Conflict

A play exists to present a conflict—an opposition between two forces—and then to show how that opposition is resolved. When the conflict is between a character and another character or force of nature, it is called an **external conflict**. In //A Doll’s House//, the central conflict is between two characters, Torvald Helmer and his wife Nora, so this play revolves around an external conflict. **Internal conflict** occurs when the struggle takes place primarily within a single person; such a play is often called a **psychological conflict.**

//A Doll’s House//, like many memorable plays, combines a dominant external conflict with the internal conflict of one or more characters. There is little in the surface action of A Doll’s House to indicate Nora’s internal conflict, but the play’s ending is based on her psychological development in the course of the story. Helmer, who has neither engaged in internal conflict of his own nor observed the changes in Nora, is stunned by the end of the play.