A Doll's House

After reading “A Doll’s House” and watching some of the opening act of film, I noticed some differences and similarities between Torvald. In the movie, Torvald seemed to be a lot different than my first impression. My first impression was that Torvald was a man whom did not have a lot of money but would give it all to his wife if she begged him enough.

From reading the first act, I did not expect Torvald to be dressed how he was in the opening scene in the film. This was due to Torvald and Nora both mentioning money problems in the past. Torvald quotes, “Still, you know, we can’t spend money recklessly.” The book tells us that he just got promoted to a manager, so I did not think that they would have accumulated a lot of money. In the film, Torvald looked like a man of wealth. This is due to his clothing, which looked very high class.

A second difference that I recognized was where Torvald started in the book compared to the movie. In the book, he is in another room. When his wife gets home, he calls out, “IS that my little lark twittering out there?” Nora replies, “Yes it is”, and asks him to see what has bought. Torvald replies back by saying, “Don’t disturb me”, before coming out. In the short film, Torvald and Nora are both together in the same room during the conversation and Torvald never mentions the line, “Don’t disturb me.” Nora and Torvald also didn’t happen to move around the room or into other rooms as much as they had in the book.

A similarity that I noticed between the “book’s Torvald” and the “movie Torvald”, was how much love he had for his wife. The first thing he says to his wife was, “Is that my little lark twittering out there?” He also says things like, “When did my little squirrel come home?” In the movie, Torvald likes holding his wife, hugging her, and he is very cheerful around her. Whether you read the first act or watch the beginning of the film, you will be able to witness how much Torvald loves and appreciates his wife.

In both the film and the book, you can notice a second similarity about Torvald. He gives into Nora too easily. In this similarity, there is also a difference. The difference is how willing Torvald is of giving Nora the money. In the movie, Torvald is almost “tossing” Nora the money. He gives it to her with pride and joy and it does not faze him. He says a few things about saving, “just-in-case”, but it doesn’t stop him from giving her all the money she wants. In the book, Torvald still hands Nora the money, but seems a little less willing and tries to get his point across about how she needs to save. In the book Torvald calls Nora a “spendthrift”. He also says to her, “But you can’t save anything” and a few other words before giving in to her and handing her the money. Either way Nora gets the best of Torvald and gets him to give into her and hand over the money.

After reading the book and watching the opening act of the movie, you can compare and contrast the two versions of Torvald. I think that the movie director and the author were both on the “same page” on what kind of a character Torvald was. Besides a few limited differences, they were both very alike in how he treats his wife and how easy it is for Nora to get him to “hand over the money”. The only differences that I recognized between the two versions of Torvald were what I thought of him in my first impression and what I saw in the movie. My first impression is not the same as someone else’s first impression, so it could have been me who made the differences. If I was to compare the text of the book to what I saw in the short film I would not have been able to find too many differences between the two. This is excluding where Torvald was located in the beginning of the story. At that, it could have been a director’s choice not to have Torvald in another room. Whether you watch the movie or read the book you will be witnessing the same character.