John Gabriel Borkman | Page 2

who is guilty
of a crime; in both this man is placed between two sisters; and in both
he renounces a marriage of inclination for the sake of a marriage that
shall further his business interests." The likeness is undeniable; and yet

how utterly unlike are the two plays! and how immeasurably superior
the later one! It may seem, on a superficial view, that in John Gabriel
Borkman Ibsen has returned to prose and the common earth after his
excursion into poetry and the possibly supernatural, if I may so call it,
in The Master Builder and Little Eyolf. But this is a very superficial
view indeed. We have only to compare the whole invention of John
Gabriel Borkman with the invention of Pillars of Society, to realise the
difference between the poetry and the prose of drama. The quality of
imagination which conceived the story of the House of Bernick is
utterly unlike that which conceived the tragedy of the House of
Borkman. The difference is not greater between (say) The Merchant of
Venice and King Lear.
The technical feat which Ibsen here achieves of carrying through
without a single break the whole action of a four-act play has been
much commented on and admired. The imaginary time of the drama is
actually shorter than the real time of representation, since the poet does
not even leave intervals for the changing of the scenes. This feat,
however, is more curious than important. Nothing particular is gained
by such a literal observance of the unity of time. For the rest, we feel
definitely in John Gabriel Borkman what we already felt vaguely in
Little Eyolf--that the poet's technical staying-power is beginning to fail
him. We feel that the initial design was larger and more detailed than
the finished work. If the last acts of The Wild Duck and Hedda Gabler
be compared with the last acts of Little Eyolf and Borkman, it will be
seen that in the earlier plays it relaxes towards the close, to make room
for pure imagination and lyric beauty. The actual drama is over long
before the curtain falls on either play, and in the one case we have Rita
and Allmers, in the other Ella and Borkman, looking back over their
shattered lives and playing chorus to their own tragedy. For my part, I
set the highest value on these choral odes, these mournful antiphones,
in which the poet definitely triumphs over the mere playwright. They
seem to me noble and beautiful in themselves, and as truly artistic, if
not as theatrical, as any abrupter catastrophe could be. But I am not
quite sure that they are exactly the conclusions the poet originally
projected, and still less am I satisfied that they are reached by precisely
the paths which he at first designed to pursue.

The traces of a change of scheme in John Gabriel Borkman seem to me
almost unmistakable. The first two acts laid the foundation for a larger
and more complex superstructure than is ultimately erected. Ibsen
seems to have designed that Hinkel, the man who "betrayed" Borkman
in the past, should play some efficient part in the alienation of Erhart
from his family and home. Otherwise, why this insistence on a "party"
at the Hinkels', which is apparently to serve as a sort of "send-off" for
Erhart and Mrs. Wilton? It appears in the third act that the "party" was
imaginary. "Erhart and I were the whole party," says Mrs. Wilton, "and
little Frida, of course." We might, then, suppose it to have been a mere
blind to enable Erhart to escape from home; but, in the first place, as
Erhart does not live at home, there is no need for any such pretext; in
the second place, it appears that the trio do actually go to the Hinkels'
house (since Mrs. Borkman's servant finds them there), and do actually
make it their starting-point. Erhart comes and goes with the utmost
freedom in Mrs. Wilton's own house; what possible reason can they
have for not setting out from there? No reason is shown or hinted. We
cannot even imagine that the Hinkels have been instrumental in
bringing Erhart and Mrs. Wilton together; it is expressly stated that
Erhart made her acquaintance and saw a great deal of her in town,
before she moved out to the country. The whole conception of the party
at the Hinkels' is, as it stands, mysterious and a little cumbersome. We
are forced to conclude, I think, that something more was at one time
intended to come of it, and that, when the poet abandoned the idea, he
did not think it worth while to remove the scaffolding. To this change
of plan, too, we may possibly trace what I take to be the one serious
flaw