The Burden of Selfishness in Ibsen's Modernist Plays

The characters in "A Doll's House" and "The Master Builder" by Henrik Ibsen are so held down by their own selfishness that they can only fantasize that they themselves have the power to lift off the ground and fly. Selfishness lays such a burden upon the characters, even though they do not realize their selfish actions, and in return their actions result in hurting themselves and the ones they loved. Nora Helmer from "A Doll's House" focuses her energy on the importance of her husband's money and centers her own pride here. Although Nora sees herself as an independent woman towards the end of the play, she never realizes how selfish she has acted through her marriage with Torvald. Nora claims that she has done everything in the power of her husband, and the whole reason she forged a signature was to save his life. She says that all her wrong doings were for the reasonable purpose of love, "I'm not such a fool as that. I did it for love, didn't I?" (29). Nora dumbs down to assure Torvald he is right, and when she agrees he responds with, "There's my little sky-lark talking common sense" (69). Torvald, being extremely selfish himself, refers to Nora as his little songbird and defines his idea of a wife to her. He constantly tells her to continue on chirruping and flying about the house like usual, as any wife should do. When something goes wrong Torvald leaps to make Nora her chirrupy self again, "Now, now, not so wild and excitable! Let me see you being my own little singing bird again" (60). Towards the end when Nora decides to leave him he turns his "singing skylark" perception of her into an innocent dove, pointing out his power over her, "Here you can find refuge. Here I shall hold you like a hunted dove I have rescued unscathed from the cruel talons of the hawk, and calm your poor beating heart" (78). He connects her to flying and being free even though neither of them are. Hilde Wangel of A Master Builder lays her selfishness upon Harvald Solness. Solness has built churches and homes his whole life has a tremendous fear of heights, and when Hilde demands her castles in the air with "a tremendously high tower," he is already stricken with fear. Hilde, who looks towards her selfish demands of castles in the air and living solely with Solness becomes blinded by her fantasies of living up in the air. Being in the air and flying continues back to the conservation between Solness and Hilde about happiness in homes, and Hilde's sudden need to fly after being in a metaphorical cage in her father's home, "All I had was a cage…A forest bird never wants a cage…Preferring to swoop through the empty sky…"(339). A hint of selfishness in Mrs. Solness's character is also seen when she discusses the death of her children from the fire with Hilde. She says that it is the little things that affect her so, like all of the materialistic objects which were destroyed in the fire, "All the old portraits on the walls were burnt. And all the silk dresses were burnt…all Mother's and Grandmother's lace – that was burnt too. And even the jewels! And all the dolls" (335). Hilde spends pensive moments speaking of her castles in the air which she lays directly on the master builder, Solness. Of course Hilde can not really strive to mentally lift her self above her fantasies, and in the end this leads to the death of Solness which is a result of blindly climbing into the sky for Hilde's selfish ideas. I believe that Ibsen uses the symbols of flying, birds, cages, and air in his plays to represent the strain on the characters to move past their fantasies and soar into their own happiness. Ibsen shows the importance of flying against the orders of another character. Even though Nora is able to fly away at the end of the play, she was held down by her husband's and her own selfishness the whole time. The imagery of soaring connects to the modernist ideas of new discoveries and societal changes. In the modern period of 1860 to today artists, musicians, and writers have rebelled against the late 19th century artistic traditions. In their work they have used abstract characters, unexpected music, and odd twists in paintings to show their modernist conceptions of the world. Flying through the air represents the modernists rising above the ways of artwork through other centuries. Large architectural structures such as the Eiffel Tower, or Hilde's castles in the air, were built in the modernist period, and from then on modernists continued to deviate from the normal ways of artwork. In conclusion, as seen in the two plays by Henrik Ibsen, modernist characters Nora Helmer and Hilde Wangel hold themselves down by their own selfishness and are not able to fly from their metaphorical cage. In both plays the characters convince themselves that they are mostly trying to help their loved ones and be completely sympathetic with them, when really they are holding themselves down by their own selfishness.

Ibsen, Henrik. "A Doll's House." Four Major Plays. Great Britain: Oxford UP, 1981. 1-88.

Ibsen, Henrik. "The Master Builder." Four Major Plays. Great Britain: Oxford UP, 1981. 267-355.