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| Impression, Claude Monet |
I have found Ibsen’s The Master Builder to be an arbitrary tale through my initial experience with it. I definitely do not have any expertise in the art of literature and I am not knowledgeable of many play writes unfortunately, but Ibsen’s prosaic design that weaves these unique plays has greatly impressed me so far. In a previous class discussion we discovered a mythological pattern embedded in the realism of Ibsen’s work. This notion was further understood through subsequently being enlightened through further readings of Ibsen’s plays being analogous to an impressionist painting. I discovered this comparison to be perfect in the illustration of The Master Builder.
Impressionism is defined as having characteristics of an open composition that emphasizes the depiction of light in the scene and its changing qualities[ii]. Like an impressionistic painting Ibsen accentuates the evolution of the plot through the lighting of each act and the setting of each act. In The Master Builder for example the play commences in a closed workroom that is illuminated by the artificial light of lamps, Act II is set in an open drawing room consisting of a large bay window and glass doors looking out onto the veranda that fill the room with natural light. Finally in Act III, the scene takes place outside in the large veranda at sunset. This composition I believe illustrates the process of the discovery of Mr. Solness’ tragic past and the revealing of Solness’ soul throughout the progression of the story. This is accomplished by taking a retrospective view of Solness’ life.
A superficial examination of an impressionistic painting would display what seems to be a series of senseless paint strokes of illogical colors and depths but if you step back and absorb the entire picture the “senseless” paint strokes create a magical depiction of human perception of the environment around us. In context of The Dolls House, the fantasy of the doll house and the mythological reference of Thor and Helen envelope the realism of Ibsen's play into an impressionistic picture. It can be detected through the literary metaphors in Ibsen’s’ plays such as castles in the sky and the trolls inside me. These literary devices may seem silly and pointless to the casual observer but are in fact crucial to the overall understanding of the velleity of Ibsen. The egotistical Mr. Solness is portrayed by Ibsen as a beautiful composite painting through his intricate paint strokes of fantasy and illusive literary metaphors that cannot be dissected into miniscule parts but must be examined as a whole. Solness is in fact a man that consists of shadows of desperate desire and a skewed perception of how the world reacts around him. Through these means of analysis, the conclusion of the play is not a tragic end to Mr. Solness but one that is more complex and glorious.
Ragner: How horrible this is. So he couldn’t do it after all.
Ragner: How horrible this is. So he couldn’t do it after all.
Hilda: Bu he went right to the top. And I heard harps in the air. (Swings the shawl up overhead and cries out with wild intensity.) My-my master builder! (422)
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