Rosmersholm by Henrik Ibsen

1/ In Rosmersholm, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, and—if I remember correctly—The Doll’s House, Ibsen seems closer to the ancient Greeks than to Shakespeare, in the sense that the drama lies not in what the characters are now doing, but in the discovery of, and reaction to, what they did in the past. There are two important differences though: the Greeks wrote about mythical characters, Ibsen wrote about ordinary people; the Greek plays are based on myths known to the audience, Ibsen’s plays have an element of surprise. You may, for example, read Oedipus the King and watch the way Oedipus slowly discovers the painful truth about his sins, which you already know; you may read Electra and watch her reaction to the news of Orestes’s death, which you already know is a trap; but reading Rosmersholm, you must piece together the picture at the same time as some of the characters. It’s captivating, but it’s also disturbing—you think you know someone, but you don’t—your perception of the characters changes, then changes again, then changes again as things unfold. And Ibsen is one of those writers who are utterly terrifying—there’s something harsh and uncompromising and ruthless about him. 

(I read the translation by James MacFarlane). 

2/ Rosmersholm is about Johannes Rosmer (former clergyman and owner of Rosmersholm) and his companion Rebecca West, one year after the suicide of Rosmer’s wife Beata. Like Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, Beata casts a long shadow after her death, seeming to never go away. The interesting part, I would argue, is that the play is not really a depiction of two people haunted by the past. When the play begins, one year after the suicide, Rosmer may avoid the bridge but he and Rebecca West both seem to live peacefully. The trouble only begins when Kroll, Beata’s brother, visits them again after a long time and, after an argument about Rosmer’s new ideas and apostasy, sows some seeds of doubt and guilt in his mind, breaking Rosmer’s peace of mind and the peace at Rosmersholm. Rosmer and Kroll also force Rebecca to confront the past and confess the truth—you think you know someone, but you don’t—it changes her and Rosmer’s perception of her and their relationship.

The play, I think, is more about the chaos that lies underneath the surface of our lives. A bit of disturbance and everything collapses. 

    

3/ Spoiler alert: those of you who have not read or seen the play are warned that for the rest of the blog post, I may discuss significant plot points. 

Rosmersholm is a complex, multi-layered play. There are lots of things to say. One can focus on the clash of ideas in the play; or the fanaticism and cruelty of the conservative Kroll; or the hypocrisy of the radical Peder Mortensgaard; or the impossibility of knowing the truth and understanding Beata; or the truth about Rosmer’s marriage with Beata (and their sex life); or Rosmer’s dependence and his need for a role model; or the joylessness at Rosmersholm and its influence on Rebecca; or the character of Mrs Helseth, the housekeeper; or the image of White Horses; or the ending; and so on. 

However, a couple of things particularly fascinate me. One is the theme of truth. For some reason, I generally only see people talk about social issues, feminism, etc. when talking about Ibsen, which is a very superficial reading of Ibsen’s plays. As my friend Himadri—the Ibsen expert—has pointed out, Ibsen is obsessed with the truth and its different aspects: the consequence of hiding the truth, the cost of exposing the truth, the importance of truth, the impossibility of knowing the truth… In this play, there are lots of questions. What’s the truth about the marriage at Rosmersholm? Was Beata oversexed or was Rosmer undersexed? Did she hold him back, constrain, limit him? Who actually drove her to suicide? Why did she, before death, reach out to Mortensgaard? What does Rebecca mean about her past? 

Rosmersholm is, I think, about the chaos that lies underneath the surface of daily life—there is peace when Rosmer doesn’t know and Rebecca doesn’t confront the truth—and when she does, everything collapses, his faith in her is destroyed, life is impossible. 

Another fascinating thing is that in Act 3, Ibsen places together two terrifying characters, confronting each other: one is Kroll, ready to do anything for his ideas, regardless of personal relationships; the other is Rebecca, ready to do anything for power over another person, regardless of life and death. In a way, Rebecca West has something of Hedda Gabler, one of the most terrifying female characters in literature (why is Ibsen like this, though?). 

The play also shows the difficulty—if not impossibility—of really knowing another person: you may live in the same house with someone, you may fall in love with them, but they may turn out to be completely different from what you thought. It’s a dreadful thought. 

This is a masterpiece, but I need some time to recover.