In the third act of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, Torvald's response upon reading the first letter is one of fury.
Nora misjudged her husband. She believed he would see right away how much she had sacrificed herself by forging the loan to save his life; she further believed he would do whatever was in his power to sacrifice himself to save her reputation. Contrary to her beliefs, Torvald's response is to call Nora a horrible person. He blames her father for her "want of principle" and accuses her of having "[n]o religion, no morality, no sense of duty," which is all the exact opposite of what she believes herself to have. He even calls her a "[m]iserable creature" and begins to think of her as some sort of punishment sent down by God.
Despite Torvald's ravings upon reading the first letter, he responds to the second letter in which Krogstad returns the bond and cancels all debt by instantly forgiving Nora. First, he jubilantly exclaims he has been saved from a bad reputation and blackmail, mentioning Nora has been saved too only as an afterthought; then, he tears up the letters and bond and pretends the whole experience was "nothing but a bad dream." Furthermore, when he sees Nora looking cold and harsh, he begs her to understand he completely forgives her. He even says, "I know that what you did, you did out of love for me... You have loved me as a wife ought to love her husband." The hypocrisy of it all does not escape Nora, as she realizes he never really understood her or knew her for the person she really is. He never truly loved her; he "only thought it pleasant to be in love with [her]." As a result, Nora realizes it is time for her to escape him to become her own person.
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