Trolls in Ibsen's Late Plays

Trolls in Ibsen's Late Plays Stephen S. Stanton Our whole being is nothing but a fight against the dark forces within ourselves. — Henrik Ibsen Supernatural or paranatural beings haunt many Ibsen plays, from Catiline in 1 849 to When We Dead Awaken (Nâr vi dode Vâgner) in 1899. Drawing on Scandinavian folklore, Ibsen used demon characters psychologically as alter egos of certain protagonists to suggest their unconscious level of perception, especially their demonic urges toward evil and/or the irrational. The mad girl Gerd in Brand (1865) and the trolls in Peer Gynt (1867) readily come to mind as symbolic clues to the hero's mental distress . But so far, Ibsen's trolls as alter egos of other characters have not received the attention they deserve. In this essay, I shall be concerned with trolls principally in five of the last seven plays: Rosmersholm (1886), The Lady from the Sea (Fruen fra havet, 1 888), Hedda Gabler (1 890), The Master Builder (Bygmester Solness, 1892), and Little Eyolf(Lille Eyolf, 1894). In the first two these demons are projected as mysteriously motivated Doppelg änger (in human form) of the protagonists themselves. In Hedda Gabler they take animate and inanimate forms, the latter being symbolically present in the flames of Hedda's stove (and standing for the heroine's destructive emotions). Ofthe remaining four plays, The Master Builder—as well as John Gabriel Borkman (1896) and When We Dead Awaken—is in the second category , with trolls taking human, inanimate, or abstract form or being subliminally, invisibly present. (Even the white horses of Rosmersholm can be accommodated here.) In Little Eyolf, a troll materializes undisguised as a supernatural creature of folklore. In conclusion, I trace a progressive pattern of amelioration in the trolls and consider the significance of their being part of or absent from the action. Can trolls be conquered? As Peer Gynt affirmed earlier in Ibsen's career, trolls may, in the words of Francis Bull, be defined as "the evil forces of Nature . . . embodying and symbolizing those powers of evil, hidden 541 542Comparative Drama in the soul of man, which may at times suppress his conscious will and dominate his actions."1 They also represent the animalistic , opportunistic, acquisitive, materialistic, and irrational side of our nature. These traits are summed up by Muriel C. Bradbrook: "A troll is humanity minus the specifically human qualities, at once a hideous parody of man and yet only the isolation of his worst potentialities. . . . The troll is the animal version of man, the alternative to man: he is also what man fears he may become ."2 Reidar Thorwald Christiansen claims that Norwegian creatures of folklore are divided into groups supposedly diverse but which possess characteristics endemical to all, while a troll is a "[m]alevolent ogre of superhuman size and strength. Sometimes, however, the term denotes any kind of demon. . . . [I]n international usage . . . troll has come to stand for all types of Norwegian supernatural beings."3 Although diffuse, this definition seems to embrace the remarkably different categories of folkloric beings in Ibsen's last plays. These include huldre-folk, elle-folk, mermaids , witches, dwarfs—and trolls. In folk tradition, one distinction between a troll and a hulder (or mermaid) is that the troll often represents or reveals the hulder's animality, usually symbolized by a hidden cow's (or fish's) tail. Hedda Gabler, supposedly a hulder,4 wishes to hide her legs (her repressed sexuality) from view, but the prostitute Diana indirectly reveals this sexuality. Although mermaids Rebecca West and Ellida Wangel5 may be imagined to have grown legs so as to marry humans, all three heroines hide or sublimate their demonically lustful libido. Undermining conventional propriety, Hilde (The Master Builder), Rita (Little Eyolf), Fanny (John Gabriel Borkman), and Irene (When We Dead Awaken) initially appear sexually aggressive and destructive. Discounting Rosmer, whose seduction of Rebecca is asexual, Ella Rentheim, and Fanny Wilton, I see Dr. West, the Stranger, Diana, Hilde, the Rat Wife, Borkman's dwarfish "spirits of the gold," and Rubek's marble statuary as troll alter egos. The Rat Wife, with her familiar spirit—a dog—is also a witch; the mountain-climbing Hilde...