In this act, Nora learns that she alone must face the consequences of her guilt. Refusing to allow Torvald to take the blame, she prepares to kill herself.
The theme of death in this scene suggests a parallel between Nora and Dr. Rank, for the knowledge of his death coincides with her decision to commit suicide. Her tarantella is then a symbolic death dance which Rank, fittingly, plays for her on the piano. At the same time, since Torvald has chosen her dance costume to be that of a Capri fisher girl, the tarantella symbolizes their wedding, for Nora and Torvald learned the dance while honeymooning in Italy. Her dancing will be her final mortal performance, for Nora views the end of the party not only as the termination of her marriage, but as the last moments of her life.
The scene between Nora and Dr. Rank is a significant one. Not only does it underscore the “pollution and infection” which a guilty parent can pass on to his children—Nora being the guilt-ridden parent, Rank the victim of venereal disease—but it shows the youthful innocence of Nora. Accustomed to approaching her husband in a mood of adolescent flirtatiousness, Nora treats Dr. Rank the same way as she shows him her leg dressed in the new silk stockings. When Rank responds with a declaration of love instead of amused paternity, Nora recognizes for the first time the underlying sexual nature of her relationship with Torvald. This sudden understanding prevents her asking Dr. Rank for the “big proof of friendship” which she would have been able to accept innocently from a family friend. Knowing that receiving payment from a lover places one in a “horribly painful position” reminds Nora how she has always cajoled Torvald to give her little presents of money. With this understanding, she begins to recognize how Torvald, regarding her as a romantic object, violates her personal independence.
Nora learns more about Torvald’s weakness of character in this act although she does not realize the full significance of this insight until the following scene. When Torvald tells her that he wishes to get rid of Krogstad, not because he judges him morally incompetent but because he is ashamed to admit friendship with a man held to be disreputable, Nora observes that Torvald is quite different from the moralizing and respectable husband she has admired for eight years. Despite this insight, she still believes, as she tells Christine, that the “wonderful thing” will still take place—the proud terrible moment when Torvald discovers the forgery and takes all the guilt upon himself.
