Product Description

The four plays in this volume, written late in Ibsen’s career as a dramatist, move away from his earlier preoccupation with people at odds with society to instead explore the inward struggle with their own thoughts, feelings and dreams. The Master Builder (1892) depicts a powerful man whose illusions collapse in the face of a young woman’s courageous common sense. In Rosmersholm (1886), an idealist is forced to question his beliefs and confront terrible truths about the past, while Little Eyolf (1894) portrays a man’s self-deception, which brings both tragic repercussions for his family and new hope for their future. And in John Gabriel Borkman (1896), a dying woman returns to reclaim the affections and loyalty of her nephew, resulting in a bitter struggle with her sister.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #307576 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-29
• Original language: Norwegian
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

About the Author
Henrik Ibsen was born at Skien in Norway in 1828. He was one of the earliest writers to dramatise the individual's alienation from society. Although never fully appreciated during his lifetime, he has since come to be recognised as one of the greatest dramatists and the 'Father of Modern Drama'. Translated by Una Ellis-Fermor

Customer Reviews

"Some day the younger generation will come knocking."
Written in 1892, when Ibsen was a mature playwright, this tension-filled play focuses on an older man's fear that he will be replaced by the younger generation before he has been able to reconcile his professional success with his personal sacrifices. Halvard Solness is a Master Builder who once built churches and towers but who now builds only houses. Arrogant, manipulative, and often paranoid, there is little he will not do to control outcomes.

When Hilde Wangel suddenly knocks on his door, the younger generation arrives. Exuberant and flirtatious, Hilde reminds Halvard that exactly ten years ago, when she was the twelve-year-old daughter of a client, he called her his little princess and promised to buy her a kingdom. Ingratiating herself with Halvard, Hilde listens as he reveals his accumulated guilt, his fear of godly retribution, and his simultaneous belief that he is one of the "special people" who can bring his desires to fruition through the summoning of demons, "called 'luck' by others." Hilde, believing she can free him creatively, urges the acrophobic Halvard to place a wreath at the top of the tower on the house he has built for his wife-a symbolic celebration of a new kind of life through Hilde, building castles in the air.

The characters, though full of passion, are not always realistic. Their psychological grounding seems uncertain, and their behavior does not seem to flow out of a sense of personal unity. Halvard believes that certain people can make direct connections with him and read his mind. He also believes that that his success has occurred because years ago he made a bargain with demons which resulted in the loss of everything he and his wife held dear-he is successful, but guilty. Though he has rejected religion, he is tormented by the need for retribution. Hilde, for her part, became obsessed with Halvard at the age of twelve, and she believes that now, after ten years, they can build castles together.

Ibsen's dark vision here seems to combine classical tragedy with a belief in the Nordic spirit world and in the newly evolving psychoscience of Freud. Often considered Ibsen's masterpiece, the play is powerful to watch, but eerie and unsettling--its pessimistic message equivocal--and one concludes the play not knowing how much free will Ibsen believes men really have and what kind of spirit world he thinks may control it. (5 stars for its period, 4 stars for its relevance to the present) Mary Whipple