Ebb and Flow: Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea and the Possibility of Feminine Discourse

Ebb and Flow: Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea and the Possibility of Feminine Discourse JAMES LEIGH "She" is indefinitely other in herself. That is undoubtedly the reason she is called temperamental , incomprehensible, perturbed, capricious - not to mention her language in which "she" goes off in all directions and in which "he" is unable to discern the coherence of any meaning. - Luee Irigaray, Ce sexe qui n'esl pas un l I find you almost frightening. Mrs. Alving. - Hcmik Ibsen, Ghosts2 If you read - or even look at - the Norwegian text of Henrik Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea, you can appreciate some of the problems with the first words.3 For the title there is Fruen fro havet, and fruen is invariably rendered into English as "the lady." In this way, a term that is politically, socially and culturally charged in Norwegian is domesticated (Ladies Home Journal), formalized ("Ladies and Gentlemen") and/or inoffensively biologicized (Ladies Room). For in Norwegian,ft'ue has a very limited range of uses and meanings: it is not "lady" (dame) and certainly not "woman" (kvinne). A dictionary will tell you that it is the equivalent of "madame" or "mistress," which - need it even be said? - is only in the sense of a title given to a married woman or one who, because of her age, should be. In another form , in fact, Frue functions as "Mrs." In its several forms, therefore, it inexorably situates the referent, Ellida Wangel, in a pOlitical, economic and social hierarchy, in a position of inequality and subordination. While the present essay does not pretend to be a historical analysis, there is nonetheless no question that the specificity of middle-class Norwegian domestic life in the 1880s is one of the dominant elements in the play. Furthermore , it can and probably should be related to that period's feminist movement, called the "Woman Question" in Norway. For it was written in Modern Drama, 41 (1998) 119 120 JAMES LEIGH 1888, a full nine yeaIs after A Doll House, which, in the words of Joan Templeton , despite Ibsen's well-known protestations to the contrary, "made Ibsen a recognized champion of the feminist cause.'" Templeton demonstrates that a considerable amount of critical energy has been expended in assenions that "since A Doll House is true an, then A Doll House cannot be about feminism," such a subject being "too limited to be the stuff of literature."5 The Ladyfrom the Sea has been similarly considered: it is said that the play, through "caIefully contrived [and developed) settings transcend[s) the 'limited local life.' ,,,; That is, it becomes a human drama, and "has ... a very special light to shed on the meaning of Ibsen's tragic vision of man in the modem saecutum .'" Moreover, The Ladyfrom the Sea, we are told, is about "incipient insanity ," and the Lady's "cure" by her loving husband, the good Dr. Wangel' If, from such a perspective, the "Woman Question" is even in question, the answer would be that it is asickness. The good news. however, is that it is not incurable. A more serious problem, perhaps, is that many critics, since the play was first staged, have been of the opinion that it is simply bad. But is that all there is? Is it just a slip of the pen, a second-rate play by a masterthat is "about" a temperamental, capricious housewife who temporarily loses her bearings, but is helped back on course? If so, we must take at face value the apparently didactic conclusion of the play, the "cure," and even Ellida's statement to her husband in Act Five: "you've been a good doctor for me. You found, and you daIed to use the right treatment - the only one that could help me" (687). In shon, however "transcendent" it may be, is the play merely a working-out of a woman's acceptance of the "responsibilit[ies)" of her role as Wife and Mother (685) - "acclam - acclimati[zation)," in the words of the puckish Ballested (688)? It must be emphasized, however, just as the present essay does not pretend to be a historical analysis. neither is it meant...