Portal to Forgiveness: A Tribute to Ibsen's Nora

This essay uses Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House to illustrate how forgiveness may be redefined. To forgive is often conflated with forgetting, appeasement, atonement; an individual is perceived as forgiving someone else, thereby canceling out some prior wrong or offense. This essay argues that forgiveness can also be seen as a mode of relation to the self (not the other); it can be a way of neutralizing conflict in order to create a space for self-transformation. The model for such a view is Nora Helmer at the end of Ibsen's play.