Page "A Doll's House" Paragraph 16

Nora tells Torvald that she is leaving him to live alone so she can find out who she is and what she believes and decide what to do with her life.

She says she has been treated like a doll to play with, first by her father and then by him.

Concerned for the family reputation, Torvald insists that she fulfill her duty as a wife and mother, but Nora says that her first duties are to herself, and she cannot be a good mother or wife without learning to be more than a plaything.

She reveals that she had expected that he would want to sacrifice his reputation for hers, and that she had planned to kill herself to prevent him from doing so.

She now realizes that Torvald is not at all the kind of person she had believed him to be, and that their marriage has been based on mutual fantasies and misunderstanding.