No debt, no borrowing. There can be no freedom or beauty about a home life that depend $ on borrowing and debt.

“No debt, no borrowing. There can be no freedom or beauty about a home life that depends on borrowing and debt.”(7) I chose this quotation because of its importance to the play as a whole. It is spoken by Torvald to Nora. It is the most important “rule” in Torvald’s house, and he has no idea that Nora has broken it. In the end, it is the catalyst for the destruction of their marriage. I chose the noose and gallows to symbolize that Torvald has a stranglehold on his home and everyone in it. His rules form the “noose”. Nora only realizes at the end that Torvald has choked the life out of her: his rules, expectations and control has meant that she never becomes a person in her own right. At the end she says to Torvald, “It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life”.(76) As well, the noose shows how their marriage dies at the end of the play. Nora leaves Torvald to try to find herself. She tells him, “I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being, just as you are--or, at all events, that I must try and become one….I can no longer content myself with what most people say, or with what is found in books. I must think over things for myself and get to understand them.”(78) Hence this rule(and others like it), and Torvald’s rigid adherence to it(and them), bring about the death of his happiness and his marriage. The blue sky in the background does two things: at the beginning of the play, Nora is very happy, she sees her world as a sunny blue sky: she loves her husband and her life. She trills to Christine, “My goodness, it's delightful to think of, Christine! Free from care! To be able to be free from care, quite free from care; to be able to play and romp with the children; to be able to keep the house beautifully and have everything just as Torvald likes it! “(15) However, the sky in my picture has clouds in it, and blue can also be the colour of sadness. I wanted the blue sky with clouds and the black on the fringes of the picture(which is the gallows) in it, to foreshadow that her “sunny” world was about to come crashing down. All words that lacked importance, I put in a smaller font, so as to draw attention to the key words. I put the word “no” in red and put a double strikethrough each of them to emphasize the absolute nature of the “rule”. Red is the colour of intense emotions, and this case, Torvald’s hatred for debt. He repeats “no” 3 times and I wanted to draw attention to that by making the “no’s” all the same and close to one another. I changed the “s” at the end of “depends” to a dollar sign and used green, the colour of money, to once again draw attention to how important money is to Torvald. I placed “No debt” and “no borrowing” on either side of the noose(at the top and bottom) to show their equal importance; I used chiller font for the words “debt” and “borrowing” to emphasize Torvald’s disdain regarding debt, as well as to communicate the fact that he wanted instil fear in Nora about the idea of going into debt. I contrasted those words with “ freedom ” and “ beauty ”, using white and two different fonts of pleasing aspects to emphasize the contrast and their positive connotations. I placed the words “freedom” and “beauty” in the noose to show that Torvald believes that beauty and freedom “die” in a house that carries debts. I also made “freedom” quite small, because although Torvald values it, only he has freedom in his home: Nora has none. I also thought it appropriate to make “beauty” very large because he prizes Nora for her beauty. He tells Mrs.Linde, “Take a good look at [Nora]. I think she is worth looking at. Isn't she charming?”(54) but he has no idea that in a few moments his “beautiful” wife will become hideous to him. He calls her his beautiful “lark”(6) at the beginning of the play, but when he discovers her secret at the end, he calls her a “creature”. (76) Finally, I put the word “home” in white to be on par with freedom and beauty since Torvald values all three. However, I put “home” in the noose, as well. It shows Torvald’s belief that a home is destroyed by debt, but it also demonstrates that Torvald destroys his home with his rigidity and rules.