A Doll's House : Minor Characters

"The supporting characters are important in themselves because they face the same type of problems…"(Urban "Parallels"). Minor characters do a fantastic job of dropping hints to the major themes at the end of any play. Nora's father, Mrs. Linde's husband, Nora's children, Krogstad's children, and Anne Marie, the minor characters in A Doll's House, play their roles perfectly in supporting and shadowing the main characters and themes of the play. The first minor character who comes along in the story is Nora's father. The role of Nora's father is to support who Nora supposedly is as a person. For example, Nora seems to let money, "slip through [her] fingers…Just like [her] father," according to …show more content…

Nora says: Have you had a nice time? That's splendid. And you gave Emmy and Bob a ride on your seldge? Did you now! Both together! There's a clever boy, Ivar….There's my sweet little baby-doll!…A great big dog came running after you? But he didn't bite. No the doggies wouldn't bite my pretty little dollies…Shall we play something? What shall we play? Hide and seek….(293)

In that whole speech of Nora's to the children not once are the children's replies to her read. She just rambles on to them as if they are nothing. She also comments that her children are dolls to her when she talks with Torvald and says, "And the children in turn have been my dolls," (324). Since they are dolls and she does not know how she really feels about anything, it is easy for her to leave the children behind. The next minor characters that come into the play are Krogstad's growing sons. The sons are there to show what will come of Nora's children at the end of the play. The children are raised by a father only. Torvald hints away that Krogstad's children will be delinquents. However, he says that, "Practically all juvenile delinquents come from homes where the mother is dishonest," (Ibsen 298). His comment about the Krogstad children leads up to the scene in the play when he says that Nora can no longer raise the children. "But you will not be allowed to bring up the children; I can't trust you with them…," (321). In the end