The play is, according to the phrase,
a problem-play, but the problem is the problem of all Ibsen's plays:
the desire of life, the attraction of life, the mystery of life. Only,
we see the eternal question under a new, strange aspect. The sea calls
to the blood of this woman, who has married into an inland home; and the
sea-cry, which is the desire of more abundant life, of unlimited
freedom, of an unknown ecstasy, takes form in a vague Stranger, who has
talked to her of the seabirds in a voice like their own, and whose eyes
seem to her to have the green changes of the sea. It is an admirable
symbol, but when a bearded gentleman with a knapsack on his back climbs
over the garden wall and says: "I have come for you; are you coming?"
and then tells the woman that he has read of her marriage in the
newspaper, it seemed as if the symbol had lost a good deal of its
meaning in the gross act of taking flesh. The play haunts one, as it is,
but it would have haunted one with a more subtle witchcraft if the
Stranger had never appeared upon the stage. Just as Wagner insisted upon
a crawling and howling dragon, a Fafner with a name of his own and a
considerable presence, so Ibsen brings the supernatural or the
subconscious a little crudely into the midst of his persons of the
drama.
Pages:
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113