W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 1973 What Price Greatness: A Study of the Protagonists in Three Plays by Henrik Ibsen---"The Master Builder", "John Gabriel Borkman", and "When We Dead Awaken" Janet Rose Fuchs College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the Scandinavian Studies Commons, and the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons Recommended Citation Fuchs, Janet Rose, "What Price Greatness: A Study of the Protagonists in Three Plays by Henrik Ibsen--- "The Master Builder", "John Gabriel Borkman", and "When We Dead Awaken"" (1973). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539624815. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-7wrb-5n62 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WHAT PRICE GREATNESS? : A STUDY OF THE PROTAGONISTS IN *» THREE PLAYS BY HENRIK IBSEN—THE MASTER BUILDER, JOHN GABRIEL BORKMAN, AND WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN A T hesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of English The College of William and Mary in Virginia In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Janet R0 Fuchs ProQuest Number: 10625271 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10625271 Published by ProQuest LLC (2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition© ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 - 1346 APPROVAL SHEET This thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Author Approved, May 1973 Louis E0 Catron I- P-u*+<- Jenneth/Peirce i i " • 1 - t - ' j - ABSTRACT This paper approaches three of Ibsen's last protagonists-- Halvard Solness in The Master Builder, John Gabriel Borkman in John Gabriel Borkman, and Arnold Rubek in When We Dead Awaken-- as studies in the "paradox of greatness." These men were all doomed by the very "greatness" that raised them above other men because in so doing it confronted them with questions of personal responsibility that were unanswerable and moral choices that were ultimately paradoxical. Their personal histories point to failure, although, ironi­ cally, they all sacrificed love and ordinary "happiness" to achieve the special kind of success (in terms of self-fulfillment or realiza­ tion of their special talents) they felt could and should be theirs. In other words, their sense of mission seemed to demand of them a withdrawal from love and a denial of commitment to others, yet it was this loss of humanity that kept them from fulfilling themselves and their missions. Part of the burden of this paper must be to assess Ibsen's judgment of these men. Although their failure and suffering--as well as the suffering they caused others—can, indeed, be traced to decisions made much earlier in their lives, Ibsen cannot condemn any more than he can condone the choices they made. He finds them unpardonably guilty of having killed love in others, but he will not say that they were wrong to sacrifice as they did, believing in their own nobility of purpose. He has no answer to the paradoxical problem of greatness; he can only suggest that greatness has its p ric e o Before examining the three plays in turn, this paper sets down some preliminaries that are essential to a clear and meaning­ ful presentation of the thesis. First, a brief background of the changing critical approaches to Ibsen will help the reader place this study within the framework of Ibsen criticism and to see that the emphasis here falls on the moral dimension in Ibsen’s work (and what, exactly, that is taken to mean). Second, it is important to define, as best we can, terms such as "greatness," "duty," and "responsibility." Third, the exclusion of Little Eyolf from this study (although that play appeared between The Master Builder and John Gabriel Borkman) must be fully explained. There follow separate considerations of the protagonists in the plays: three portraits of greatness, flawed, and of suffering. These discussions all lead to the conclusion that while Ibsen may not always admire Solness, Borkman, or Rubek, he does remain sympathetic to them in their struggle as exceptional men, and he does imply that the price of greatness may be worth paying. i i i WHAT PRICE GREATNESS? : A STUDY OF THE PROTAGONISTS IN THREE PLAYS BY HENRIK IBSEN—THE MASTER BUILDER, JOHN GABRIEL BORKMAN., AND WHEN WE. DEAD AWAKEN Through the histories of the protagonists in The Master Builder (1892), John Gabriel Borkman (1896), and When We Dead Awaken (1899), Ibsen explores problems of moral choice and questions of personal responsibility that confront the exceptional individual. In all three cases, he finds that the questions of responsibility can never be fully or adequately answered and the problems of moral decision are ultimately paradoxical. The purpose of the present study is to examine this paradox--which we will call the "paradox of greatness"—as it is presented and developed in the three plays under consideration. Since so much has been written about Ibsen, a brief account first of the changing perspectives on his work will enable the reader to see this approach in relation to the vast body of Ibsen c r itic is m . The nature of Henrik Ibsen’s literary reputation has shifted considerably since his death in 1906. In his own day, Ibsen was regarded as an iconoclast and an unrelenting social reformer.^ The appearance of plays such as A D oll’s House, Ghosts, An Enemy of the People, and The Wild Duck brought great excitement and praise from the Ibsenites, who saw in them mainly a challenge to "the sanctity of marriage, the omniscience of the church, the efficacy of idealism, the probity of constituted authority, the wisdom of the ’compact 2 majority.’" His eminent supporters in the last century, the ' k'.: . 2 intellectuals George Bernard Shaw and Georg Brandes, saw Ibsen in 3 the role of preacher: Shaw examined the "lessons” of the plays; Brandes emphasized the essentially polemical quality of Ibsen’s work.^ Although Ibsen himself had said in a now famous speech before the Norwegian Women’s Rights League in May, 1898, "I have been more of a poet and less of a social philosopher than people generally seem inclined to believe,""* it was not until twentieth-century Ibsen study was well under way that this statement was taken seriously. In 1928, Halvdan Koht wrote in his biography of Ibsen that "too many have attempted to make him a thinker or a philosopher, a social 6 critic or a social reformer." Subsequent criticism began to turn away from the search for social and moral instruction in Ibsen's plays. Part of this shift was, no doubt, due to the continuing popularity of Ibsen’s plays long after the social dogmas he attacked in nineteenth-century Europe had ceased to exist as such. Critics were forced to account for the survival of Ibsen's plays by looking beyond his insights into social and political questions. This re­ valuation of Ibsen’s contribution to the drama took two basic forms: on the one hand, appreciation of his technique as a journeyman drama- 7 g tist; on the other hand, recognition of Ibsen as a poet, regardless of whether he was writing in verse or in prose„ These approaches to Ibsen’s plays have done much to free him from the role of scourge of nineteenth-century European society and to reinstate him at an artistic level. As James Finn suggested in his 9 f 10 review of Koht s Life of Ibsen and Meyer s Ibsen: We now smile condescendingly at the fatuous idea that Ghosts is about syphilis, that notion being sufficient for the less so­ phisticated of our forebears; but .such views are a long time dying. There are still people who wish to treat A Doll1s House and Hedda Gabler as if Ibsen were an early enlistment in Women's Lib. There is nothing Ibsen would have scorned more, as his verdict on contemporaries who were so tempted makes clejj, and nothing less justified by the progression of his plays* Indeed, the view of Ibsen as social commentator on such matters as the role of women, the position of the church, and prevalent a tti­ tudes toward sex is now generally rejected as short-sighted and superficial. But this should not mean the rejection of the essen- 12 tially moral concern that pervades his work. I would agree with T. F. Driver's premise for his study of Ibsen: One may err in finding only the propagandist in Ibsen. One may err in judging him only by the realistic plays of the middle period, for which he has become most famous, and by seeing these as "problem" plays. Yet even when one has adjusted his sights and looked at the whole of Ibsen's life and work, he will find that the element of poetic acceptance in Ibsen-is everywhere overshadowed by the factor of moral judgment.