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Eleven Plays Of Henrik Ibsen
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1185 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1935
About the author
Henrik Ibsen
2,384 books2,152 followersHenrik Johan Ibsen was a major Norwegian playwright largely responsible for the rise of modern realistic drama. He is often referred to as the "father of modern drama." Ibsen is held to be the greatest of Norwegian authors and one of the most important playwrights of all time, celebrated as a national symbol by Norwegians.
His plays were considered scandalous to many of his era, when Victorian values of family life and propriety largely held sway in Europe and any challenge to them was considered immoral and outrageous. Ibsen's work examined the realities that lay behind many facades, possessing a revelatory nature that was disquieting to many contemporaries.
Ibsen largely founded the modern stage by introducing a critical eye and free inquiry into the conditions of life and issues of morality. Victorian-era plays were expected to be moral dramas with noble protagonists pitted against darker forces; every drama was expected to result in a morally appropriate conclusion, meaning that goodness was to bring happiness, and immorality pain. Ibsen challenged this notion and the beliefs of his times and shattered the illusions of his audiences.
His plays were considered scandalous to many of his era, when Victorian values of family life and propriety largely held sway in Europe and any challenge to them was considered immoral and outrageous. Ibsen's work examined the realities that lay behind many facades, possessing a revelatory nature that was disquieting to many contemporaries.
Ibsen largely founded the modern stage by introducing a critical eye and free inquiry into the conditions of life and issues of morality. Victorian-era plays were expected to be moral dramas with noble protagonists pitted against darker forces; every drama was expected to result in a morally appropriate conclusion, meaning that goodness was to bring happiness, and immorality pain. Ibsen challenged this notion and the beliefs of his times and shattered the illusions of his audiences.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 9, 2026
This is going to be a review in installments, because it would be such a strain to recollect the details from each of these plays if I were to wait until I'm done all eleven. After only three of them, I already know this is a five-star read, because Ibsen is so clearly ahead of his time, so focused in his consideration of issues that are still so very very timely, and so deft in his handling of characters.
Let's take a look at each play in isolation.
A Doll's House:
This is justifiably considered Ibsen's masterpiece because it is such a concentrated work, moving with precision through the conflict and its shattering effect on Nora's life. Nora--who, it should be noted, is never called Nora Helmer in the play--seems to be a flighty little idiot at the outset, allowing herself to be her husband's plaything rather than a woman who is real in any sense of the word. Her role is a prison, of course, but she seems willing to live in it as long as she feels the assurance that Torvald really loves her and is willing to sacrifice for her. That idealism is discovered to be ill-founded in the last act, when he effectively divorces her because he fears she has made him look weak in the eyes of the public. Quid pro quo, she feels; now Torvald has made her feel completely absent in her own life, so she bravely goes through with the divorce in spite of Krogstad's change of heart, knowing absolutely that she is about to lose everything in her life--household, family, children, reputation, security--just to maintain her integrity, her ability to look at herself with any self-respect. The door slam that concludes the play is the exit of one of the most remarkable female creations on the stage until that moment. 5/5
Ghosts:
Imagine how daringly ahead of his time Ibsen is to compose another focused play on the subject of early-onset dementia and euthanasia and incestuous relationships in the early 1880s. This is quietly excruciating, particularly when Oswald's crisis becomes clear in the final act. The fact that he is not looking for some sort of artistically hedonistic relationship with Regina Engstrand (that's the incest detail, by the way--oops, spoiler) but is actually trying to find someone who will care enough about him to kill him when the time comes is shocking and moving at the same time. The conflict is one which is absolutely contemporary with our own time, given the massive number of people in the 21st century who are moving into the later stages of their life with exactly this grim prognosis. It is startling, to say the least, to find this in the late 19th century.
Pastor Manders' character is a throwback to a time of religious conservatism and, it should be said, superstitiousness. His insistence that the orphanage not be insured because it would look like people don't trust in God's benevolence is so deludedly foolish that it is completely unsurprising when it burns down. So much for that.
Even in this second play, I am already detecting Ibsen's tendency to use some female characters as the strong background representation of prudence, practical good sense, and self-protective foresight. Like Mrs. Linde in A Doll's House, Helen Alving is one such, but she is so thoroughly jaded by the behavior of the people in her life that she is almost desperate for her son to be a man with some artistic vision and investment in the future. That is why it is all the more crushing for her to learn his terrible secret.
This is a very impressive drama indeed. 5/5
An Enemy Of The People:
Again, how does Ibsen anticipate issues that are absolutely contemporary with us in the early 21st century? This play starts out as an environmental pollution drama: the medicinal baths of the town have been polluted by an industrial operation upstream and, because the pipes were laid carelessly, the visitors are being subjected to contamination by microorganisms. So far it's all very clear: Dr. Stockmann, who is the conscience of the community, intends to publish his findings and demand an accounting from the municipal government officials--starting with the mayor, his own brother. Stockmann is passionate; he has justice on his side; however, he is naive about the politics, sincerely believing that the townspeople will be happy to give up their tourist income in order to do the right thing.
That is where the second issue arises, one even more aligned with our own time. Although Dr. Stockmann is absolutely counting on the press to help him publicize and correct the situation with the baths and even receives the support of the publisher and the printer, he is stunned to learn how quickly that support disappears when the economic consequences of all this social activism become clear to the people. Stockmann becomes the target of social hostility, at which time his elitist predisposition comes to the fore. At a public meeting, which only happens because a single householder is willing to host it, Stockmann derides the "compact majority" of the common people: "Who is it that constitute the majority of the population in a country? Is it the clever folk or the stupid? I don't imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over" (256). This, of course, only aggravates the situation and encourages the people to see him in the worst possible light. He goes on, borrowing from Shakespeare to make a point about the difference between well-bred dogs and mangy curs. Again, the people take exception:
"A Citizen (calls out). Are you going to make out we are dogs, now?
Another Citizen. We are not animals, Doctor!
Dr. Stockmann. Yes, but, bless my soul, we are, my friend! It is true we are the finest animals anyone could wish for; but even amongst us, exceptionally fine animals are rare. There is a tremendous difference between poodle-men and cur-men" (259-60).
That is a beautiful little touch, adding the "bless my soul" to a diatribe that is essentially based on agnosticism at least.
Anyway, by the time Dr. Stockmann has allowed himself to vent publicly, the public has vented back and declared him to be the "enemy of the people" of the title. It's as clear a case of social ostracism--of cancelling--as one could ask for. And here it is in a play from 1882. 5/5
The Master Builder:
Given how prescient Ibsen is with his themes in the first three plays, I was almost expecting this one to have an element of "#MeToo" in it. Hilda Wangel, the oddly obsessed young girl who throws herself into Halvard Solness' life after an absence of ten years, seems to have been the victim of some degree of sexual molestation by the man, but she seems to be able to dominate this current situation quite capably. Not to spoil the ending, but by the time it arrives, it seems that she has evened the score, although she does not swerve from her magical thinking and apparent elevation (excuse the pun in this context) of Solness to truly exalted status in her imagination.
His own demons--the trolls that he refers to--are a little harder to put a finger on. Clearly he is a serial sexual abuser, giving up Kaia upon Hilda's arrival, but how far he is willing to go in his pointless attempts to satisfy himself is not as clear. Ibsen has created another very engaging set of complicated and tortured characters, but he doesn't seem to know quite what to do with them. 3/5
Pillars Of Society:
Here is another prescient play, one in which Ibsen anticipates the moral consequences of insider trading, again surprisingly, given how very contemporary that sounds to us in the 21st century. Karsten Bernick is another Ibsen man who seems to be fully in charge of his profession and his social standing, but we learn that both of those are on very shaky ground because of decisions he made once upon a time, back when he was perhaps younger and more foolish. However, it is also clear that Bernick was a pragmatic fellow back in the day and his decision to throw his brother-in-law under the bus--okay, under the opprobrium of social criticism--was, at that time, the most practical choice to make because it ended up saving his company, preserving his reputation, and allowing him to become the pillar of society that he appears to be. Moreover, the sacrifice of Johan Tonnesen happened with Johan's agreement; he recognized at that time--fifteen years before--that it was the most expedient decision to make. However, now he is back and not so willing to continue being the scapegoat; in fact, he fully intends to return to the community and restore his name, marrying Dina Dorf, another character who itches under the judgment of society and wants to be her own person. Bernick's willingness to sacrifice Johan's moral character gets stepped up quite a lot when he becomes willing to sacrifice the man completely, allowing him to board a ship to America that he knows pretty clearly will never make the voyage. Hmm. So much for being any kind of decent human being, let alone someone who should stand up as the titular pillar of society.
If the play were to end at Act III, it would be a very very modern tragedy, and Karsten Bernick would be a rather monstrous fellow indeed. Lucky for him, although perhaps not as lucky for the play, the last act provides a number of deus ex machinas (not good Latin, I know) that salvage him from his own moral reprehensibility. Moreover, he is willing to admit his past sin and purge himself before the community, providing him an expiation that, again a bit too simplistically, depends on just telling the truth. Hmm again. In his attempt to make adherence to social conventions the real sin, Ibsen has wound up with a bit of a caricaturish play. 3/5
Hedda Gabler:
Wow, this woman is so very unlikeable it's hard to separate my feelings of distaste for her from my appreciation of what Ibsen is doing with her. I find myself speculating about Nora Helmer from A Doll's House, imagining what would happen to her if she took from her experience with Torvald an enormous dose of cynicism rather than self-imposed isolation and responsibility. If Nora were to use her lesson about the essential absence of love from marital relations, multiply it by a determination to use marriage as a means to establish one's own comfort--not happiness by any stretch of the imagination, and then add to that a growing awareness that no social circumstances of any kind can provide satisfaction, then we might get a close approximation of what Hedda is. The title of the play is her maiden name, although she has recently been married to George Tesman, but there is no indication that she feels any sense of obligation or responsibility to that marriage. George's old Aunt Julia repeatedly hints that a baby is likely to be on the way, but Hedda dismisses that out of hand as absurd, which is only a reinforcement in her own mind of how unsatisfying and absurd her own existence is.
Hedda's condescending treatment of her own husband is understandable, given how very small his ambitions for himself (and, therefore, his wife) are, manacling himself to an arcane aspect of medieval history and expecting the security of a university post to follow, all of which condemns him as an academic cipher. Even so, she takes too much delight in scoring her private points off him, even to the point of allowing Dr. Brack some salacious anticipation of a private affair with her before Tesman's eyes. Granted, she knows perfectly well that no such affair will happen, but it is still reflective of her arrogant character, right to the end. Her treatment of Eilert Lovborg is more elevated, but again it is all about her forcing everyone around her to conform to her notion of romantic idealism, which means embracing a beautiful and self-imposed death, which she orchestrates with breathless intensity. The only time she seems really to be alive is when she is causing enormous damage, especially to other people. One can only speculate with horror what kind of marriage she and Tesman would have to endure if she were willing to continue that charade.
Some spoilers, obviously, but not as obvious as they could be. 3/5
John Gabriel Borkman:
This is not as successful as the others, sadly. Ibsen is going for allegory by way of characters and it ends, as it must, in schmaltz rather than enlightenment. Borkman is himself another of Ibsen's failed men, a disgraced bank manager whose purpose is to exploit earth's natural resources, so he becomes a sort of figure of Materialism. His wife, Gunhild, is Society, a woman who can't forgive her husband for having debased her and the family name in the eyes of others, who are of course embodied in herself. Ella Rentheim, Gunhild's twin sister, is Love, the woman who was devoted to Borkman but who was cast aside in his pursuit of greatness; now she is dying, even as all love in the story is dying (and yes, that sounds hyperbolically sentimental, but that is exactly how it is presented in the play). Erhart Borkman is so obviously the image of Youth and Potential and Innocence that his rejection of all his parents becomes a caricature of adolescent rebellion, especially as he leaves with Mrs. Wilton, the figure of Experience and the Happiness that can only be pursued and never really acquired. There is no spoiler in relating that Borkman dies at the end, his heart clutched by an ice-cold metal hand. The two sisters, who have been implacably at odds throughout the play, close the last act chanting over the dead man whom they have both loved, in their own allegorical fashion. 2/5
The Wild Duck:
Poor Hedvig, the young girl who is daughter to an idiot. Hialmar Ekdal is an apparently virtuous and forthright character who turns out to be subject to the persuasions of just about everyone he comes in contact with. Relling, the dissolute and cynical doctor, says very directly that he provides reasons for other people to go on living, but he doesn't believe in any one of them. Unfortunately for Hialmar and Hedvig, Gregers Werle is more influential: he convinces Hialmar that ideals are the most enlightened way to live one's life. Furthermore, he gets Hialmar to believe that his own wife has been corrupted by her past associations, which is supposed to get the two of them closer together as a result of their honest and open communication. Of course, that doesn't happen; in fact, it drives Hialmar away from his family, especially Hedvig, who is a particularly sensitive and melancholy child, with the inevitable tragic result. And what is the wild duck of the title? Oddly, it's a bird that survived being shot, almost drowned, and pulled from the pond by a retriever, only to be forced to exist in the garret of the Ekdal house, where Hedvig considers it to be a symbol of innocence and life itself. That is as much nonsense as the other pretentiousness that emerges from various people's mouths, but it provides the pretext for the intolerable Gregers to suggest Hedvig's final action.
Following my earlier observation that Ibsen has been foretelling modern tendencies, this is almost a caricature of religious fundamentalism and the destruction that often results from sententious certainty and pompous idealism. 3/5
The League Of Youth:
This is just not a very engaging play at all. It is based almost exclusively on politics, meaning that even the personal relationships, such as they are, are in service to the political affiliations of the characters. Of the few female characters, only Madam Rundholmen, the tavern keeper, comes at all close to having any sort of round personality, and even she descends to a rather farcical person who allows herself to be duped in love by Stensgaard, although even that plot detail isn't really developed in any clear sense. As Fieldbo says in the last act, "People are bent on learning, not on living," which is intended as a criticism of the head over the heart, but Ibsen is sermonizing here rather than allowing the characters to demonstrate their faults in a dramatic and convincing way. 2/5
Rosmersholm:
This is a daring play because it rises above the relative failures of some of his others where Ibsen tries to address grand themes of life and meaning but loses contact with his characters. In this case, by focusing on the relationship between Rebecca West and Johannes Rosmer, he gives us a couple who are absolutely an equal partnership and, sadly and paradoxically, are therefore doomed. The society in which they live cannot tolerate what is called "emancipation" because too many people have confined themselves--almost superstitiously--to the traditional ways of living and thinking. The housekeeper, Madam Helseth, who opens and closes the action, is overtly superstitious and cringes at the mention of the White Horse that is said to haunt the Rosmer household, but at least she is honest and direct about her own limitations. Pretentious philosophers without substance like Brendel, moralistic conservatives like Kroll, and even journalists with an itch to effect social change like Mortensgaard are all discarded as being ultimately inert because they don't have a self to be true to. Only after West and Rosmer disclose everything to each other can they come to a complete understanding about who they are and how inseparable they must be. The climax is effectively narrated by Madam Helseth and offers no judgment other than the simple recognition that this is what must be.
It is gratifying to see that Ibsen has drawn a circle so comprehensively around his big ideas with such finely focused characters. 5/5
Peer Gynt:
Although this is supposed to be Ibsen's masterpiece, I find it a surreal, self-indulgent slog through the life of a nobody who wants to be himself but has no substance upon which to make that claim at all meaningful. In that light, even as I say this, I acknowledge that Kierkegaard (another Scandinavian) would argue that Peer is a representative Everyman in spite of--or perhaps because of--his insubstantiality. But we can tie ourselves in knots making this an existential argument for creating lower-case meaning in a world that precludes upper-case Meaning. In the end, Ibsen is making us spend an awful lot of time with this infuriating nobody in a bewildering range of places (that must have made the dramatic production nightmarishly expensive) for no purpose other than to investigate what a man without qualities might end up becoming--or just being.
I have to add that I appreciate this mainly because Grieg turned it into a musical work of genius, so there is that. 3/5
Let's take a look at each play in isolation.
A Doll's House:
This is justifiably considered Ibsen's masterpiece because it is such a concentrated work, moving with precision through the conflict and its shattering effect on Nora's life. Nora--who, it should be noted, is never called Nora Helmer in the play--seems to be a flighty little idiot at the outset, allowing herself to be her husband's plaything rather than a woman who is real in any sense of the word. Her role is a prison, of course, but she seems willing to live in it as long as she feels the assurance that Torvald really loves her and is willing to sacrifice for her. That idealism is discovered to be ill-founded in the last act, when he effectively divorces her because he fears she has made him look weak in the eyes of the public. Quid pro quo, she feels; now Torvald has made her feel completely absent in her own life, so she bravely goes through with the divorce in spite of Krogstad's change of heart, knowing absolutely that she is about to lose everything in her life--household, family, children, reputation, security--just to maintain her integrity, her ability to look at herself with any self-respect. The door slam that concludes the play is the exit of one of the most remarkable female creations on the stage until that moment. 5/5
Ghosts:
Imagine how daringly ahead of his time Ibsen is to compose another focused play on the subject of early-onset dementia and euthanasia and incestuous relationships in the early 1880s. This is quietly excruciating, particularly when Oswald's crisis becomes clear in the final act. The fact that he is not looking for some sort of artistically hedonistic relationship with Regina Engstrand (that's the incest detail, by the way--oops, spoiler) but is actually trying to find someone who will care enough about him to kill him when the time comes is shocking and moving at the same time. The conflict is one which is absolutely contemporary with our own time, given the massive number of people in the 21st century who are moving into the later stages of their life with exactly this grim prognosis. It is startling, to say the least, to find this in the late 19th century.
Pastor Manders' character is a throwback to a time of religious conservatism and, it should be said, superstitiousness. His insistence that the orphanage not be insured because it would look like people don't trust in God's benevolence is so deludedly foolish that it is completely unsurprising when it burns down. So much for that.
Even in this second play, I am already detecting Ibsen's tendency to use some female characters as the strong background representation of prudence, practical good sense, and self-protective foresight. Like Mrs. Linde in A Doll's House, Helen Alving is one such, but she is so thoroughly jaded by the behavior of the people in her life that she is almost desperate for her son to be a man with some artistic vision and investment in the future. That is why it is all the more crushing for her to learn his terrible secret.
This is a very impressive drama indeed. 5/5
An Enemy Of The People:
Again, how does Ibsen anticipate issues that are absolutely contemporary with us in the early 21st century? This play starts out as an environmental pollution drama: the medicinal baths of the town have been polluted by an industrial operation upstream and, because the pipes were laid carelessly, the visitors are being subjected to contamination by microorganisms. So far it's all very clear: Dr. Stockmann, who is the conscience of the community, intends to publish his findings and demand an accounting from the municipal government officials--starting with the mayor, his own brother. Stockmann is passionate; he has justice on his side; however, he is naive about the politics, sincerely believing that the townspeople will be happy to give up their tourist income in order to do the right thing.
That is where the second issue arises, one even more aligned with our own time. Although Dr. Stockmann is absolutely counting on the press to help him publicize and correct the situation with the baths and even receives the support of the publisher and the printer, he is stunned to learn how quickly that support disappears when the economic consequences of all this social activism become clear to the people. Stockmann becomes the target of social hostility, at which time his elitist predisposition comes to the fore. At a public meeting, which only happens because a single householder is willing to host it, Stockmann derides the "compact majority" of the common people: "Who is it that constitute the majority of the population in a country? Is it the clever folk or the stupid? I don't imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over" (256). This, of course, only aggravates the situation and encourages the people to see him in the worst possible light. He goes on, borrowing from Shakespeare to make a point about the difference between well-bred dogs and mangy curs. Again, the people take exception:
"A Citizen (calls out). Are you going to make out we are dogs, now?
Another Citizen. We are not animals, Doctor!
Dr. Stockmann. Yes, but, bless my soul, we are, my friend! It is true we are the finest animals anyone could wish for; but even amongst us, exceptionally fine animals are rare. There is a tremendous difference between poodle-men and cur-men" (259-60).
That is a beautiful little touch, adding the "bless my soul" to a diatribe that is essentially based on agnosticism at least.
Anyway, by the time Dr. Stockmann has allowed himself to vent publicly, the public has vented back and declared him to be the "enemy of the people" of the title. It's as clear a case of social ostracism--of cancelling--as one could ask for. And here it is in a play from 1882. 5/5
The Master Builder:
Given how prescient Ibsen is with his themes in the first three plays, I was almost expecting this one to have an element of "#MeToo" in it. Hilda Wangel, the oddly obsessed young girl who throws herself into Halvard Solness' life after an absence of ten years, seems to have been the victim of some degree of sexual molestation by the man, but she seems to be able to dominate this current situation quite capably. Not to spoil the ending, but by the time it arrives, it seems that she has evened the score, although she does not swerve from her magical thinking and apparent elevation (excuse the pun in this context) of Solness to truly exalted status in her imagination.
His own demons--the trolls that he refers to--are a little harder to put a finger on. Clearly he is a serial sexual abuser, giving up Kaia upon Hilda's arrival, but how far he is willing to go in his pointless attempts to satisfy himself is not as clear. Ibsen has created another very engaging set of complicated and tortured characters, but he doesn't seem to know quite what to do with them. 3/5
Pillars Of Society:
Here is another prescient play, one in which Ibsen anticipates the moral consequences of insider trading, again surprisingly, given how very contemporary that sounds to us in the 21st century. Karsten Bernick is another Ibsen man who seems to be fully in charge of his profession and his social standing, but we learn that both of those are on very shaky ground because of decisions he made once upon a time, back when he was perhaps younger and more foolish. However, it is also clear that Bernick was a pragmatic fellow back in the day and his decision to throw his brother-in-law under the bus--okay, under the opprobrium of social criticism--was, at that time, the most practical choice to make because it ended up saving his company, preserving his reputation, and allowing him to become the pillar of society that he appears to be. Moreover, the sacrifice of Johan Tonnesen happened with Johan's agreement; he recognized at that time--fifteen years before--that it was the most expedient decision to make. However, now he is back and not so willing to continue being the scapegoat; in fact, he fully intends to return to the community and restore his name, marrying Dina Dorf, another character who itches under the judgment of society and wants to be her own person. Bernick's willingness to sacrifice Johan's moral character gets stepped up quite a lot when he becomes willing to sacrifice the man completely, allowing him to board a ship to America that he knows pretty clearly will never make the voyage. Hmm. So much for being any kind of decent human being, let alone someone who should stand up as the titular pillar of society.
If the play were to end at Act III, it would be a very very modern tragedy, and Karsten Bernick would be a rather monstrous fellow indeed. Lucky for him, although perhaps not as lucky for the play, the last act provides a number of deus ex machinas (not good Latin, I know) that salvage him from his own moral reprehensibility. Moreover, he is willing to admit his past sin and purge himself before the community, providing him an expiation that, again a bit too simplistically, depends on just telling the truth. Hmm again. In his attempt to make adherence to social conventions the real sin, Ibsen has wound up with a bit of a caricaturish play. 3/5
Hedda Gabler:
Wow, this woman is so very unlikeable it's hard to separate my feelings of distaste for her from my appreciation of what Ibsen is doing with her. I find myself speculating about Nora Helmer from A Doll's House, imagining what would happen to her if she took from her experience with Torvald an enormous dose of cynicism rather than self-imposed isolation and responsibility. If Nora were to use her lesson about the essential absence of love from marital relations, multiply it by a determination to use marriage as a means to establish one's own comfort--not happiness by any stretch of the imagination, and then add to that a growing awareness that no social circumstances of any kind can provide satisfaction, then we might get a close approximation of what Hedda is. The title of the play is her maiden name, although she has recently been married to George Tesman, but there is no indication that she feels any sense of obligation or responsibility to that marriage. George's old Aunt Julia repeatedly hints that a baby is likely to be on the way, but Hedda dismisses that out of hand as absurd, which is only a reinforcement in her own mind of how unsatisfying and absurd her own existence is.
Hedda's condescending treatment of her own husband is understandable, given how very small his ambitions for himself (and, therefore, his wife) are, manacling himself to an arcane aspect of medieval history and expecting the security of a university post to follow, all of which condemns him as an academic cipher. Even so, she takes too much delight in scoring her private points off him, even to the point of allowing Dr. Brack some salacious anticipation of a private affair with her before Tesman's eyes. Granted, she knows perfectly well that no such affair will happen, but it is still reflective of her arrogant character, right to the end. Her treatment of Eilert Lovborg is more elevated, but again it is all about her forcing everyone around her to conform to her notion of romantic idealism, which means embracing a beautiful and self-imposed death, which she orchestrates with breathless intensity. The only time she seems really to be alive is when she is causing enormous damage, especially to other people. One can only speculate with horror what kind of marriage she and Tesman would have to endure if she were willing to continue that charade.
Some spoilers, obviously, but not as obvious as they could be. 3/5
John Gabriel Borkman:
This is not as successful as the others, sadly. Ibsen is going for allegory by way of characters and it ends, as it must, in schmaltz rather than enlightenment. Borkman is himself another of Ibsen's failed men, a disgraced bank manager whose purpose is to exploit earth's natural resources, so he becomes a sort of figure of Materialism. His wife, Gunhild, is Society, a woman who can't forgive her husband for having debased her and the family name in the eyes of others, who are of course embodied in herself. Ella Rentheim, Gunhild's twin sister, is Love, the woman who was devoted to Borkman but who was cast aside in his pursuit of greatness; now she is dying, even as all love in the story is dying (and yes, that sounds hyperbolically sentimental, but that is exactly how it is presented in the play). Erhart Borkman is so obviously the image of Youth and Potential and Innocence that his rejection of all his parents becomes a caricature of adolescent rebellion, especially as he leaves with Mrs. Wilton, the figure of Experience and the Happiness that can only be pursued and never really acquired. There is no spoiler in relating that Borkman dies at the end, his heart clutched by an ice-cold metal hand. The two sisters, who have been implacably at odds throughout the play, close the last act chanting over the dead man whom they have both loved, in their own allegorical fashion. 2/5
The Wild Duck:
Poor Hedvig, the young girl who is daughter to an idiot. Hialmar Ekdal is an apparently virtuous and forthright character who turns out to be subject to the persuasions of just about everyone he comes in contact with. Relling, the dissolute and cynical doctor, says very directly that he provides reasons for other people to go on living, but he doesn't believe in any one of them. Unfortunately for Hialmar and Hedvig, Gregers Werle is more influential: he convinces Hialmar that ideals are the most enlightened way to live one's life. Furthermore, he gets Hialmar to believe that his own wife has been corrupted by her past associations, which is supposed to get the two of them closer together as a result of their honest and open communication. Of course, that doesn't happen; in fact, it drives Hialmar away from his family, especially Hedvig, who is a particularly sensitive and melancholy child, with the inevitable tragic result. And what is the wild duck of the title? Oddly, it's a bird that survived being shot, almost drowned, and pulled from the pond by a retriever, only to be forced to exist in the garret of the Ekdal house, where Hedvig considers it to be a symbol of innocence and life itself. That is as much nonsense as the other pretentiousness that emerges from various people's mouths, but it provides the pretext for the intolerable Gregers to suggest Hedvig's final action.
Following my earlier observation that Ibsen has been foretelling modern tendencies, this is almost a caricature of religious fundamentalism and the destruction that often results from sententious certainty and pompous idealism. 3/5
The League Of Youth:
This is just not a very engaging play at all. It is based almost exclusively on politics, meaning that even the personal relationships, such as they are, are in service to the political affiliations of the characters. Of the few female characters, only Madam Rundholmen, the tavern keeper, comes at all close to having any sort of round personality, and even she descends to a rather farcical person who allows herself to be duped in love by Stensgaard, although even that plot detail isn't really developed in any clear sense. As Fieldbo says in the last act, "People are bent on learning, not on living," which is intended as a criticism of the head over the heart, but Ibsen is sermonizing here rather than allowing the characters to demonstrate their faults in a dramatic and convincing way. 2/5
Rosmersholm:
This is a daring play because it rises above the relative failures of some of his others where Ibsen tries to address grand themes of life and meaning but loses contact with his characters. In this case, by focusing on the relationship between Rebecca West and Johannes Rosmer, he gives us a couple who are absolutely an equal partnership and, sadly and paradoxically, are therefore doomed. The society in which they live cannot tolerate what is called "emancipation" because too many people have confined themselves--almost superstitiously--to the traditional ways of living and thinking. The housekeeper, Madam Helseth, who opens and closes the action, is overtly superstitious and cringes at the mention of the White Horse that is said to haunt the Rosmer household, but at least she is honest and direct about her own limitations. Pretentious philosophers without substance like Brendel, moralistic conservatives like Kroll, and even journalists with an itch to effect social change like Mortensgaard are all discarded as being ultimately inert because they don't have a self to be true to. Only after West and Rosmer disclose everything to each other can they come to a complete understanding about who they are and how inseparable they must be. The climax is effectively narrated by Madam Helseth and offers no judgment other than the simple recognition that this is what must be.
It is gratifying to see that Ibsen has drawn a circle so comprehensively around his big ideas with such finely focused characters. 5/5
Peer Gynt:
Although this is supposed to be Ibsen's masterpiece, I find it a surreal, self-indulgent slog through the life of a nobody who wants to be himself but has no substance upon which to make that claim at all meaningful. In that light, even as I say this, I acknowledge that Kierkegaard (another Scandinavian) would argue that Peer is a representative Everyman in spite of--or perhaps because of--his insubstantiality. But we can tie ourselves in knots making this an existential argument for creating lower-case meaning in a world that precludes upper-case Meaning. In the end, Ibsen is making us spend an awful lot of time with this infuriating nobody in a bewildering range of places (that must have made the dramatic production nightmarishly expensive) for no purpose other than to investigate what a man without qualities might end up becoming--or just being.
I have to add that I appreciate this mainly because Grieg turned it into a musical work of genius, so there is that. 3/5
June 17, 2023
Reading a few of Ibsen's plays - reminds me of how powerful a playright is when material from over 100 years ago is still so relevent today. "Enemy of the People" is appropriate today when today's populations hear/learn only one side of a topic without critical evaluation or thought. "A Doll's House" portrays the clash between male and female identiy/roles in an relationship. And, "Hedda Gabler" with the focus of women seeking fulfillment but is stymied by the options available to her. So many great playwrite's over the centuries - whose work still resounds with relevance - Henrik Ibsen joins that select group that includes Shakespeare.
December 5, 2019
This book was a difficult read - as it is 1800s English. (I think primarily anyway.) It is interesting to a degree - the plays are long too... as any plays are. I read this book to get an idea about writing plays. I read this book play by play earlier this year.
August 28, 2022
11 plays are a lot. Some were familiar: Hedda Gabler and The Doll's House-from high school and college. Some were very good: The Wild Duck, Ghosts, Master Builder and some others. Some I didn't enjoy at all: Peer Gynt and The League of Youth.
Want to Read
February 5, 2020I Wonder ...
July 30, 2021
Satires on the Bourgeoise lifestyles.
March 23, 2023
A Doll's House
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