The play A Doll House deals with gender roles during the time that it was written. Ibsen uses Nora gender to illustrate society views regarding the roles of both men and women in business, in the home, and how each gender should act.

In business, society feels that women cannot be trusted. When Nora tries to talk to Torvald about borrowing money for the holidays, he exclaims, "That is like a woman"(4). This quote shows how men do not think that women can be trusted with matters of money. Krogstad mentions how Nora, in order to borrow the sum of money that she did, would need to get her father's signature. The fact that she depends on a man's word shows that women are viewed as the subordinates to men.

Torvald backs this up in Act I, when he says, "Almost everyone that has gone to the bad...