Loved It

[Dark Muse]

I just finished reading this play, and I have to say I loved it. Solness I found to be fascinating, and though in spite of his faults, and the fact that I did not agree with everything he did, I still could not help but to be drawn to him and to like him. He had a certain charisma I thought. The end was so terribly tragic. But this was such an interesting and moving work.

[Gladys]

He had a certain charisma I thought. The end was so terribly tragic.

I've just finished 'The Master Builder' and also loved it. Of the several Ibsen plays I've read in recent weeks, only the early play 'The League of Youth' has been less than riveting.

You found the ending tragic, Dark Muse? No way. Everything worked for the best for all parties. The 'castles in the air', which Solness finally builds, is his crowning achievement: a solution to so many intractable life problems. He builds 'on a firm foundation' for the future happiness of all.

Though only Hilda discerns immediately his triumph. A wonderful line is Hilda's, 'Oh--that girl--that Kaia at the desk. Poor thing--don't you want to take her with you too?' And he does!

[Dark Muse]

I still think the ending was tragic, I do not see it in the same light. And well I am not completely certain of Hida's sanity, so I am not sure how much I would put into her own point of view. She always seemed a bit crazy to me. I had mixed feelings about her.

[Gladys]

And well I am not completely certain of Hilda's sanity, so I am not sure how much I would put into her own point of view.

Hilda less than sane? From the very first, Dark Muse, she is portrayed as a admirable mixture of idealism, optimism, freshness, frankness, intuition and sanity, with 'her eyes sparkling with happiness'. She is all that is best in youth. By contrast, the aging Solness is stale and crippled with accreted guilt.

Through the searing eyes of a child, Hilda had seen the desperate and dizzied Solness hanging the wreath on tower of the old church, in her home town. The child intuits that here is a man inspired with an incinerating passion, a vital life force. But sadly, time erodes fine resolutions. When she collars him ten years later, she brashly reminds him, 'you said that when I grew up I should be your princess' and 'that you promised you would buy me a kingdom there'. She speaks not as a flighty young woman but as a seeker for truth: an angel, with the vision and insight of Solomon.

Since her expectations of life are boundless, our would-be princess demands perfection for herself and her 'great master builder'. Ever radiant, Hilda happens, and is pleased, to learn something of the lives of Mrs Solness, Ragnar and Kaia: lives blighted by the master builders' perennial grasping after prestige. Such blemishes hardly befit a princess come for her perfect ‘castle in the sky’. Late in the play, Hilda says to Solness, 'And you can't have a kingdom without a royal castle'; she will settle for nothing less. I am reminded the words of Jesus speaking of his kingdom in the Sermon on the Mount, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God’.

HILDA. [Slowly.] My castle shall stand on a height--on a very great height-- with a clear outlook on all sides, so that I can see far--far around.

Is there something of the fable in this play?

[Dark Muse]

I just do not precivie things in that way. For me, she did not come off as very likable and she was one of my least favorite characters. I felt bad for Soleness and I thought Hilda drove him to his death becasue she exepcted him to make good on a promoise he made to her when he was only a child. I do not think anyone truly in thier right mind as an adult would acutally exepct someone to live up to such a thing and acutally sit around waiting for the years to pass untill the time came and than seek them out.

[Gladys]

I felt bad for Soleness and I thought Hilda drove him to his death because she expected him to make good on a promise he made to her when he was only a child.

She 'expected him to make good on a promise he made to her' and to himself by dealing justly with the lives of others: Mrs Solness, Ragnar, Kaia and himself. In the end, Solness chooses freely and courageously to right wrongs.

Throughout the play, Hilda is focussed on the lives of people - for which wreaths, towers, steeples, churches, castles, kingdoms, princesses and trolls are only metaphors.