# A Doll’s House: every role by lines, words, and stage time

> Henrik Ibsen, translated by R. Farquharson Sharp. 10 speaking roles, 22,149 words, about 158 minutes of speech.

- URL: https://www.offbook.com/plays/a-dolls-house
- Last updated: 2026-10-08

**Nora** has the most to say in A Doll’s House: about 1,268 lines and 9,949 words, 44.9% of the play. A Doll’s House follows Nora, a wife who borrowed money in secret to save her husband’s life. Nora carries the play, with nearly half of all the words, and speaks in every act. Helmer has about a quarter. Krogstad and Mrs. Linde each hold about a tenth, and Rank speaks in all three acts with a smaller part.

- Speaking roles: 10
- Scenes: 3
- Words: 22,149
- Speech time: 158 min

## Every role, largest first

| Role | Lines | Words | Share | Minutes | Scenes |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Nora | 1,268 | 9,949 | 44.9% | 71.1 | 3 |
| Helmer | 692 | 5,655 | 25.5% | 40.4 | 3 |
| Krogstad | 303 | 2,454 | 11.1% | 17.5 | 3 |
| Mrs. Linde | 322 | 2,311 | 10.4% | 16.5 | 3 |
| Rank | 194 | 1,463 | 6.6% | 10.5 | 3 |
| Nurse | 27 | 196 | 0.9% | 1.4 | 2 |
| Maid | 15 | 78 | 0.4% | 0.6 | 3 |
| Children | 3 | 24 | 0.1% | 0.2 | 1 |
| Servant | 2 | 18 | 0.1% | 0.1 | 1 |
| Porter | 1 | 1 | 0% | 0.0 | 1 |

## Who speaks in which scene

Words each role speaks in each scene (scene: words). Scenes: Act 1 = Act 1; Act 2 = Act 2; Act 3 = Act 3.

- **Nora**: Act 1 (4,583), Act 2 (3,153), Act 3 (2,213)
- **Helmer**: Act 1 (1,522), Act 2 (1,035), Act 3 (3,098)
- **Krogstad**: Act 1 (1,192), Act 2 (729), Act 3 (533)
- **Mrs. Linde**: Act 1 (940), Act 2 (574), Act 3 (797)
- **Rank**: Act 1 (368), Act 2 (818), Act 3 (277)

## The longest speeches

| Speech | Scene | Words | Lines |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Helmer: “Yes, do. Try and calm yourself, and make your mind easy again, my frightened little singing-bird. Be at rest, and feel secure; I have broad wings to shelter you under. How warm and cosy our home is, Nora. Here is shelter for you; here I will protect you like a hunted dove that I have saved from a hawk’s claws; I will bring peace to your poor beating heart. It will come, little by little, Nora, believe me. Tomorrow morning you will look upon it all quite differently; soon everything will be just as it was before. Very soon you won’t need me to assure you that I have forgiven you; you will yourself feel the certainty that I have done so. Can you suppose I should ever think of such a thing as repudiating you, or even reproaching you? You have no idea what a true man’s heart is like, Nora. There is something so indescribably sweet and satisfying, to a man, in the knowledge that he has forgiven his wife—forgiven her freely, and with all his heart. It seems as if that had made her, as it were, doubly his own; he has given her a new life, so to speak; and she has in a way become both wife and child to him. So you shall be for me after this, my little scared, helpless darling. Have no anxiety about anything, Nora; only be frank and open with me, and I will serve as will and conscience both to you—. What is this? Not gone to bed? Have you changed your things?” | Act 3 | 266 | 27 |
| Nora: “Yes—someday, perhaps, after many years, when I am no longer as nice-looking as I am now. Don’t laugh at me! I mean, of course, when Torvald is no longer as devoted to me as he is now; when my dancing and dressing up and reciting have palled on him; then it may be a good thing to have something in reserve— What nonsense! That time will never come. Now, what do you think of my great secret, Christine? Do you still think I am of no use? I can tell you, too, that this affair has caused me a lot of worry. It has been by no means easy for me to meet my engagements punctually. I may tell you that there is something that is called, in business, quarterly interest, and another thing called payment in installments, and it is always so dreadfully difficult to manage them. I have had to save a little here and there, where I could, you understand. I have not been able to put aside much from my housekeeping money, for Torvald must have a good table. I couldn’t let my children be shabbily dressed; I have felt obliged to use up all he gave me for them, the sweet little darlings!” | Act 1 | 209 | 21 |
| Nora: “But it was absolutely necessary that he should not know! My goodness, can’t you understand that? It was necessary he should have no idea what a dangerous condition he was in. It was to me that the doctors came and said that his life was in danger, and that the only thing to save him was to live in the south. Do you suppose I didn’t try, first of all, to get what I wanted as if it were for myself? I told him how much I should love to travel abroad like other young wives; I tried tears and entreaties with him; I told him that he ought to remember the condition I was in, and that he ought to be kind and indulgent to me; I even hinted that he might raise a loan. That nearly made him angry, Christine. He said I was thoughtless, and that it was his duty as my husband not to indulge me in my whims and caprices—as I believe he called them. Very well, I thought, you must be saved—and that was how I came to devise a way out of the difficulty—” | Act 1 | 193 | 20 |
| Nora: “Good gracious, can’t you understand? There was no old gentleman at all; it was only something that I used to sit here and imagine, when I couldn’t think of any way of procuring money. But it’s all the same now; the tiresome old person can stay where he is, as far as I am concerned; I don’t care about him or his will either, for I am free from care now. My goodness, it’s delightful to think of, Christine! Free from care! To be able to be free from care, quite free from care; to be able to play and romp with the children; to be able to keep the house beautifully and have everything just as Torvald likes it! And, think of it, soon the spring will come and the big blue sky! Perhaps we shall be able to take a little trip—perhaps I shall see the sea again! Oh, it’s a wonderful thing to be alive and be happy.” | Act 1 | 162 | 17 |
| Helmer: “Listen to her, Mrs. Linde! She had danced her Tarantella, and it had been a tremendous success, as it deserved—although possibly the performance was a trifle too realistic—a little more so, I mean, than was strictly compatible with the limitations of art. But never mind about that! The chief thing is, she had made a success—she had made a tremendous success. Do you think I was going to let her remain there after that, and spoil the effect? No, indeed! I took my charming little Capri maiden—my capricious little Capri maiden, I should say—on my arm; took one quick turn round the room; a curtsey on either side, and, as they say in novels, the beautiful apparition disappeared. An exit ought always to be effective, Mrs. Linde; but that is what I cannot make Nora understand. Pooh! this room is hot. Hullo! it’s all dark in here. Oh, of course—excuse me—.” | Act 3 | 157 | 16 |
| Helmer: “It is so incredible that I can’t take it in. But we must come to some understanding. Take off that shawl. Take it off, I tell you. I must try and appease him some way or another. The matter must be hushed up at any cost. And as for you and me, it must appear as if everything between us were just as before—but naturally only in the eyes of the world. You will still remain in my house, that is a matter of course. But I shall not allow you to bring up the children; I dare not trust them to you. To think that I should be obliged to say so to one whom I have loved so dearly, and whom I still—. No, that is all over. From this moment happiness is not the question; all that concerns us is to save the remains, the fragments, the appearance—” | Act 3 | 152 | 16 |
| Nora: “Maybe. But you neither think nor talk like the man I could bind myself to. As soon as your fear was over—and it was not fear for what threatened me, but for what might happen to you—when the whole thing was past, as far as you were concerned it was exactly as if nothing at all had happened. Exactly as before, I was your little skylark, your doll, which you would in future treat with doubly gentle care, because it was so brittle and fragile. Torvald—it was then it dawned upon me that for eight years I had been living here with a strange man, and had borne him three children—. Oh, I can’t bear to think of it! I could tear myself into little bits!” | Act 3 | 129 | 13 |
| Krogstad: “Your father died on the 29th of September. But, look here; your father has dated his signature the 2nd of October. It is a discrepancy, isn’t it? Can you explain it to me? It is a remarkable thing, too, that the words “2nd of October,” as well as the year, are not written in your father’s handwriting but in one that I think I know. Well, of course it can be explained; your father may have forgotten to date his signature, and someone else may have dated it haphazard before they knew of his death. There is no harm in that. It all depends on the signature of the name; and that is genuine, I suppose, Mrs. Helmer? It was your father himself who signed his name here?” | Act 1 | 128 | 13 |
| Helmer: “You have loved me as a wife ought to love her husband. Only you had not sufficient knowledge to judge of the means you used. But do you suppose you are any the less dear to me, because you don’t understand how to act on your own responsibility? No, no; only lean on me; I will advise you and direct you. I should not be a man if this womanly helplessness did not just give you a double attractiveness in my eyes. You must not think anymore about the hard things I said in my first moment of consternation, when I thought everything was going to overwhelm me. I have forgiven you, Nora; I swear to you I have forgiven you.” | Act 3 | 121 | 13 |
| Nora: “I mean that I was simply transferred from Papa’s hands into yours. You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as you—or else I pretended to, I am really not quite sure which—I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other. When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I had been living here like a poor woman—just from hand to mouth. I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and Papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life.” | Act 3 | 114 | 12 |

## Questions actors ask

### Who has the most lines in A Doll’s House?

Nora, with about 1,268 lines and 9,949 words, 44.9% of everything spoken in the play. Helmer is next, with about 692 lines (25.5%).

### How long is A Doll’s House?

The full text has 22,149 spoken words, about 158 minutes at 140 words a minute before pauses, scene changes, and cuts. Most productions cut the text, so running times vary.

### How many speaking roles are in A Doll’s House?

10 named roles speak in this edition, across 3 scenes. 5 of them have less than 2% of the words, which is why small parts are often doubled.

## How we count

Counts are computed from the full text of the [Standard Ebooks edition](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/henrik-ibsen/a-dolls-house/r-farquharson-sharp) (public domain; retrieved 2026-10-08). Words are every spoken word, with stage directions removed. Lines are verse lines as printed, plus prose at 10 words a line, because prose has no fixed line breaks; editions differ, so other sources give slightly different line counts. Time is words at 140 words a minute, before pauses and stage business. A role is counted in a scene when it speaks there. To count a script that is not in the library, paste it into the [script line counter](https://www.offbook.com/tools/script-line-counter).