This role switch between Krogstad and Torvald is the very reason Torvald is the antagonist, although this role switch was not abrupt as you look back through the play Torvald shows his true colors from the beginning of the …show more content…
He gives her many pet names that belittle her and make Nora his ‘play toy’ where Nora’s feeling for Torvald are not returned, but the money Torvald makes fills this void. So in a sense Torvald is paying for Nora and not with her for their mutual happiness. The tone he talks to Nora in also shows how he feels of her an example of this is when Torvald talks about playtime being over and now it’s time for schooling (1213). Although this shouldn’t be taken literally, he talks as if she has playtime. Nora responds in saying, “Whose schooling-mine or the children’s?” (1213). At this point towards the end of the play Nora herself is even unsure if her husband is referring to her or the kids because of the tone and the language he uses when conversing with her. This is another building block showing Torvald’s true motives and how he behaves as the antagonist in A Doll