Henrik Ibsen created a world where marriages and the rules of society are questioned and where deception is at every corner. In A Doll's House, the reader meets Nora, a housewife and mother trapped in her way of life due to society's unspoken rules. Nora and the people around her deceive each other throughout the entire play, leading to a shocking event that will change Nora and her family's lives forever. Ibsen uses the theme of deception to tell a story full of lies and betrayal. Deception is the driving force of the work, the key theme that causes the action of the character that shapes the story. In the first act, Nora deceives her husband, Helmer, in several different ways. The reader first glimpses the deception when Nora snacks on some macaroons and then hides them from her husband. HELMER: When did my squirrel come home? NORA: Right now. (He puts the bag of macaroons in his pocket and wipes his mouth.) Come here, Torvald, and see what I bought. (1121). This lie continues when Helmer asks his wife if she went to the candy store. Nora lied and told her husband that she hadn't, even though the reader saw that she was snacking on macaroons earlier. This is just a small act of deception on the part of Nora, who had been hiding a huge secret from her husband. Part of the huge secret is revealed to Mrs. Linde, Nora's old friend and widow, when Nora confides in her. After lying about the source of the money for a trip she took to help her husband recover from an illness, Nora admits that her father didn't give her the money. This confuses Mrs. Linde because only a few lines earlier Nora tells her that the money for the trip came from her father. In reality the money came from a loan. This confuses Mrs. Linde even more, as halfway through the paper she gets into an argument and decides that everyone is better off without her there. Nora leaves, hoping to figure out who she is as a person. In A Doll's House, the reader meets Nora, a woman desperate to hide a secret that ends up changing her life forever. When Nora's deceitful ways finally come to haunt her, she comes to a shocking conclusion. He has to leave his family to find out who exactly he is. Ibsen uses deception as the main theme of A Doll's House to create drama in a seemingly peaceful world. It teaches the reader that sooner or later their deception will catch up with them. Ibsen created a play in which a marriage was tested by a criminal lie and where a woman tested the rules of society with her deception. Works Cited Kennedy, XJ and Dana Gioia. Literature: An introduction to fiction, poetry, drama, and writing. Boston: Pearson, 2013. Print.