In a letter to George Brandes, shortly after the Paris Commune, Henrik
Ibsen wrote concerning the State and political liberty:
"The State is the curse of the individual. How has the national strength
of Prussia been purchased? By the sinking of the individual in a
political and geographical formula.... The State must go! That will be a
revolution which will find me on its side. Undermine the idea of the
State, set up in its place spontaneous action, and the idea that
spiritual relationship is the only thing that makes for unity, and you
will start the elements of a liberty which will be something worth
possessing."
The State was not the only _bête noire_ of Henrik Ibsen. Every other
institution which, like the State, rests upon a lie, was an iniquity to
him. Uncompromising demolisher of all false idols and dynamiter of all
social shams and hypocrisy, Ibsen consistently strove to uproot every
stone of our social structure. Above all did he thunder his fiery
indictment against the four cardinal sins of modern society: the Lie
inherent in our social arrangements; Sacrifice and Duty, the twin curses
that fetter the spirit of man; the narrow-mindedness and pettiness of
Provincialism, that stifles all growth; and the Lack of Joy and Purpose
in Work which turns life into a vale of misery and tears.
So strongly did Ibsen feel on these matters, that in none of his works
did he lose sight of them. Indeed, they recur again and again, like a
_Leitmotif_ in music, in everything he wrote. These issues form the
keynote to the revolutionary significance of his dramatic works, as well
as to the psychology of Henrik Ibsen himself.
It is, therefore, not a little surprising that most of the interpreters
and admirers of Ibsen so enthusiastically accept his art, and yet remain
utterly indifferent to, not to say ignorant of, the message contained in
it. That is mainly because they are, in the words of Mrs. Alving, "so
pitifully afraid of the light." Hence they go about seeking mysteries
and hunting symbols, and completely losing sight of the meaning that is
as clear as daylight in all of the works of Ibsen, and mainly in the
group of his social plays, "The Pillars of Society," "A Doll's House,"
"Ghosts," and "An Enemy of the People."