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The 12-Play Cycle
In THE IBSEN
CYCLE, I follow Ibsen's own account of his plays as a "Cycle"
with "mutual connections between the plays" which, as he further
insisted, should be read in the order in which they were created. Pillars
of Society inaugurates the Cycle and is pregnant with themes, images,
archetypes and characters that will evolve throughout the Cycle, somewhat
as Richard Wagner's Das Rheingold establishes the themes and
leitmotifs that will evolve throughout Der Ring des Nibelungen.
The twelve plays thus form a single, aesthetically ambitious artwork,
a tripartite unity with four plays to each group. Each group has its
own design, as distinct as the tripartite division of Dante's COMMEDIA.
('Divine Comedy') while the Cycle as a whole reveals a dialectical evolution
from the first play, Pillars of Society, to the last, When
We Dead Awaken.
Pillars
of Society
A Doll House
Ghosts
An Enemy of the People
The
Wild Duck
Rosmersholm
The Lady from the Sea
Hedda Gabler
The
Master Builder
Little Eyolf
John Gabriel Borkman
When We Dead Awaken
The First Group: Pillars
of Society; A Doll House; Ghosts; An Enemy of the People
The first group sets out a structure of symmetrical parallels and contrasts
that will be the procedure, also, of the second and third groups. For
a more complete account of this procedure see 'The Structure of the
Cycle' in THE IBSEN CYCLE, (pp. 98 - 186). The design of the
whole Cycle can be gauged by looking at that of the first group.
There are two 'outer' plays that open and close the group and prepare
for the evolution to the second group; and two 'inner plays that explore
other dimensions of the dialectic. The two 'outer plays, Pillars
of Society and An Enemy of the People show striking parallels.
In both plays the clearly contrasting leading figures are male:
the 'pillar of society', KARSTEN BERNICK and the rebel or 'enemy of
society', THOMAS STOCKMAN. In both plays there are notable crowd scenes
of public occasion. Both plays focus on our humanity in its public and
social aspect and are noisy and confrontational. Both end with a tableau
of the hero flanked by his family.
The two 'inner' plays show
a similar symmetry. Here, the leading figures are female
- NORAL HELMER and HELENE ALVING; and both plays are notably domestic
and 'interior' in imagery and subject matter, focusing on the themes
of marriage and the family. 'Nora' is a diminutive of 'Eleanora' - an
alternative form of "Helen', suggesting a link between the two
heroines.
The final play of this group, AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE, concludes
this tetralogy with its predominantly 'Greek' dialectic, themes and
imagery and, in the last Act, introduces the 'Christian' dialectic,
themes and imagery of the second group.
The Second Group: The
Wild Duck; Rosmersholm; The Lady from the Sea; Hedda Gabler
The two opening and closing plays of this second group, The Wild
Duck; Hedda Gabler, also reveal striking parallels. In both we find
interior scenes divided between a foreground room associated with work
and everyday reality, and a more secretive and escapist background room:
a visual dualism that is extended into a wide-ranging psychological,
social, and metaphysical dualism. There are many other curious
parallels: both plays, uniquely in the cycle, are punctuated by two
pistol shots, and in both, the similarly names heroines, HEDVIG-HEDDA,
retreat to the background room to shoot themselves. Lieutenant Ekdal
dons full dress uniform to stand over the body of Hedvig, and Hedda
is discovered beneath the portrait of her uniformed father, General
Gabler. In both plays the somewhat similar Hjalmar Ekdal and Jørgen
Tesman have been brought up by two maiden aunts; in both households
there is a cynical and controlling (and 'satanic') neighbor, Relling
and Judge Brack.
The two inner plays, Rosmersholm; The Lady from the Sea also
have themes and imagery in common. In a first draft of the play, the
priest, Rosmer was given the two daughters now transferred to Wangel;
both male characters have a deceased wife in the background and a wayward
and somewhat mysterious partner in the present. Rebecca West, from northern
Finnmark is termed a 'mermaid', 'sea troll', and 'witch', while the
mermaid-like Ellida Wangel was referred to as "the pagan' by 'an
old priest'.
This second group opens
and closes in a condition of entrapment and unfreedom.
Hedda Gabler retreats to her inner room, curtained off from the curtained
living room, to shoot herself to escape the loss of freedom threatened
by Judge Brack. The time of year is the Fall - the time of year in which
the first play of the third group opens. The Master Builder begins
in the same condition of entrapment, loss of freedom as Hedda Gabler,
and the stage set is again divided between foreground and background
rooms. But this is only the precondition for a dynamic of liberation
from intolerable confinement that will govern the entire third group.
The Third Group The Master Builder: Little Eyolf; John Gabriel
Borkman; When We Dead Awaken
The opening and closing plays, The Master Builder; When We Dead Awaken
dramatize the agons of the leading characters as artists (master
builder Solness; sculptor Rubek) burdened and constrained by past guilt
and finally breaking free for exultantly assertive but fatal actions
of ascent and fall. The actions of each play are instigated by 'unexpected
visitors from the past' to whom promises were made, and who lure the
artists 'upward' to their deaths.
The two inner plays, Little Eyolf; John Gabriel Borkman portray
marriages torn apart by conflict over the possession of the younger
generation.
The following diagram can best set out the structure
and design of this last group:
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Mountain peak
When We Dead Awaken
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Hilltop
- Mountain View
John Gabriel Borkman
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Estate
hillock
Little Eyolf
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Tower
top
The Master Builder
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Last
Act
Endings
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EVENING
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LATE
EVENING
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NIGHT
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DAWN
BEFORE SUNRISE
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The four plays in succession
form a distinct evolutionary sequence. The last act endings show a clear
progression from evening to dawn while the scenography reveals an equally
clear pattern of ascent within an expanding natural scene.
As Ibsen is a meticulous artist, our interpretation of the individual
plays and of the Cycle as a whole cannot begin to be adequate - or serious
- until we engage with this huge structural dimension of his
art.
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