Ibsen's Symbolism 3 



it renders many situations in his plays very improbable, clearly a 

 violation of the realistic technique. This tendency is particu- 

 larly clear in The Master Builder. That Mrs. Solnesz should 

 prefer her dolls to her children violates our notions of probability, 

 but as an impressionistic device of portraying the slavish devo- 

 tion of this woman to her past, it is very effective. 



To put it mildly, the appearance of Hilde Wangel is anything 

 but realistic, anything but probable. She comes exactly ten years 

 after the crowning of the church, she has no trunk, she is mature 

 and rather shrewd yet takes seriously an offhand promise given 

 by a man who clearly was posing for effect. In spite of her 

 silly confidence in his promise, this daughter of a village physi- 

 cian at once sees through all of the tricks of Solnesz, resolutely 

 readjusts his life, drives him up the steeple and insists on having 

 him put himself on the merit basis. 



But the moment we look upon Hilde Wangel as one who has 

 the characteristics that we have learned to associate with the 

 ideal, the inconsistencies disappear. As Lowell puts it, " some 

 day the soft ideal that we wooed confronts us." Just so Hilde 

 confronts Solnesz. We have learned in this connection to think 

 of the ideal as " claiming of thee the promise of thy youth." 

 We have come to think of the ideal as exacting, cruel, relentless, 

 persistent and objective. As a type figure Hilde at a stroke be- 

 comes thoroughly plausible to us. 



The genesis of the figure in the poet's mind is clearly this : 

 Ibsen had met some woman whose actions and utterances reminded 

 him strongly of the conception that he had of the ideal. Upon 

 this concrete basis he gradually, consciously or unconsciously, 

 worked out the Hilde of the play, giving her additional charac- 

 teristics of the type that had become fixed in his mind. 



In the portrayal of Solnesz, it is again the typical that is of 

 interest to Ibsen. It is not at all probable that a given master 

 builder who did not have genuine professional ideals would be 

 dishonest to the extent to which Solnesz is. Let us remember 

 how many characteristics and circumstances Ibsen has connected 

 with this figure : Solnesz has not only failed to prepare properly 



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