Only domesticated

Domesticated.  So used to being told how to be, being trained, that she wouldn't run for freedom given the off chance that the door was open.  (Could possibly be an elephant: settling for the tufts of grass that grow at the edges of the fence.  Settling for so little, believing that to be happiness.  Making it happiness because you have to survive.) She is not a wild animal, lacks the craftiness of survival.  Not a goat.  Perhaps a cow or a sheep.  Not a cat, maybe a dog.  A loyal one...though maybe not because the dog would always be loyal to the end.  Nora is definitely not a dog.  Definitely opened up avenues for me to read the Ibsen.  I'll have to go back to the zoo; easier than getting to a farm.

It's as if I'm ("I" being Carolyn) growing into a place where I need to express myself, and since I never have, and it's foreign concept, I'm afraid of what your (being David) reaction will be.  I'm afraid you won't have a conversation with me.  I'm afraid you will write me off as somehow not being as important, as knowledgeable, as legitimate as you.  And so I don't ask.  We do not have conversations about things that matter.  And I want to.  I need to.  I need to be realized.  To be known.  An apology from you would have been nice. That's why she wants an apology, but because he's been the "good master" ("the point is what I say the point is") to the best of his ability, that's why he doesn't understand that need in her, and I suppose, rightly so...they both chose those roles, even if it was passive, a habit that grew into a way of relating over time.  And I think Nora and Carolyn differ there, Nora was always a "pet,"  Carolyn became one passively, because it was the easiest path to walk.  Carolyn is fully domesticated, Nora is a wild animal that was kept as a pet for her whole life, but I think she has more survival instincts.  (The fact that she committed the crime in the first place shows she has survival instincts, even if she is naïve, she can learn.)  Maybe Nora's like a bird that's had it's wings clipped to make it stay, and now they are growing back and she wants to leave, find her tribe where she'll be heard, accepted as an equal, be encouraged to thrive.  She'll be fine on her own (away from a master.)  I don't think Carolyn wants to be on her own, she wants to be able to be an individual and still be accepted, and be seen as an equal in that relationship. (She ain't no lone wolf.)

Now to figure out how to own that inside, to relate from there.

Oh, and David is not Torvald, David is willing to engage.  They have a fighting chance.