loan and saying the money was left to her by her father. Nora justifies her act of deception for two reasons: first, her act of deception spared her dying father from being distressed by the news that her husband was equally in danger of dying; and, second, her deception saved her husband's life. Since Nora successfully saved her husband's life, despite his attempt to control her in a way that would have prevented her from saving him, as well as prevented her from being her own person, it can be said that Nora used deception to escape oppression. Plus, by escaping oppression, she escapes suffering.
Yet, despite this temporary escape from oppression, by the end of the play, Nora decides the only true way to escape oppression is by leaving her husband and children in order to become her own person:
I believe before all else I am a reasonable human being, just as you are—or, at all events, that I must try and become one (Act 3).
Similarly, in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, Hero suffers oppression when Don John slanders his brother, Don Pedro, by tricking Claudio into believing Hero was with another man the night before she and Claudio were to be married. As a result, Claudio publicly rejects Hero as a bride, saying, "There, Leonato, take her back again," and calling her an a common whore (Act IV, Scene 1, line 30). By being made to suffer this unjust public humiliation, Hero is oppressed. Yet, like Nora, she too rises against it through deception. She agrees to fake her own death so Claudio might believe she died as a result of his slanderous words and feel remorseful. Meanwhile, the truth of Don John's deception is also discovered.
Yet, though Hero uses deception to temporarily escape suffering from oppression, unlike Nora, Hero willingly becomes a bride at the end of it all, even if being a bride may lead to more oppression since Claudio may treat her as a doll, just as Nora was treated as a doll, which is characteristic of the treatment of women in earlier time periods.
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