"In my faith, in my hope, in my love."
In these words we have the main ethical problem solved; and Peer's
_perception_ of the truth (_vide_ Mr. Wicksteed's remarks quoted
above) is the one necessary climax of the poem. We do not care a
farthing--at least, I do not care a farthing--whether Peer escape the
Button-Moulder or not. It may be too late for him, or there may be yet
time to live another life; but whatever the case may be, it doesn't
alter what Ibsen set out to prove. The problem which Ibsen shirks (if
indeed he does shirk it) is a subsidiary problem--a rider, so to
speak. Can Solveig by her love redeem Peer Gynt? Can the woman save
the man's soul? Will she, after all, cheat the Button-Moulder of his
victim?
The poet, by giving Solveig the last word, seems to think it possible.
According to Mr. Archer, the Ibsen of to-day would know it to be
impossible. He knows (none better) that "No man can save his brother's
soul or pay his brother's debt." "No, nor women neither," adds Mr.
Archer.
Is Peer's Redemption a romantic Fallacy?
But is this so? _Peer Gynt_ was published in 1867. I turn to _A Doll's
House_, written twelve years later, and I find there a woman preparing
to redeem a man just as Solveig prepares to redeem Peer. I find in Mr.
Archer's translation of that play the following page of dialogue:--
_Mrs. Linden_: There's no happiness in working for oneself, Nils;
give me somebody and something to work for.
_Krogstad_: No, no; that can never be. It's simply a woman's
romantic notion of self-sacrifice.
_Mrs. Linden_: Have you ever found me romantic?
_Krogstad_: Would you really--? Tell me, do you know my past?
_Mrs. Linden_: Yes.
_Krogstad_: And do you know what people say of me?
_Mrs. Linden_: Didn't you say just now that with me you could
have been another man?
_Krogstad_: I am sure of it.
_Mrs. Linden_: Is it too late?
_Krogstad_: Christina, do you know what you are doing? Yes, you
do; I see it in your face. Have you the courage--?
_Mrs. Linden_: I need someone to tend, and your children need a
mother. You need me, and I--I need you. Nils, I believe in your
better self. With you I fear nothing.
Ibsen's hopes of Enfranchised Women.
Again, we are not told if Mrs. Linden's experiment is successful; but
Ibsen certainly gives no hint that she is likely to fail. This was in
1879. In 1885 Ibsen paid a visit to Norway and made a speech to some
workingmen at Drontheim, in which this passage occurred:--
"Democracy by itself cannot solve the social question. We must
introduce an aristocratic element into our life. I am not
referring, of course, to an aristocracy of birth, or of purse, or
even of intellect. I mean an aristocracy of character, of will,
of mind. That alone can make us free. From two classes will this
aristocracy I desire come to us--_from our women and our
workmen_. The social revolution, now preparing in Europe, is
chiefly concerned with the future of the workers and the women.
On this I set all my hopes and expectations...."
I think it would be easy to multiply instances showing that, though
Ibsen may hold that no man can save his brother's soul, he does not
extend this disability to women, but hopes and believes, on the
contrary, that women will redeem mankind. On men he builds little
hope. To speak roughly, men are all in Peer Gynt's case, or Torvald
Helmer's. They are swathed in timid conventions, blindfolded with
selfishness, so that they cannot perceive, and unable with their own
hands to tear off these bandages. They are incapable of the highest
renunciation. "No man," says Torvald Helmer, "sacrifices his honor,
even for one he loves." Those who heard Miss Achurch deliver Nora's
reply will not easily forget it. "Millions of women have done so." The
effect in the theatre was tremendous. This sentence clinched the whole
play.
Millions of women are, like Solveig, capable of renouncing all for
love, of surrendering self altogether; and, as I read Ibsen, it is
precisely on this power of renunciation that he builds his hope of
man's redemption. So that, unless I err greatly, the scene in _Peer
Gynt_ which Mr. Archer calls a shirking of the ethical problem, is
just the solution which Ibsen has been persistent in presenting to the
world.
Let it be understood, of course, that it is only your Solveigs and
Mrs. Lindens who can thus save a brother's soul: women who have made
their own way in the world, thinking for themselves, working for
themselves, freed from the conventions which man would impose on them.
I know Mr. Archer will not retort on me with Nora, who leaves her
husband and children, and claims that her first duty is to herself.
Nora is just the woman who cannot redeem a man. Her Doll's House
training is the very opposite of Solveig's and Mrs. Linden's. She is a
silly girl brought up amid conventions, and awakened, by one blow, to
the responsibilities of life. That she should at once know the right
course to take would be incredible in real life, and impossible in a
play the action of which has been evolved as inevitably as real life.
Many critics have supposed Ibsen to commend Nora's conduct in the last
act of the play. He neither sanctions nor condemns. But he does
contrast her in the play with Mrs. Linden, and I do not think that
contrast can be too carefully studied.