4 Best Nora Monologues – Opening Monologue

Brighton Beach Memoirs (Nora)

Category: Play Role: Nora From: Brighton Beach Memoirs

NORA: How would you feel if your entire life depended on what your Uncle Jack decided?…Oh, God, I wish Daddy were alive.Oh, God, he was so handsome. Always dressed so dapper, his shoes always shined. I always thought he should have been a movie star…like Gary Cooper…only very short. Mostly I remember his pockets.When I was six or seven he always brought me home a little surprise. Like a Hershey or a top. He”d tell me to go get it in his coat pocket. So I”d run to the closet and put my hand in and it felt as big as a tent. I wanted to crawl in there and go to sleep. And there were all these terrific things in there, like Juicy Fruit gum or Spearmint Life Savers and bits of cellophane and crumbled pieces of tobacco and movie stubs and nickels and pennies and rubber bands and paper clips and his grey suede gloves that he wore in the winter time.Then I found his coat in Mom”s closet and I put my hand in the pocket. And everything was gone. It was emptied and dry-cleaned and it felt cold…And that”s when I knew he was really dead.Oh God, I wish we had our own place to live. I hate being a boarder. Listen, let”s make a pact…The first one who makes enough money promises not to spend any on herself, but saves it all to get a house for you and me and Mom. That means every penny we get from now on, we save for the house…We can”t buy anything. No lipstick or magazines or nail polish or bubble gum. Nothing…Is it a pact?RelatedShareTweetPin

Oh, God, he was so handsome. Always dressed so dapper, his shoes always shined. I always thought he should have been a movie star…like Gary Cooper…only very short. Mostly I remember his pockets.When I was six or seven he always brought me home a little surprise. Like a Hershey or a top. He”d tell me to go get it in his coat pocket. So I”d run to the closet and put my hand in and it felt as big as a tent. I wanted to crawl in there and go to sleep. And there were all these terrific things in there, like Juicy Fruit gum or Spearmint Life Savers and bits of cellophane and crumbled pieces of tobacco and movie stubs and nickels and pennies and rubber bands and paper clips and his grey suede gloves that he wore in the winter time.Then I found his coat in Mom”s closet and I put my hand in the pocket. And everything was gone. It was emptied and dry-cleaned and it felt cold…And that”s when I knew he was really dead.Oh God, I wish we had our own place to live. I hate being a boarder. Listen, let”s make a pact…The first one who makes enough money promises not to spend any on herself, but saves it all to get a house for you and me and Mom. That means every penny we get from now on, we save for the house…We can”t buy anything. No lipstick or magazines or nail polish or bubble gum. Nothing…Is it a pact?RelatedShareTweetPin

When I was six or seven he always brought me home a little surprise. Like a Hershey or a top. He”d tell me to go get it in his coat pocket. So I”d run to the closet and put my hand in and it felt as big as a tent. I wanted to crawl in there and go to sleep. And there were all these terrific things in there, like Juicy Fruit gum or Spearmint Life Savers and bits of cellophane and crumbled pieces of tobacco and movie stubs and nickels and pennies and rubber bands and paper clips and his grey suede gloves that he wore in the winter time.Then I found his coat in Mom”s closet and I put my hand in the pocket. And everything was gone. It was emptied and dry-cleaned and it felt cold…And that”s when I knew he was really dead.Oh God, I wish we had our own place to live. I hate being a boarder. Listen, let”s make a pact…The first one who makes enough money promises not to spend any on herself, but saves it all to get a house for you and me and Mom. That means every penny we get from now on, we save for the house…We can”t buy anything. No lipstick or magazines or nail polish or bubble gum. Nothing…Is it a pact?RelatedShareTweetPin

Then I found his coat in Mom”s closet and I put my hand in the pocket. And everything was gone. It was emptied and dry-cleaned and it felt cold…And that”s when I knew he was really dead.Oh God, I wish we had our own place to live. I hate being a boarder. Listen, let”s make a pact…The first one who makes enough money promises not to spend any on herself, but saves it all to get a house for you and me and Mom. That means every penny we get from now on, we save for the house…We can”t buy anything. No lipstick or magazines or nail polish or bubble gum. Nothing…Is it a pact?RelatedShareTweetPin

Oh God, I wish we had our own place to live. I hate being a boarder. Listen, let”s make a pact…The first one who makes enough money promises not to spend any on herself, but saves it all to get a house for you and me and Mom. That means every penny we get from now on, we save for the house…We can”t buy anything. No lipstick or magazines or nail polish or bubble gum. Nothing…Is it a pact?RelatedShareTweetPin

A Doll’s House (Nora)

Category: Play Role: Nora From: A Doll's House

Nora says

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–No, never. Papa died just at that time. I had meant to let him into the secret and beg him never to reveal it. But he was so ill then–alas, there never was any need to tell him. Good Heavens, no! How could you think so? A man who has such strong opinions about these things! And besides, how painful and humiliating it would be for Torvald, with his manly independence, to know that he owed me anything! It would upset our mutual relations altogether; our beautiful happy home would no longer be what it is now.

A Doll’s House (Nora)

Category: Play Role: Nora From: A Doll's House

Nora says

You have never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me. It is perfectly true, Torvald. When I was at home with papa, he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions; and if I differed from him I concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it. He called me his doll-child, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls. And when I came to live with you–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 your 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.

A Dolls House” (Nora)

Category: Play Role: Nora From: A Doll's House

NORA: It is perfectly true, Torvald. When I was at home with papa, he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions; and if I differed from him I concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it. He called me his doll-child, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls. And when I came to live with you…I mean that I was simply transferred from papa”s hand 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.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 things 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!RelatedShareTweetPin

I mean that I was simply transferred from papa”s hand 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.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 things 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!RelatedShareTweetPin

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 things 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!RelatedShareTweetPin