Nora

Nora is the protagonist of Dashiell Hammett’s sophisticated 1934 novel, The Thin Man, and she is indelibly entwined with the image of the incomparable Myrna Loy, who portrayed her in the movies of the thirties and forties. No “doll-wife” she – she is witty, urbane and beautiful and goes toe to toe with her adoring husband, Nick, on any and all issues imaginable. Seemingly able to eschew housework and cooking entirely (oh, where are those devoted servants of yesteryear?!), Nora spends all her time sleuthing in fashionable outfits, usually with a drink in one hand and her dog Asta’s leash in the other. At some point in the series she becomes a mother, but this puts nary a wrinkle in her finely tuned activities. She simply hands the boy over to Nick, who promptly tutors him in the fine art of racetrack betting.

Nora is the protagonist of Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 play, A Doll’s House, and she is one of the most important female characters ever created. She embodies the personification of the 19th century woman of a certain class, a woman who adopted first her father’s views, and then her husband’s, as her own. A woman who is more plaything than mate, whose sole preoccupations must be with housekeeping and childrearing. Hmmm…perhaps she did not only exist in the 19th century, but also in the twentieth, and dare we suggest, into the twenty-first? As the plot unfolds, Nora comes to realize her true worth to her husband, and the only solution available to her is to leave him to find herself. (That she leaves her children as well has always been a problematic issue with this play.) She signaled a new path for women for decades to come, exhibiting a courage that was hard won, and providing inspiration for generations to come.