Discuss reactions to transgressions in two texts

Revelations of disobedience and transgression establish a difference between the central male characters in Henrik Ibsen's 'A Doll's House' and John Milton's 'Paradise Lost'; whereas Helmer is only willing to forgive Nora after he is assured his reputation will remain untarnished, Adam embraces his duty as a husband, and his forgiveness arises from his unconditional and unquestioning love for Eve. Adam's lexis post-revelation is wholly selfless, reflecting his desire to shre responsibility for the disobedience of God, and his wish that any punishment on his "head might be visited". Helmer, too, expresses a desire to unburden his wife and give "his blood" for her, though this desire is undermined by his preoccupation with reputation, which arises from a 19th century bourgeois respectability, which was concerned with financial and familial security and success. In the resolution, Adam's speech evokes marriage rites, and his reference to Eve as "flesh of [his] flesh" evokes a sense of continued unity, and would have an emotional and physical significance to a contemporary puritanical reader, as they would be aware that Eve was made of Adam's "rib". Contrastingly, Helmer's response upon learning that Krogstad no longer threatens his reputation is entirely selfish, as he insists "I am saved". Helmer's reaction evokes in Nora an epiphanic realisation that causes the play to deviate from the resolution of the well-made play. Nora leaves her husband and children, thereby abandoning what would have been considered her "sacred duties" as a wife and mother in 19th century society. Indeed, it is this very act of subverting ingrained social expectations that many critics see as the birth of modernism, and George Bernard Shaw - an admirer and contemporary of Ibsen - suggests Nora's shutting of the door was the "slam heard around the world": Helmer's reaction to learning of her disobedience caused Nora to leave, which would have been seen as neglectful of her duties and also socially subversive and condemnable.