Joyce Carol Oates's short story, "The Lady With The Pet Dog," offers an interesting contrast to the way Nora chooses to deal with her marriage. This is the retelling of the Ibsen story, only from the woman's point of view. The theme of deception is also important in this story, since Anna chooses to keep secret important events in her life. Her efforts to escape her marriage and establish a new identity are different from Nora's because she internalizes the changes and so is not forced to confront her husband in the same manner that Nora must.

In both William Shakespeare's Hamlet and Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, there is a huge disparity between image and reality. If a character is known by what he/she says or he/she does or by what others say about him/her, then...